God is more likely to be a woman.
God was never really a "He" or "She", even to the people of the past.
They couldn't call God "It" though, since "It" Is Dehumanizing, so they/we refer to god God as "He" and "Him" because there was no way they were going to call the supreme being a woman, even if it was metaphorical.
edited 4th Feb '12 11:32:21 AM by Ekuran
One Winged Egret
Obviously the solution would be to have a pronoun reserved for Divinity.
Well, Hildegard of Bingen once postulated the idea of a female version of God (not as a Distaff Counterpart, but rather a simultaneous version, vaguely like the Father-Son-Holy Ghost thing) called Sophia (more information here
). It was in the XII century, a very old idea; apparently that's where the name Sophia became common (it also gave its name to Bulgaria's capital).
Lead.
Or just gender neutrality. Seeing as English has forever clung onto he as the gender neutral pronoun, it pulling double duty brings up several problems.
I suggest we all act french and use the pronoun "ze". Totally not suggesting it because I find ze sounds silly.
The emotions of others can seem like such well guarded mysteries, people 8egin to 8elieve that's how their own emotions should 8e treated.
I prefer to use they and they're when referring to gender neutral beings.
I prefer to use languages that lack gender pronouns 
It's a problem of language. English doesnt have a gender neutral pronoun that you can use for a person. I call God "him" because, as a male, I relate best to God's masculine aspect. I do not object when someone refers to God as "she".
Actually, the answer is dependent on which god we are speaking about. Aphrodite and Hera, Kali, Isis etc. are obviously female.
But in the case that we speak of the Judeo-Christian God, then God is indeed male:
- Can't speak for Hebrew, but Theos (Old Greek) and Deus (Latin) are grammatically masculine, and God (English) is treated as a masculine.
- God also incarnated himself as Jesus Christ, who was male too.
- God is also very frequently referred to as "father" in religious contexts, as, for example, in the "Our father" prayer (which coincidentally is the only prayer that Jesus personally tought us).
One Winged Egret
It doesn't matter what they call him, the fact is that as described it makes no sense to think of it as having a gender.
Why not?
How do you know that "he" (!) "has no gender"? Why can't he be male?
Let's just say and leave it at that.
See ALL the stars!
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Because gender is a set of biological/psychological behaviours. There's no reason that a god would have a need for either.
You're thinking of sex, not gender.
Either way, we should use Yivo pronouns: Schlee, Schler, and Schlim.
Lover of masks.
They mean the same thing.
I was told he lacked gender.
Please.
Moar and Moar and Moar
The whole thing is something really problematic. Something very desensitizing I think. It also plays off a stronger notion of a deity than I find that a lot of people (especially knowledgeable theologians) really have, which can lead less knowledgeable and interested individuals quite astray.
edited 4th Feb '12 12:33:58 PM by Karmakin
Democracy is the process in which we determine the government that we deserve
Moar and Moar and Moar
Well, the big difference is if you perceive God to be some sort of self-intellectual materialistic deity (the proverbial "man in the clouds") or if you perceive God to be some sort of all-encompassing greater power or link.
Two almost entirely different concepts that are pretty much always thrown under the same banner.
Democracy is the process in which we determine the government that we deserve
Right, a limited God might have gender (or even sex) but the all-encompassing creator of the cosmos wouldnt.
Moar and Moar and Moar
Well, I personally think that it's less about the materialistic gender form and more about if it is ongoing-intellectual or not. Gender at least to me is less about materialistic form than it is about intellectual/emotional traits. (Given the existence of transexuals)
We're really talking about a theism/deism divide here I think.
edited 4th Feb '12 12:53:29 PM by Karmakin
Democracy is the process in which we determine the government that we deserve
edited 4th Feb '12 12:56:22 PM by joeyjojojuniorshabadoo
Maybe you misunderstand my thesis: Even if God doesn't need a gender, that doesn't mean that he has none. If he's almighty, then he can chose any gender he wants; why not male? Would there be anything inherently bad in it if God was male?
It's interesting that Semitic languages have no gender neutral form; however, Greek and Latin have it, and still the Greek and the Latin Bible uses masculine forms. Can we just brush aside so easily what all translators and all the Fathers of the Church wrote?
, which among other things refers to God manifested in the burning bush and pillar of fire in Exodus. I'm pretty sure there are other instances of this but that's all the work you're going to get out of me at the moment.
edited 4th Feb '12 1:30:52 PM by joeyjojojuniorshabadoo
That's okay, maybe I'll delve into the matter via Wikipedia.
Well, I admit I am playing the troll here.
I am pretty sure, however, that the dominant view within Christianity was for the longer part of its history that God is, for all practical purposes, male; and I also suspect that this was never seen as much of a problem until (comparatively) recently.
The argument that the Bible authors, translators, and theologians were "working within the confines of their language and culture" does not thoroughly convince me that Christianity doesn't imagine God as male.
I mean, we are working and thinking within the confines of our language and culture too, aren't we? How can we know that we don't project our present views and our ideas of "how it should have been" on ancient texts, in our attempts to "reconstruct what they really meant"? Maybe Jesus did not mean a "really male" "father" when he prayed "Our Father". But then again, maybe he did.
EDIT: Maybe I should make clear that I don't believe in God. To me "God" is a mythological being that has exactly the gender that people imagine him/her/it to have.
edited 4th Feb '12 2:54:24 PM by LordGro
Let's just say and leave it at that.
One Winged Egret
Well, personally I grew up an atheist and studied philosophy in college, so most of my experience with God comes from philosophical discussions of the concept. Which tend to be extraordinarily inhuman characterizations of it, because that's the only way it makes sense when subjected to lots of scrutiny. I mean, merely supposing both omniscience and omnipotence requires you to come up with some fancy new definition of what it means to have a will in the first place. God is so far from anything I could possibly relate to that the idea of it having a gender seems several orders of magnitude more bizarre than the idea of rocks having gender. I mean, at least rocks have form.
I'll admit that different people might have difference conceptions of god though.
I hear it everywhere. Apparently everyone has made up their minds that god is a male figure. Sure I will read them about how god is above us ignorant or sinful mortals, but the fact of the matter stands is that every prayers, conversation, or even an arguments that invokes god is always in gender specific pronouns. As a being who created everything, everyplace and everyone, who predated the first humans Adam and Eve (if your Christian), and who has no real physical body, whose omniscience stretches into infinitude, God would more accurately be termed an "it" or even something else entirely rather than a simple "him", or even a "her".