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The Last Judgement |
Male Domination Religions.
Three
of the most successful religions in recent times, Judaism,
Christianity and Islam all have male domination aspects to them. It
is clear Jesus wasn’t like this but his later followers certainly
were, as they insisted on a male priesthood and claimed God is male.
As
Paul is suppose to have said, “Let your women keep silent in the
churches, for they are not permitted to speak; but they are to be
submissive, as the law also says. And if they want to learn
something, let them ask their own husbands at home; for it is
shameful for women to speak in church.” 1 Corinthians 14:34-35. And
of course there is similar stuff in the Old Testament when God tells
Adam the following.
"And
I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed
and her seed; it shall bruise the head, and thou shalt bruise his
heel. Unto the woman he (God) said, I will greatly multiply thy
sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children;
and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee."
Genesis 3 : 15-16
Interestingly
in the Koran, Eve is not blamed for eating the forbidden fruit like
in the Hebrew Bible but even so Islam is very extreme male-dom with
genital mutilation, women covering their faces and a honour system
where a man has a right to kill his wife if she “dishonours him”
by disobeying him. We see this from Islamic scriptures.
“Men
are superior to women on account of the qualities with which God has
gifted the one above the other, and on account of the outlay they
make from their substance for them. Virtuous women are obedient,
careful, during the husband's absence, because God has of them been
careful. But chide those for whose refractoriness you have cause to
fear; remove them into beds apart, and scourge them: but if they are
obedient to you, then seek not occasion against them:” Quran verse
4:34.
Even
in a more mild religion like Buddhism, women are not allowed any
positions of authority or power. Buddhism worship the male Buddha
like a God, (even though he claimed he wasn’t a god) while women
are only allowed the role of nuns.
So
it is of interest that we have male domination religions with male
gods but no female dominated religions with female Goddesses. This is
of course a refection of the political reality where throughout
history we always had male dominated governments. Today things are
different where we now have more female leaders of countries than
ever before, so in these times perhaps a female dominated religion
may be possible.
So
what would a female domination religion be like? It would simply be
the opposite to a male dominated religion and worship a female deity
and have a female priesthood.
Now
some feminist will claim it would be better to sexually equality
religion and worship both a male and female deity and have both
priests and priestesses. This would only be a source of conflict
where competitive priest will be competing against the priestesses
for power.
We
have had this situation in the past where we had pagan religions what
worshipped both gods and goddesses and had both priests and
priestesses. As we see in the ancient religions of Greece, Rome,
Egypt and the Old Norse religion.
But
over time the power of the priestesses was undermined and we end up
with only priests who worshipped a male god. We even have this
situation today in Hinduism where they still worship gods and
goddesses but it is male priests who dominate most Hindu sects.
There
is few powerful Goddesses in Hinduism like Kali. She is the Goddess
of the Tantra sect where they practice sex with the woman on top. The
man is also not allowed to orgasm but women can do this as many times
she likes so it is sex about the pleasure of women and not the man.
They practice the same form of sex in Taoism. This show the
matriarchal roots of both religions.
So
history shows us that a sexual equality religion will, in time, only
lead to male dominated religion. This is why a female dominant
religion can only work if men are kept out of any position of
authority. What people do not know today that in the distant past
there were matriarchal religions that worshipped only female deities
and had a female priesthood.
In
Greek Legend there is a story of an ancient Golden Age where people
lived in peace and prosperity. To quote: "The first age was an
age of innocence and happiness. Truth and right prevailed, though
not enforced by law, nor was there any magistrate to threaten or
punish. The forest had not yet been robbed of its trees to furnish
timbers for vessels, nor had men built fortifications around their
towns. There were no such thing as swords, spears, or helmets. The
earth brought forth all things necessary for man, without his labour
in ploughing or sowing. Perpetual spring reigned, flower sprang up
without seed, the rivers flowed with milk and wine, and yellow honey
distilled from the oaks."
After
that came the Silver age, where everything wasn't so good then the
Brazen age and finally the Iron age, which is really our present age
of warfare and violence. The whole concept of this myth is that
everything has become slowly worse and worse for human kind since the
Golden Age.
Yet
the myth of the Golden age doesn't only come from Ancient Greece.
Probably the most ancient religion that survives today is Taoism in
China. Again this religion talks about a Golden age in the past. As
explained often in the Tao-Te-Ching written by Lao Tzu.
|
Eve and Serpent |
The
concept of the Golden Age is also in the story of the Garden of Eden
which again is a paradise. Then Adam and Eve sinned and they were
banished into the waste land and Adam had to work "by the sweat
of his brow". The story of the Garden of Eden comes from a
Golden age story from ancient Mesopotamia. Also in the few Aztec and
Maya writing that have survived again there is a myth of a very
ancient Golden Age ruled by a compassionate Mother Goddess. Which is
shown in contrast to the later age of warfare and human sacrifice.
In fact most ancient cultures of the world have some myth of a golden
age of the ancient past.
One
Greek scholar Hesiod told the story of Pandora’s Jar. Zeus gave a
jar to Pandora to keep safe but she opened it and out poured
sickness, death and evil. This story is an attack on the ancient
Goddess Pandora who "the all-endowed" or “all-giving"
Goddess. So Hesiod twisted this to blame sickness, death and evil
onto her. So like Eve in the Bible story she was blamed for man’s
downfall whereas the demise of humans came when men dominated
religion and politics.
When
patriarchal rulers took control the people found they were worse off
and naturally complained about this. The patriarchy of course were
not going to blame themselves to made up stories like Eve eating the
forbidden fruit or Pandora opening the Jar, to blame it all on women.
Though
there is an element of truth in both stories. We did once have a
Golden age of peace and harmony when women allowed men their natural
desires to serve and worship women. But it all went wrong when some
women interfered with this and thought that men and women should be
equal.
Surprisingly,
even in the Hebrew Bible it is mentioned that people once worshipped
Goddess and were better off when they did this. as we can see in the
following passage.
“We
will certainly do everything we said we would: We will burn incense
to the Queen of Heaven and will pour out drink offerings to her just
as we and our ancestors, our kings and our officials did in the towns
of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. At that time we had plenty
of food and were well off and suffered no harm.” Jeremiah 44:17.
Somehow
this paragraph escaped the patriarchal censors. The Queen of Heaven
was a goddess and scholars tell us that the Jews did once worship
Goddesses like Shekinah, Asherah, Anath, Astarte, Ashima, Lilith and
Sophia.
We
find the same in Islam where their holy book is called the Koran.
What they don’t tell you is that this book was named after the
Goddess Kore, (not the same as the Greek goddess also called Kore).
She was the worshipped by Mohammed’s tribe the Koreshites,
(Children of Kore) and her shrine was in Mecca. Mohammed at first
preach from the Koran of the Goddess Kore but then completely rewrote
it after he was banished from Mecca.
This
is why some Mullahs can claim Islam is a religion of peace, because
it seems some of the original teachings from the Goddess Kore
survives in the present day Koran. It even talks about the Oneness of
God.
At
one time modern academics have rejected these Golden Age legends as
pure myth. Not only do they sound too good to be true. Recorded
history seem to show a different story. They claim that the further
you go back in history the more brutal and violent men seem to
behave. After all we do not have human sacrifice any more. Though it
has to be admitted we still have genocide and wars as we have seen
with the Nazi and Po-Pot regimes in the last century. In spite of
that it has been assumed by archaeologists that people in
pre-historic times were even more brutal than people in historic
times. But in the last century archaeology discoveries have
challenged this assumption.
In
the 1960s a archaeologists called Mellaart lead a team to excavate a
site in Anatolia in Turkey. This site turn out to be the oldest city
ever discovered. Called Catal Huyuk it goes back over 9,000 years.
What was discovered goes against all assumptions archaeologist have
about people living in Neolithic times. They couldn't find any
fortifications to defend the city or any weapons of war. Neither
could they find signs of violence committed on people buried in
graves. It was also a city full of feminine imagery to the degree
that Mellaart was force to say that the people worshipped the Ancient
Great Mother.
So
unsettling was these discoveries that the site was closed down for
thirty years and the academic world ignored the implications of this
find. But there was one archaeologist who was brave enough to
challenge the accepted wisdom of the academic world.
The
late Mariji Gimbutas went digging in other Neolithic sites and found
similar findings. She also highlight the Neolithic findings that
Soviet scientists had made in Transylvania. As well as Goddess
civilizations found in Crete and Malta. All showing peaceful
societies that worshipped the Great Mother. Gimbutas became a very
controversial figure and her books and work was rejected by the
academic world. But other archaeologist were also making similar
finds.
The
Indus Valley civilization in Pakistan was again an Ancient society
that archaeologists could find no signs violence or weapons of war.
Even more recently in Caral in Peru the oldest city ever discovered
in South America, going back to 5,000 years, the same thing was
discovered. Given the violent history of later South American
civilizations with mass human sacrifice archaeologists expected to
find the same thing. But no matter how hard they looked they
couldn’t find any evidence of human sacrifice, warfare or any other
indication of violence. And they had to conclude that this
civilization existed in peace for thousands of years.
The
overwhelming evidence of these finding have made more modern academic
wonder if Mariji Gimutas might be right after all. Some are coming
out of the woodwork and supporting her like Richard Rudgley in his
book "Lost Civilizations Of The Stone Age".
So
what is the implication of these findings?
No
longer can it be claimed that we lived in the stone age as savage
brutes. As it seems that violence started thousands of years after
the first civilizations got started. It also brings into question if
men are naturally violence.
After
the second world war the American military did a study on how well
their troops done in the war. They interviewed a large number of
ex-servicemen and found that only a small minority admitted to
killing the enemy. Most claimed that they only shot above the heads
of the opposing side and didn't want the deaths of the enemy on their
conscience.
In
contrast in the same war the Japanese troops had a reputation of
brutality and ruthlessness. But the Japanese military training was
very harsh. The new recruits were beaten up by older soldiers at the
beginning of their training and then after their first year they were
encouraged to do the same to the newer recruits. Later on in their
training they were taught to kill by killing prisoners of war. So it
seems that the Japanese military knew that to turn an ordinary
Japanese male into a effective killing machine, they had to
completely brutalize him.
The
same is true of the German soldiers under the Nazis, where again the
ordinary soldier was again brutalized. Yet in spite of this, when
the Nazis started their genocide against the Jews they at first just
took groups of Jews into the forest and had them shot by ordinary
soldiers. But the effect of shooting defenceless civilians had a
devastating effect on many of the soldiers ordered to do this and
some committed suicide afterwards. This became such a problem for
the Nazis that other methods like gas chambers, had to be used to
conduct mass murder that didn’t involve using ordinary servicemen.
During
the Falklands war 250 British servicemen lost their lives. 20 years
after the war 265 men who saw action during the war have since
committed suicide. Even worse figure are shown for the American
troops that fought in the Vietnam war. Though this is a controversial
subject in USA and it is hard to get exact figures.
If
the Japanese military had to brutalize their troops to make them
kill. While soldiers in Britain and America as so upset by the
experience of war that many have since committed suicide. It calls
into question whether men are naturally violent. Yet recorded
history is a history of war, genocide and cruelty. So if it is not
natural for men to be violent, why is it still going on?
In
all the Golden age legends they do not explain why things started to
go wrong. But Gimbutas claims that the downfall of many of the
peaceful Goddess civilizations as caused by violent patriarchal
tribes invading them from the north. So it suggests that it was the
invention of war that ended the last Golden Age. Where the early
patriarchal rulers behaved like Mafia bosses in imposing a reign of
terror on the people, then started a protection racket that was in
effect the first taxation.
So
the good news is that a Golden age did exist in the past, and we are
not naturally violent. Most men have to be brainwashed into being
like this through brutalization. The bad news is that the Pandora's
Box has been opened in that violent men have found they can rule
countries and even empires through fear and violence.
But
this is not what the majority of us want. Most of us do not want to
live in a world of war and violence and it is up to us to not allow a
minority of violent men spoilt it for us all. We have to learn how to
stop our young people being brutalized by school bullies, street
gangs, prisons, poverty, unemployment, violent films and video games,
violent parents and the military. Then we can perhaps get back to
living once again in a new Golden Age of peace and prosperity.