The Freethinking Feminist

Did you know, that in some parts of the world women are killed by their families because they were raped or suspected to be sexually active? This is called an honour killing. Allow me to enlighten you. An honour killing occurs when a person (typically a woman) is murdered by their family because of some dishonour – real or perceived – that that individual has brought upon the family. An honour killing is carried out to restore the honour of the family. In many cases, this involves killing women who are suspected to have lost their virginities, either to consensual sexual intercourse, or rape. In many of these scenarios, a woman is concluded to have lost her virginity after undergoing a virginity test.  A virginity test is a process to determine if a woman is a virgin. It typically involves inserting fingers or objects into the vagina to check for an 'intact hymen'. But what is even an 'intact hymen'? Now, this is where the virginity police run into big problems. There...

Unless you live under a rock, you've likely been told by an evangelizing Christian that you should repent and give your life to Christ because we're living in the "last days" or "end times." But are we?  Jesus, in Matthew chapter 24 details the signs of the last days; things we should expect to see when the end is nigh. And since most Christians are absolutely convinced that we're living in the end times I thought it's a good idea to go over these signs one by one, to be sure we really are living in the end times as stated by the Bible. The first sign Jesus mentions is that many people will claim to be the Christ and will deceive people (v. 5). However, according to Bart Ehrman in "How Jesus became God," Jesus wasn't the only apocalyptic preacher of the 1st century. He wasn't the only one who claimed to be the Messiah. So it seems this sign was already fulfilled since when Jesus walked the earth. Perhaps the last days began then. Al...

When critics/skeptics point out issues in the Bible, a "response" they get pretty often is "but that's the old testament!" And it is not usually followed by any elucidation, at least in my experience. You're just expect to accept that your criticism is now somehow "invalid" because of this statement they've just uttered. And I'll admit, I said this too when I was a Christian, much to my current embarrassment. I guess it's a way to shut critics up, especially since most criticism of the Bible comes from the old testament. So I'll be unpacking this very odd statement and the intention(s) behind it. The first and obvious question to ask is, what does it even mean? If the problematic verse in question is from the old testament ... so? Well, I'll try and explain the Christian reasoning behind this response. The idea is that Jesus's death and resurrection sort of "annulled" the old testament, or more specifically,...

"Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting for those who belong to the Lord."  Colossians 3:18 Submission. This is probably one of the most controversial concepts in Christianity today. It is frequently criticised as being sexist. Indeed, the idea that a woman should submit to her husband is deeply problematic. It doesn't seem like how a healthy relationship should function. But before I continue, what does submission even mean? Surprisingly, this is also controversial, as Christians can't even agree among themselves as to what it means, and submission apologists try to twist and stretch the word till it is barely recognisable; an elaborate exercise in semantic smoke and mirrors. But thankfully, we have the dictionary to tell us what submission means. Dictionary.com defines submission as "an act or instance of submitting, or yielding control to a more powerful or authoritative entity." Synonyms are: compliance, obedience, docility. The Cambridge...

"Some forms of sexism are for the perpetrator, subjectively benevolent..." You might have seen this title and thought "benevolent sexism? How could sexism be benevolent? Isn't that an oxymoron?" And you would be right. Sexism couldn't be benevolent, anymore than racism. After all, sexism is a form prejudice. So when I say "benevolent sexism", I'm referring to a type sexism that merely appears benevolent. Benevolent sexism is part of a framework known as ambivalent sexism. It was developed by Susan Fiske and Peter Glick. Ambivalent sexism is defined by Wikipedia  as "a theoretical framework which posits that sexism has two sub-components: "hostile sexism" and "benevolent sexism". Hostile sexism, as the name suggests, refers to sexism that is overt and negative; hostile. This is what most people people think of when they imagine sexism. It includes things like viewing women as inferior to men and treating women wit...

I'll be sharing my thoughts on the topic of free-will, especially as it is used in Christian apologetics. This concept of free-will comes up very often in Apologetics, it is usually brought up in response to the problem of evil/suffering, particularly when it comes moral evils, i.e evils perpetrated by humans. I call it the free-will theodicy. The argument goes something like this: God created us with free-will, which means the freedom to do anything we want, including both moral and immoral things. So if we choose to harm others, we're simply exercising our free-will and god would be infringing on this free-will if he decided to stop us. So, as I mentioned at the beginning, I have some thoughts on this. 1. What counts as an infringement on our free-will? a. If god makes something physically/naturally impossible for us, is that infringing on our free-will? There are many things we're not free to do by virtue of our biology/nature; we're not free to fly, we're not fr...