--- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Hi Deb. > > You might point out > that the Shakers, who were certainly a somewhat > puritanical lot (celibacy for all - new members were > orphans they took in), firmly believed that God is > neither male nor female.
I guess we know why the Shakers died out. Of course, they left behind a wonderful furniture legacy. We don't have a word that could mean both male and female, or neither male nor female, apart from "it" which somehow sounds insulting when talking about a person or a personal being of some kind. There's so much emotion tied up in simple pronouns - language isn't as easy as it appears. This explains some people's kneejerk reaction to God's being referred to as "she." As I pointed out to Deb in a private post, they're probably running scared because if it's a library, libraries are funded through tax dollars and taxpayers complain (especially the narrow-minded kneejerk types) which is why so often the juice is sucked out of any website that gets government funding - God(dess) knows, they don't want to offend anyone, so the sites end up as bland as white bread. My kids call people whose sex they're not sure of "he-she". Maybe we need a new pronoun or two in English! ===== Catherine Toronto ______________________________________________________________________ Post your free ad now! http://personals.yahoo.ca
