I was reading an encyclopedia today, Britannica 15nth edition to be exact, And came across an interesting few sentences about middle eastern religions. in particular, this one: There were Fertility rites which dramatically acted out sexual myths, which related to agricultural seasons. These things all got banned when Josiah eliminated the Goddesses and the Asherah cult. In short, idiotic men ruined everything. It appears there use to be lesbian sex IN CHURCH, a place where people would celebrate nature. Now it's just a big downward spiral.
lol ^^ Men are awful is the moral of the story of all history I spend a lot of time thinking about how to 'mitigate my maleness'.
There are many underlying currents of feminity and the female as divine in modern religion. Reading theology expands my view on this, they are subtle, but still there... there is of course the notion of Mary Magdalene as a disciple, the virgin Mary as intercessor, the chalice of eucharist representing the womb...and pagan practices which have evolved from Christian to consumerist in centuries past. For example, the easter bunny and eggs (the celebration of fertility). In a male-dominated society, the notion of female divinity and sacredness had to be abolished...how else would men make women inferior? I could say it comes down to some backward Freudian concept of male jealousy toward the female ability to bear life...but who knows...To gain patriarchal power via tampering with the Bible to deem women as 'inferior' and to hold them in somewhat of a 'contempt' ('original sin' caused by Eve), is disturbing. This goes back deep into history's roots, unfortunately. Thank you for the quotes, it brings hope that spiritual practice wasn't always in the vice-grip of male dominance.
now that sounds like a place i could go every sunday:sunny: when you expect so little from us men, what do you expect? i do have to admit, that it seems like the most awful things in this world are done by men. and women take more shit, especially in the past. it's hard to say about present day, since i'm not a woman. i'm also white. so of course i don't think that women or minorities have it that bad. because i don't see it through those lenses. not all men are pigs. just their avatars.
