The fact is that many organized religions seem to have been established to steal the power away from females and to put them into a subordinate role by essentially claiming the gods were on the side of the males.
Fear of female sexuality and the power of procreation is behind ALL of the Abrahamic religions of today.
The best part of this picture, to me, is that a.) it is 100% accurate, and b.) it is 100% verifiable - at least until one gets to the dollar sign. And even that is reasonably provable!
ReplyDeleteAnd in my opinion, even though they will scream about it, the extreme religious evangelical right DOES worship the almighty dollar. Money and power. The same two gods that have been around for millennia! (Kind of hard to portray that here, though, since the two have been around for as long as Man has had so-called "civilization" and money. Let's see. That would mean they should be placed somewhere above Anubis, right?)
The beginning of "money" happens between Anubis and Zeus. The Greeks had coins. The Egyptians had tokens that represented things like chickens and goats. Egyptians didn't have money per se.
DeleteWhat's up with the goddess? Her head is on backwards. Or do I need more coffee?
ReplyDeleteEvery goddess of fertility statue I have seen shows no face on the goddess.
DeleteThe Venus of Willendorf (little clay figurine) was a more of a fetish object with the same power as cave paintings to prehistoric humans than a deity.
ReplyDeleteIn this I mean that the exaggerated female characteristics of this figurine represented not only the desire for increased fertility to its creators, but the power to promote or guarantee fertility much like painting a bison or elk on a wall gave hunters 'power' over their prey.
Magical thinking to the max. Much like the Republicans thinking that if you say Benghazi Scandal so many times, it becomes truth.
Wonderful cartoon, even though Jesus threw the money-changers out of the temple back in his day. :-)
Gryphen, We've all know you were a genius for years but the current post confirms the fact. Read "When God Was a Woman" by Merlin Stone. Men are scared shitless of women's power over them. Truth be told - the world would go along just fine without men. The reverse is not true and they know it.
ReplyDeleteMargot
Well, ...not COMPLETELY just fine. Not unless women lived forever and no replacement people were needed.
DeleteBut I understand - and agree with - your assessment otherwise.
Great book, BTW.
We could keep a few men around for seed stock and go along fine through AI until we perfected cloning.
DeleteMen are handing for lifting heavy things and carrying stuff. But you have to weigh the positives against the negatives. And right now the negatives over male rule are really stacking up. If women were running EVERYTHING I doubt things would be as fucked up as they are right now.
Read the Mists of Avalon....about the change from the goddess to monotheistic male based religions, sad ending...
ReplyDeleteFlying Spaghetti Monster breaks the pattern because FSM is female (why not?).
ReplyDeleteAgree. The feminine divine principle is given lip service (I looove women! - Mrs. Ann Mittens) but actually women have been treated like glorified livestock for the past 5 thousand years.
ReplyDeleteFor the past 50 or 60 years women have been able to raise themselves a few inches above the mud, and "conservative" religions couldn't be more unhappy about it.
The long-time low cost labor/sex/child care population is starting to wise-up and demand to have more balance and say in their lives, and men like Rush Limbaugh are throwing fits about it. Shameful!
If you were to say a quarter of a million years instead of 5 or 6K I can agree with you.
DeleteIf you meant to say CONSCIOUSLY treated that way, then absolutely. But I would still be inclined to use 10K.
To be fair, both the Egyptians and the Greeks had powerful male and female gods. Now the males were a bit more powerful in the Greek/Roan pantheon.
ReplyDeleteBut Isis was the equal if not more powerful than her husband Osiris and they were pretty much top of the heap in the Egyptian afterlife.
So yes, there was a trend developing moving away from mother goddess and towards a more male-centric theology.
I don't think that's necessarily been a good thing.
To me the last symbol pretty much hits the nail on the head in so many ways. Women making 78 cents on every male dollar. I'll be the majority of the 1%ers are men. (Not talking about wives and daughters. Talking about the ones that actually HOLD the assets.)
"Fear of female sexuality and the power of procreation is behind ALL of the Abrahamic religions of today."
ReplyDelete*yawn*
There's a verse in the Qur'an with God (who is above such distinctions as male or female by the way... yet apparently rooting for one over the other? Odd) discussing sexual positions. The verse notes that Muslims should not behave as the Jews instruct and insist on missionary only - men and women are allowed to have sex in any position without fear of sinning.
This is in the holy book.
There's also an entire book of hadith in one of the largest collections discussing sex and how men have an obligation to engage in foreplay and to pay attention to the female orgasm because sex isn't just about sowing your seed, having children, or pleasing a man. And it's stressed to men because hey, men are the ones who forget.
In this Abrahmic religion, you receive rewards for having sex with a spouse because sex is a blessed deed. It is why celibacy is frowned upon, why the act of a man going away from his wife for more than 6 months is highly disliked (his wife has a right over his body), and why Muslim women like me who dress like a nun can threaten divorce if our demands for good, fulfilling sex from our husbands aren't met.
Lastly, the reason there is any reference to women/men of particularly noteworthy beauty/attractiveness in Heaven in Islam is not because it's necessarily literal, but because those particular moments of really good sex is considered the closest to "heaven on earth" you can get. The ability to have and enjoy sex is a favor and a blessing, just as we are grateful for our health, livelihoods, talents, and so forth.
This is what Islam TEACHES. So I don't know why you're deciding to lump this particular Abrahamic religion in with your group, unless perhaps, this relates to how women are dressed and one comes from a Western colonialist viewpoint that it is up to you to decide how us brown women should dress and what form of dress is "oppressing" to us. Choice is choice, whether you choose to uncover or cover.
Or is it based on violence against women? Last I checked, I wasn't blaming American values for the fact that intimate partner violence kills more women in America than all other leading causes of death combined. Talk about an epidemic of 'honor killings' no one is doing anything about.
Or is it education, when some of the most thoroughly educated/wise/smart figures in Islamic history/tradition are female? Malala is still very much a proud Muslim, if you haven't noticed.
Of course, feel free to tell me what meaning my life has, or what the religion I study and live actually says. Feel free to counter all of these opinions with a dismissed "she's brainwashed." It's not like that's demeaning of women's opinions at all. (Sigh.) Now, should I hold you as an individual with opinions and biases accountable for that, or all atheists?
P.S. White people talking smack about Islam has been going on for a long time. Back in the day, however, one reason Europeans used to hate on Islam was because of its openness towards sex. "And you call that a religion? Those sex-crazy Muslims!"