Is Christianity too feminized?

Quote: Evenbob

No,backbiting damages people. Most gossip is
harmless, it's simply the exchange of information.
Should I wait till it's on the news that my next
door neighbor is a sex offender, or hear it
in a timely fashion from the neighbor on the
other side of me. If I'm an employer should I
ignore what is being said in my industry until
it's too late, just because I dismiss it as 'gossip'?

Gossip: Idle talk or rumor.

I agree with Bob's understanding of gossip. It appears to me FrG. that you want to be able to make words mean so many things?

For instance, true story: A few weeks ago, I was at a friends rented house which he was given the option to purchase and his rent deducted from the price. Meanwhile the landlord [seller] would fix any problems. The in floor heat went out, and the friend wasn't allowed to choose the plumber and the renter had his guy come out right away. After it was fixed, the plumber tells my friend that the in floor heat was installed improperly with sub standard materials and was about to completely collapse, costing thousands to repair. Had the plumber not "gossiped", my friend may well have bought this house and been really bit hard.

Is this harmful gossip?

The church folks are the worst of the worst when it comes to back stabbing and gossip. The only thing that's changed in the last few hundred years is the pitchforks and the pyre's.

Quote: petroglyph

I agree with Bob's understanding of gossip. It appears to me FrG. that you want to be able to make words mean so many things?

The Catholics try to paint the world in
black and white, everything is an axiom
to them. The real world is a smudgy
gray area, nothing is what it seems on
the surface, it's fraught with complications.

The Church thinks it can control everything
by making hard-fast rules that are impossible
to follow. Then then make you feel guilt
when you don't. It's an outdated insidious organization.

Quote: Evenbob

It's an outdated insidious organization.

It is a multi national corporation that needs a new business model, and the ceo's and cfo's at the top are aware. Treat it more like a business, merge with the competition and re invent themselves. They will be around for a long time. But they have to do something about the losses. Get some tips from Iacocca and build a fire under them priests, diversify. Its business.
And if they are not doing that, they have more money stashed under the Vatican then otherwise thought.

Quote: petroglyph

For instance, true story: A few weeks ago, I was at a friends rented house which he was given the option to purchase and his rent deducted from the price. Meanwhile the landlord [seller] would fix any problems. The in floor heat went out, and the friend wasn't allowed to choose the plumber and the renter had his guy come out right away. After it was fixed, the plumber tells my friend that the in floor heat was installed improperly with sub standard materials and was about to completely collapse, costing thousands to repair. Had the plumber not "gossiped", my friend may well have bought this house and been really bit hard.

Is this harmful gossip?

You misunderstand the term "gossip" as well as EB does.

Gossip is about when you know part of the truth, fill in the rest, usually in a negative light about a person in a way to hurt them. Not just a person, can be about what is going on with your employer. But usually it is because one person wants to either hurt the other one or make themselves look better compared to them.

Quote: AZDuffman

Gossip is about when you know part of the truth, fill in the rest, usually in a negative light.

That is not gossip, that is lying. When you make
things up to have a negative effect, that's called
lying, not gossip.

Gossip is when you hear your competitor is
going out of business, or your best friend
is marrying a Thai girl, or the math teacher
this year is a real a-hole, or a certain bar
is for Gay's only. I could give a thousand
examples of gossip spreading news, not
spreading damaging lies.

This is the Church's problem. They love
to take a few examples that are negative
and condemn it all as negative. They do
it with everything. Any sexual thought is
a sin, any selfish thought is a sin, any
greedy thought gets you sent straight
to hell.

Life isn't like that, life is mostly one huge
grey area. But you can't guilt people and
control them with grey areas. You have to
make stringent rules that nobody can
abide by, and control them that way. And
it's crumbling around them, it doesn't
work anymore. The Church should have
destroyed that first printing press, the
truth has always been their biggest enemy.

Quote: Evenbob

That is not gossip, that is lying. When you make
things up to have a negative effect, that's called
lying, not gossip.

It is the very definition of gossip. You are trying to make your own definition to suit your needs.

Quote: AZDuffman

You misunderstand the term "gossip" as well as EB does.

Maybe, but what you call gossip, we always called "backstabbing". There was a popular song about it :https://youtu.be/f9mNVwgVtZ4 "They smile in your face, all the time they want to take your place, the backstabbers". Maliciously trying to undermine someone is hardly gossip.

"Gossip - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gossip
" Gossip is idle talk or rumor, especially about the personal or private affairs of others; the act is .... A feminist definition of gossip presents it as "a way of talking between women, intimate in style, personal and domestic in scope and setting, ..." Lots of definitions. I looked at several of them, I am satisfied with how I have seen the term used for decades.

Quote:

Gossip is about when you know part of the truth, fill in the rest, usually in a negative light about a person in a way to hurt them.

It may hurt someone, but is the purpose to intentionally harm, or have a high likelihood of hurting others? That's malicious, and slander, as Bob has said, not gossip.

Two neighbors talking over the fence about the community isn't malicious, we always called it gossip and looked forward to it. Those that engage in the type of malicious intent that you call gossip, are soon learned by their group, and their reputations are gossiped about.

Quote: petroglyph

It may hurt someone, but is the purpose to intentionally harm, or have a high likelihood of hurting others? That's malicious, and slander, as Bob has said, not gossip.

Based on the people I have seen engaging in it, I would usually say it is. Most gossips I have seen are women, playing their little queen-bee games.

It strikes me as ridiculous that Bob and others are using a concept we all agree is bad that I am calling gossip but others call slander or backstabbing and using to bash each other and the Church. It is slander to say that the Church is trying to control people by asking them not to lie about each other, which is how I define gossip. I am happy to use slander if you want just so you can stop this stupid attack on me and the Church.

In my view, gossip can be positive or negative, true or false. It is really talking about someone else without someone else knowing it.

aka: Nathan told me that he is leaving the church to become worship leader of another church.
aka: I read that Jennifer was in the newspaper yesterday accused of drunk driving.
aka: Nancy is dating Stephen.
aka; Mark and Alex are going to Europe next week and Alex is really excited.

All of the above is gossip. Gossip to me is pseudo-factual information, true or false, positive or negative. Slander, on the other hand, is always negative and might be untrue:

aka: I heard that Pastor Stephen is having an affair with Bill.
aka: I heard that Jennifer was in the newspaper yesterday accused of drunk driving.

In churches, unless you are in the ministry, knowledge is power. The more gossip that you can convey infers that you hold more relationships with more people. I try not to engage in it as I understand that it is not in God's wishes to do so and understand that the reason one conveys gossip is to wield power and relationships, and in a church setting, that is not what church is supposed to be about.

Ex 23:1: "Do not spread false reports. Do not help a guilty person by being a malicious witness."
James 1:26: " Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless."