Tuesday, September 13, 2005

Goddess is Empathy; god is Discipline

My brother sent this today, by George Lakoff:

The moral of Katrina is mostly being missed. It is not just a failure of execution (William Kristol), or that bad things just happen (Laura Bush). …

“The cause was political through and through -- a matter of values and principles. The progressive-liberal values are America's values, and we need to go back to them. The heart of progressive-liberal values is simple: empathy (caring about and for people) and responsibility (acting responsibly on that empathy). These values translate into a simple principle: Use the common wealth for the common good to better all our lives. …

The right-wing conservatives now in power have the opposite values and principles. Their main value is Rely on individual discipline and initiative. The central principle: Government has no useful role. … It's the difference between We're all in this together and You're on your own, buddy. It's the difference between Every citizen is entitled to protection and You're only entitled to what you can afford. …”

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Sounds like the difference between God the Mother, and God the Father, to me. To the Mother Goddess we’re all Her children, and therefore all equally valuable. Furthermore, She demands that we love, cherish, respect and support one another as She does us. The love of a (healthy) mother for her children is not based on whether they meet pre-set conditions: Her love is unconditional, without condition, no strings attached.

On the other hand, it’s no accident that so many religious fundamentalists are right-wing conservatives. They are loved only by a father god, whose love is much less unconditional than The Mother’s. This makes fundamentalists deeply insecure and profoundly frightened at a deep level. Their deity loves them not for who they are, but for their ability to meet certain specific conditions, including outperforming others. If one fails to meet these conditions, the Sacred Parent punishes and/or withholds love. And since right-wingers are drenched in this damaging half-love, it’s the only kind they're able to give others -- or even themselves.

9 comments:

Lisa said...

To the Mother Goddess we’re all Her children, and therefore all equally valuable.

http://www.all-gods-children.org/

lol, because I love causing trouble...

Athana said...

I went to the all gods children site, and found an organization that helps disabled children. I'm not sure I follow you, lisa. Are you saying that god also claims we're his children?

Lisa said...

Yea, that's all I ever heard in Catholic school, "We are all god's children." That website is a "god-the-father" religious site.

Athana said...

You're right. God the father calls us his children too, just as the Goddess does. But there's a big difference in the way they each love their children. Human and animal mothers are widely known for their unconditional love. No strings attached. No matter how sick, poor, bad, or untalented you are, Mom loves you as much as she does her straight-A football star child, or her multimillionaire CEO daughter. God's love is conditional -- on whether you follow him or not. On whether you sacrifice your own son Isaac as a burnt offering, if he orders you to do so. On whether your sexuality pleases him. Etc., etc., etc.

Lisa said...

Lol, well actually not all mothers (mine) loves their daughters as much as their sons, but anyway...

You got me on the Isaac sacrifice thing, but Ereshkigal kidnapped her brother-in-law to get her sister down to the Underworld and hung Inanna's corpse on a hook... That's not so warm and fuzzy, I-love-everyone either. Ereshkigal made Inanna prove her love and loyalty and Yahweh made Abraham, because both of these myths were created by HUMANS that have HUMAN insecurities, and this is the stuff humans worry about: loyalty.

The only thing regarding sexuality that the bible actually says is that you shouldn't cheat on your spouse...

I do remember asking Sister Lucia in first grade "why does Jesus hate women?" It took me 15 years to realize that it wasn't Jesus, but one of the letters of Paul, which was probably not written by Paul anyway, that sounds harsh to women. (They don't let you read the bible in Catholic school, lol) The letters of one of Paul's students to the congregation of Christians in Corinth was written because this crazy, woman-empowering, socially liberal group of Gentiles-trying-to-be-Jews were "letting their women" preach about their god, disagree with men in public, not cover their hair even though they weren't common hookers, etc.

Athana said...

"Lol, well actually not all mothers (mine) loves their daughters as much as their sons, but anyway..." ******* I know. I don't think we have very many truly healthy human mothers living in this patriarchy of ours. I think most agree, though, that the healthy mother unaffected by the patriarchy will usually love all children unconditionally.

"...but Ereshkigal kidnapped her brother-in-law to get her sister down to the Underworld and hung Inanna's corpse on a hook... That's not so warm and fuzzy" ******* Ereshkigal was a Goddess invented by the god boys in Goddess/god pantheon times. Whoever She was before the god boys got hold of Her (if She existed then) is a far cry from who She became after they were done with her.

"The only thing regarding sexuality that the bible actually says is that you shouldn't cheat on your spouse..." ********** Whoops! I think you forget a few items: Listening to fundies, one might think half the Bible is about *homo*sexuality. Then there's also a good deal along the lines of when and how to "share" one's wife with strangers, stoning to death women who are not virgins; protstitutes; etc., etc.

Lisa said...

No, I know that listening to the fundies you get that, which is why I said "the only thing... the bible actually says is." And in the New Testament, Jesus stops the people trying to stone the "adultress." The thing about the bible for Christians is that the story of Jesus is the NEW Testament, Jesus said he was bringing in a NEW covenant. "This is a NEW Jack City, baby!"

Ereshkigal was a Goddess invented by the god boys in Goddess/god pantheon times. Whoever She was before the god boys got hold of Her (if She existed then) is a far cry from who She became after they were done with her.

So wait, once and for all, would The Goddess established in a "Matriarchy" be nice or not-so-nice? Nice, with elements of not-so-nice mixed in? This is why I'm a polythiest! I can't wrap my head around a monotheistic Goddess-religion, I get too confused... Every time there is a not-so-nice goddess, we blame it on Evil Patriarchy, because you can't explain a woman being a bitch of her own accord, it has to be explained that "The Patriarchy Made Her Do It!" Patriarchy has not challenged my essense, even if it has influenced me.

Damn it, I wasn't one of those girls that never raised her hand in math class because I thought some teacher liked boys better! I'm sick of hearing that! Maybe I just never realized I was a female and a victim! I only watched Muppet Babies and She-Ra because girls were in charge, and I just thought everyone else was stupid! I hated Smurfs because the only thing that made Smurfette special was her dress (compared to Smart Smurf, this Smurf, that Smruf, etc.) Was I the only one that saw that as a little girl and said, "wow, that's silly, I'm a girl and I'm so much smarter than any boy I know!?"

But who am I to talk, I know abuse, and I'm the ass that didn't realize that talent wasn't something I had to apologize for. Off to meet my acting partner...

Athana said...

Wow, Lisa. You’ve brought up several different issues, here, and I don’t know where to begin. And I’m confused about what you mean re: some of them.. “Would a Goddess established in a Matriarchy by nice or not-so-nice?” Matriarchy? I don’t typically think about matriarchy when I write and think about a future with the Goddess. I guess that’s because I’m used to the old definition of matriarchy which makes it a power thing, with women sitting on men. I know I've brought done a few posts in which I've used the word "matriarchy" in the new sense in which it's being used by some, but on the whole the issue of what kind of power structure would attain in a Goddess society is a separate issue. I'd hope that the sexes would be equal, as they seemed to be in many pre-white American Indian societies.

Would a Goddess in a “pure Goddess” society be “nice”? Depends on what you mean by “nice.” When one of her cubs is being threatened, a mother lion is not “nice” to the threatener. On the other hand, the mother lion does absolutely everything in her power to see that her children are safe, well fed, and taught how to live their lives to the fullest. I guess that’s “nice.”

What’s definitely not nice is war, rape, physical abuse, psychological abuse, starvation, poverty, racism, classism, slavery, abandonment, sexism, and all the other ills human being visit on other human beings in certain societies, all of which, to my knowledge, have been patriarchal.

Patriarchy is a system in which certain humans dominate others. Any system in which any human doiminates another is wrong. It’s unhealthy. It produces all kinds of ugliness that gets passed on down through the generations.. I enjoy all the freedom I can get, and I wish for all humans to be as free as they can get. I don’t care who you are, you don’t have the right to dominate anyone else.

Lisa said...

Matriarchy? I don’t typically think about matriarchy when I write and think about a future with the Goddess. I guess that’s because I’m used to the old definition of matriarchy which makes it a power thing, with women sitting on men.

Oh, maybe it was Morgaine equating Goddess-religion society with Matriarchy, I'm still recovering from the Goddess Holy War, lol...