Gods sex, open for debate?

Question

When I asked about god, I referred to him as a "he". So many people jumped all over it like it was some freudian slip. Shoud I refer to God as an "it"? Is he asexual? I refer to him as a he because more often than not he is depicted as a man. Just like santa claus is a "he". Again, thank you to the people who enjoy debate and can do it intelligently.

Answer 1

English lacks the convenient nonsexual pronoun (which exists in French) that might be used to refer to god. There is no sexual connotation of god in either the bible or the Qur'an, and no visible reason to ascribe either sex (or indeed, any sex) to a deity. Nor does it matter, since there is no associated reality.

Answer 2

In English we do not have a gender neutral preposition that is not implied insulting. To refer to a god as "it" is often NOT acceptable to actual worshipers.

In English, there is, also, no hermaphroditic pronouns for beings that have both masculine and feminine traits.

Few if none of the original religious texts of any religion were written in English. When they were translated, the limits of the translator and the language are often debated highly and continue to cause debate ad nauseoum.
Heck, most religious text have raging debates about the meaning of words in their native language even BEFORE considering the complexities of accurate translation.

My personal opinion is that a creator god would have to at least have feminine aspects by its very nature. I have heard many good arguments for hermaphroditic as well (IE: both Adam AND Eve were made in God's image, from Chaos came both Uranus and Gaea, etc).

Answer 3

Christians like to claim that, A) their god has no sex, is too all-encompassing to have a sex, and B) that their god is referred to as he because it is written that he made Adam in his own image and is NOT written that he did so with Eve.

However, I was watching a History Channel episode about the lost traditions of Judaism and Christianity, and it talked about how the Jews had a method of weeding through stories similar to the Council of Nicea, which for over a thousand years determined canon for the Church (I'm not sure if it still exists). Basically, Jewish elders would gather together in the ancient times and have councils over which stories to accept as part of their religious education and which were "obviously" unsuited. Not that they were untrue, but that they didn't fit in with what the Jewish elders wanted to be taught. Makes you wonder about the veracity of both religions...But I digress. One of the stories that was rejected by the Jewish elders was that of Adam's first wife, Lilith. Lilith was also said to be created in God's image, but she rebeled by not obeying everything that Adam said, so God banished her and created a more submissive mate for his creation. Lilith didn't die, though, and somehow she had offspring that became the sucubai of ancient myths. It's an interesting story, and shows that the creation story that is known as canon now was not the only one to exist even after Moses supposedly wrote down the first ten books of the Old Testament. It also shows that, since Lilith was supposed to be in God's image, too, that God is more likely the non-gendered Being that some Christians claim.

As to Christians referring to "God the Father," it makes sense that a culture that was so obviously patriarchal would record their deity as male. That is the way they would want it to be seen, not necessarily the truth. It always amuses me the way that people take for granted that anything written about Christianity was the "truth" because it was "divinely inspired" when they can't even prove it. They don't assume that about any other religion, even though it's just as likely to be true, and most are either ignorant of or completely ignore the documents and oral traditions that the Council of Nicea and those Jewish elders rejected even though they were believed to be divinely inspired as well, sometimes for centuries or millenia.

Answer 4

God is spirit and therefore God is neither male nor female nor androgynous. Mankind might be made in the image of God, but his has to do with our divine dignity and capacity for discernment and reason and not about our genitals (though the fact that we can procreate is also sharing in the divine image of creator).

At least for Christians, when God revealed Himself through Jesus, He revealed Himself as personal and as Father. But in the prophet Isaiah we also hear God using feminine language for Himself (crying out like a woman in labor... can a mother forget her child? I will not forget you.). So, neither the father image nor the mother image mean that God is male or female. However God did want us to have an intimate relationship with Him and since our personal relationships are normally with other people who do have gender, God revealed Himself as Father. To talk of God as "it" or as just "God" makes God into a concept, an abstract idea. God actually wants us to have an intimate relationship with Him and so the language of human relationships needs to be used. Hence Father, He, His, Him.

So, it comes down to how God chose to reveal Himself, and not so silly notion that the masculine is better than the feminine and thus more "divine".

Answer 5

God is a spirit and Jesus was a spiritual birth that lived in the flesh and could be called a he. the use of the word he only described a personal reference to something and people just say he yet they know God is a spirit.

Answer 6

Well, the Bible is where we find out what we know about God. The Bible refers to God as male. God is referred to as "Father" and "He". I am a Protestant Christian, not a Catholic, so I don't regard Mary as the mother of Jesus, but merely a woman whom God used as an instrument to fulfill His promise in providing a Messiah. Still, if one were to take the Catholic view of Mary being the mother of God, then it would not make sense for God to be female, because then there would be an earthly mother as well as a Heavenly one. As every child is brought into being with both a mother AND a father, then it would only be logical to assume that God is a male, since Mary, the mother of Christ according to Catholic teachings, is a female.

Without the Catholic viewpoint mentioned above, I still view God as male because the Bible says that when God created the earth and mankind, God first made Adam, who was a man, and the Bible says that man was made in God's image. Woman was created FROM man and was made to be a helper to man. It would make no logical sense for a female God to make a man first and then make the woman from the man and say that the woman is the man's helper if the Bible says that the man was made in God's image. If the one God created was made in God's image, then females would have had to be created first in order for the created to be made in the image of God if God is female. Since this is not how the Bible records the creation of mankind, then it is only logical to assume that God is male.

Answer 7

If God THE FATHER, is indeed a father then wouldn't that make him a Male? Jesus said something to the effect of I in the Father and the Father in me, somewhere along the way, can't remember exact verse but it's in there!! John 14 I believe!!

Answer 8

Nothing is comparable unto God.
God has no equal.
Only God is God.
The power known as God is infinite.

God has no color.
God has no hue.
God has no race.
God has no religion.
God has no falsehood. Thus God is Truth.
God has no shadow, thus God has no form.
God has no form, thus God is neither male or female, yet has the ability to Create, and has set into motion what we call Evolution. These two aspects of God (Creation & Evolution),
are alive and well, and functioning as designed, even as we speak.

God performs his duties without effort, because there is no ego involved. This has been discarded.
Man performs his duties with great effort, because there is an ego involved. This is held onto because of fear.

I hope this is sufficient..................

Answer 9

Just try to refer to God as God.

Answer 10

God is neither male nor female, but He has the characteristics of both. Mostly, He refers to Himself in a male context. But He also said that He would gather His People under His Wings like a MOTHER hen.

Answer 11

Many foolish answers here. A few wise ones. Read your Bible. He is called God the Father. Sound female to you?
Over and over again God is referred to as He.
Not too hard to figure out, is it?