The reason behind Yahweh isolating women during their periods was to reduce the spread of disease through surface contact from the expelled blood of hundreds of menstruating women living inside the close quarters of a crowded camp in hot desert conditions. They did not have the blood absorbing products that women wear today to contain and control the flow of the menstrual blood leaving their bodies so isolating them from the others during their menstrual cycle was the only alternative. The God Yahweh is talking about the period of time that a woman's uterus returns to it's pre pregnant stage after the birth of their child. Yahweh is telling us it takes longer for this to happen to a woman's body after a female infant is born than after a male infant is born. Either way she must be isolated while her uterus is expelling the bodily waste fluids during that time. The reason why these laws never made any sense to us humans until now is because our lack of scientific knowledge to properly interpret the reasoning behind these new strange laws prevented us from fully understanding what we are being told by a Intelligent Designer who was well aware of it.
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So, there was no wool available then, no dried dung, no absorbent leather straps?
Did Yahweh isolate infants as well, as they did not have the urine and excrement absorbing products that infants wear today, to contain and control the flow of said biological waste products?
Those laws still make no sense to us humans, they seem to only be for the control and subduing of women.
Along with the not-eating-shrimp-thing, the whole of "the Law" seems like some learned folks (i.e. Priests who had the luxury of laying about thinking about things) decided what was good and bad (to them, naturally, thus the mysogyny) and gave it the voice of authority by claiming God said it. That's why the Bible says bats are birds and that insects have 4 legs.
This is no different. Contamination of this sort was probably an issue back then. I do not think people needed God telling them how to behave, but the priests certainly needed to remain in power. So, place an edict from the Almighty on every aspect of life, and you (the priest) control every aspect of life.
The real first commandment is "Priests Shalt Not Be Unnecessary"
I was reading a book that said that, DURING THEIR ISOLATION, they wore some kind of rag that absorbed the blood. Second, the blood of menstruation is IN NO WAY dangerous. So?. But the best part is the one in which he thinks that there was more risk of infection if the baby was a girl. Really?
So, re-frozen one? Godde would've said "LET THERE BE PADS! *thunderclap*".
You have your theory, but it still doesn't hold water.
Oh, and what Swede said about babies.
Let's face it, guys back then were misogynists who were baffled as to why half the human population bleeds out of their hoo-hahs once a month. To a primitive person, that would be pretty freaky.
"The reason why these laws never made any sense to us humans until now is because our lack of scientific knowledge to properly interpret the reasoning behind these new strange laws prevented us from fully understanding what we are being told by a Intelligent Designer who was well aware of it."
If this designer is so fucking intelligent why did he make women bleed once a month? Why even bother with flesh and blood and bones, why not just fill us with some kind of magic jelly that let's us move around, talk, fart, pray, whatever? After all, he's in the magic business, right?
No, the reason these laws never made sense to us humans is because with modern technology we understand the world around us instead of relying on ancient superstition. And why is eating shellfish an abomination, as well as eating meat and dairy products together? Or wearing clothes of mixed fibers?
Maybe the guys who made the rules back then were just afraid of something which bleeds for five days but doesn't die.
Admittedly this isn't as bad as other fundie quotes, but this person still has absolutely no understanding of biology. The sex of a child has nothing to do with the post-partum process of the mother. Now they are just making things up so that they don't have to give up the idea of Biblical inerrancy.
And did he really use the term "pre-pregnant"? So women are only supposed to be having children, is that it? Is there a single devoutly religious person who isn't a total misogynist?
"They did not have the blood absorbing products that women wear today to contain and control the flow of the menstrual blood leaving their bodies so isolating them from the others during their menstrual cycle was the only alternative."
You apparently fail to realize that women, being the clever sort they are, have solved this little problem in many different ways in many different parts of the world for many, many years without the need for modern products.
"The God Yahweh is talking about the period of time that a woman's uterus returns to it's pre pregnant stage after the birth of their child. Yahweh is telling us it takes longer for this to happen to a woman's body after a female infant is born than after a male infant is born. Either way she must be isolated while her uterus is expelling the bodily waste fluids during that time."
And now you're just making shit up.
"The reason why these laws never made any sense to us humans until now is because our lack of scientific knowledge to properly interpret the reasoning behind these new strange laws prevented us from fully understanding what we are being told by a Intelligent Designer who was well aware of it."
Or because, you know, they don't make fucking sense to begin with.
@ Doubting Thomas
From what I understand, the meat/dairy prohibition is because there's a passage in the torah which is translated as 'Thou shalt not seethe a calf in its mother's milk'. Modern Rabbis couldn't decipher exactly what that meant, so they kind of went 'well just in case, we're going to say it's kashrut to keep milk and meat seperate.'
I personally think it means that one shouldn't slaughter a calf until it is weaned, because sometimes the cow will develop complications of the udder if the milk isn't expelled, leading to the animal's death.
This might contain a grain of truth in that a lot of the old testament laws may well have made sense within the context of a patriarchal pastoral nomadic society. For instance, if the more sons you have, the more potential wealth and stability, then it makes sense not to waste sperm on lust, adultery and homosexuality, ie, on non-procreative sex.
But the obvious reply to the above type of argument is that we no longer live in that type of society. We no longer live in crowded camps in hot desert conditions, and we have no supernatural fear of menstruation. The old mosaic laws may have made sense in that time and context, but they make no sense at all in the context of America or Europe, or anywhere else, in the year 2012.
"The reason why these laws never made any sense to us humans until now is because our lack of scientific knowledge to properly interpret the reasoning behind these new strange laws prevented us from fully understanding what we are being told by a Intelligent Designer who was well aware of it."
"The reason behind Yahweh isolating women during their periods was to reduce the spread of disease through surface contact from the expelled blood..."
How is this Intelligent Design again? Either BibleGod meant to do that, in which case He wanted to spread disease, or it was a mistake, requiring a Rule to clean it up.
Error. Does not compute. Initiate Excuse-O-Matic ....
@ Doubting Thomas
As for why eating shellfish (and any bottom feeding, scaleless fish coincidentally) isn't Kosher actually does have a practical reason. Bottom feeders and shellfish tend to eat things that aren't exactly healthy for humans, so the ancient Jews, rather than try cleaning the animals and risking infection decided to ban eating them wholesale.
Did it make sense back then? Yes, yes it did. Does it now? Well with mercury and red tide and pollution in the ocean, that's debateable.
I was raised Jewish and my grandparents kept Kosher and while I never did, I can see some of the practical, albeit slightly outdated applications of the rules.
The reason behind Yahweh isolating women during their periods was to reduce the spread of disease through surface contact from the expelled blood of hundreds of menstruating women living inside the close quarters of a crowded camp in hot desert conditions.
Replace Yahweh with Jewish priests and with that you are partially correct. After all a lot of early religious commandments were actually done for health reasons. For example, people noticed that diseases like gonorrhea were spread more if people had indiscriminate sex so no doubt religious commandments towards marriage as a means of controlling sex in a society that didn't understand disease makes sense. However, back to the topic of menstruation, you have no right to invoke Yahweh, because as the divine all powerful creator of the Universe he could have designed female reproduction so it didn't end up with a cycle of monthly bleeding that could spread disease.
No, the reason these laws never made any sense to humans is because, well, they don't make any sense except in the context of a bunch of ignorant Bronze Age misogynists attempting to subjugate and shame women. Admittedly, back then this sort of nonsense could be at least partially attributed to a lack of knowledge, but here in the twenty-first century, there's just no excuse for trying to rationalize bullshit like this as actually being "necessary" back then, much less now.
Women weren't covered in blood during their periods in ancient times any more than they are now. They used cloth and other materials to absorb and went on with their lives.
And isn't it funny how that same law also says that if a man is sick, a cootie-bearing menstruating woman could touch him to feed and care for him, but if it's the menstruating woman who's sick, no man may touch her or give her anything in order to care for her.
Also, in addition to what Swede said about babies, animals were routinely slaughtered in an extremely bloody fashion, and their dung used for fires and other purposes, bringing people into contact with all sorts of ugly bacteria from them.
And in Islam, menstruating women were forbidden to enter the mosque.
All of which proves that it has nothing to do with practical matters and everything to do with misogyny and men being ignorant and freaked out about the biology of women.
Please tell me exactly what diseases are passed on through menstrual blood? And please tell me why a man is also unclean if he just touches a menstruating woman? Oh, well, if the "Intelligent Designer" says it's so, then it must be so.
I think you slipped up here. In case you didn't get the memo, you're not supposed to publicly equate the intelligent designer with God. Otherwise how do fundies expect to try to get it pushed into schools?
Yeeeeeeah. Menstrual blood is not dangerous at all. You're just a douche who's trying not to say "EW! ICKY!" (though as a woman I concede periods can be quite messy and nasty.)
As for the female babies thing, that's just bigoted. For Pete's sake, if you're going to be a misogynist, admit it!
Menstruation doesn't make a fountain of blood squirt out of the vagina. Growing up sharing a bathroom with my sister and now living with my girlfriend, I have first hand experience seeing the effects. Also I have to re-ask what others have, if menstruation is this "dirty" thing, then why would an intelligent designer make women have periods in the first place? Also my causal research seems to say that there are NO diseases found exclusively in menstrual blood, if she had an STD to begin with that's a different story but nothing that only lives in menstrual blood. As far as women not having tampons or pads, where do you think that the phrase "on the rag" originated from? Women have been using rags and scraps of clothing for ages, and there is evidence of disposable sanitary napkins, look at the legend of Hypatia throwing hers at a suitor.
Also, you didn't answer the question of why female babies where deemed to be more "dirty". It's just plan old misogyny, there is no reason why a girl is deemed more unclean than a boy unless boys are deemed to have more worth, for a woman's body takes as long to recover from girls as it does boys.
As far as the last paragraph, more than likely they were made up by an ignorant patriarchal society that prized men more than women and used religion as an excuse to put them down that deserves no place in a modern society that knows why women menstruate and (should) grant them full equality.
COMMAS.
Learn to use them.
sooo, no cloth at all. It must have been very hot wearing goat skin clothes in the desert.
a female infant is nastier than a boy infant ?
does it take twice as long to drain a female infants vagina ?
sounds like the old joke, what bleeds for three days a month yet never dies ?
Wait. Having a female baby causes a woman to expel more after-birthing disgusting waste crap than having a male baby...? I don't even know how they came up with that little turd of a tidbit.
There's a difference between afterbirth fluids and menstruation, anyway. And people tended to be pretty not hygienic in the old days altogether. I don't see how having a period (which can be made less worse by using cloth pads or the like) is worse than people not bathing or washing hands and being around incontinent babies...
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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