cellardoor

Why does god have a gender? If god has existed forever and will never die then surely the notion of gender would be foreign to such a being. Gender as I understand it - in the physical sense - is a consequence of the requirement to reproduce in order for a species to survive. For god to be male (as most people refer to 'Him') there must have been a female god at some stage in the past, and a requirement to reproduce. Possibly a whole species of gods. Perhaps then this gender is left over from this beings own period of evolution. This then begs the question. If humans were created in 'gods image' then perhaps we will evolve to be as powerful as this god. Will we then see god as 'God' or just as an equal?...

Agemegos

That's sex: the quality of being male of female. Gender is a grammatical category to which a word might belong: in some languages, masculine, feminine, or neuter, but in other languages quite different or non-existent. Most languages that have genders assign many things that have no sex, such as tables or pens, to the masculine or feminine category.

God may be attributed a sex because confusion between gender and sex is nothing new. If the word 'god' is of masculine gender, people will use the same pronouns and word forms in speaking of God as they would for speaking of a man and different ones than they would use for speaking of a woman. But they might do the same for an apple-tree. There are usually no neuter personal pronouns (even in languages with neuter gender because there are normally no sexless real people--languages with no neuter gender of course have no neuter pronouns), and thus in many languages it is impossible to speak of God as though It were neuter.

BDS

For that matter, why is the French word for "penis" feminine in gender?

MadPhatCat

That is something I did not learn during my two years in French class. It's just like the french to leave out something important like that. Damn those accordian playing beret wearing losers!

cellardoor

Okay, Fair point. But that is just quibbling over the meaning of a word. The question I asked still has not really been answered. It would seem that most of the christian world perceive their god as a male with a white mans appearance. (okay that is a presumptuous thing to say...but hey) This to me is illogical. But still, I guess refering to such powerful being as 'it' may offend many people and probably god (if he/she/it exists)...

Chili

So he can have intercourse with mother earth?

winstonjen

I think they made `god` male so that it would give more `legitimacy` to the patriarcical society and the male leaders of the time.

WCH

God is described as male or female based on a the traits we associate with masculinity and femininity. If we think of God in a nurturing sense, we would be reasonable in calling it "Her," and if we think of God in a provision sense, we would be reasonable in calling it "Him." Since Christianity refers to Father and Son (both male) and Holy Ghost (neutral, but occasionally seen as female), it isn't that surprising that those of us who've grown up with this terminology find it awkward to refer to God in the female, but there is technically nothing wrong with it.

epepke

In modern terms, it probably has as much to do with the Sistine ceiling as anything else.

I quite liked the South Park rendition of God as a chimera.

Triple Six

You wouldn't really expect a primitive male dominated society to invent anything other than a male god as their supreme being. They wouldn't have thought it through though.

It looks ridiculous now and I'd like to see how theists explain this one away.