In a recent interview, Jimmy Carter posited that the Catholic church is wrong for not ordaining women, based on a website article I was reading earlier today (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/23/carter-catholic-ordain-women_n_3488082.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003). He believes that organized religion can fight for women’s rights, instead of oppressing them, as is believed by some to happen.
Carter believes that discrimination has occurred far too much in institutions like the Catholic church. I thought this was interesting based on my own experience with the Mormon church. I was discriminated against as I described in a fictionalized account of my time with that church. I am not saying whether or not the Mormon church is true, because I honestly don’t know. My own experience with it has not been positive, but on the other hand I can see why people would love it, and why it would make sense for them. I am definitely not anti-organized religion. If you would like to read a free sample of my personal experience on this subject, feel free to check otu http://www.amazon.com/He-Talks-To-Too-ebook/dp/B00CQO0PYY/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1372090572&sr=1-1&keywords=he+talks+to+me+too.
Carter believes that a woman should be able to be a priest and when his church refused to allow it, he left it.
Do you think he was right? I can see the point, but I also have a slightly different take on the issue of women being priests. The Huffington Post article I am quoting in this blog article in turn quotes an exerpt from Galatians in the Bible:
There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
I don’t think Paul here was saying that males and females should always be treated alike. Males and females are fundamentally different. Women can have children, men can’t. Women have certain qualities, males have others. Society is trying to make males and females the same, but I do not think it is a good idea. Women should not be restricted in rights, any more than any other group should be. However, biology insists that the two genders are different, and it stands to (my) reason that this means some of our activities will be different. I have no problem with men being priests and women not being allowed to be priests, any more than I have a problem with women having the advantage on dating sites, where a lot of men compete for a few women. Sometimes one of the genders receives what is popularly supposed to be a benefit, and other times the other gender gets the advantage. This is reality. Why fight against it? What do you think?