THE VEIL between LIVING & dead

Now the veil between living and dead is thin. Now communication with grandmothers, great grandmothers, great grandfathers -- anyone beyond the veil – is facilitated. At midnight, find a sanctified place, light candles, and invite ancestors to come. Call one, two, or many, but call them one at a time. What astonishing insights might they hold for you? You might never know unless you call them -- at Samhuinn.

May your Samhuinn will be deeply and undeniably meaningful.

Love,
Athana

The Madonna & the Whore

In a previous comment (Oct. 26), ursa says this about how to ditch the patriarchy:

“The first thing we are going to have to heal is the Madonna/Whore rift, men’s version of divide and conquer. And we have to learn to put our loyalty to each other above our loyalty to our men, then our alliance will equal theirs….”

Good points to ponder. How debilitating is the Madonna/Whore split, the patriarchy’s view of women as either ice-goddess or evil dead-meat, with no one inbetween? How badly do we women drink in this damaged view of ourselves? How could we not drink it, when it’s built into almost every film ever made (up until a few years ago)?

I think ursa’s right when she says we must put our loyalty to each other first. I still, however, like to include feminist men in “our” group, and patriarchal women in the “other.”

What do you think?

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thnx to naraosga & stock.xchng for the foto, "Helena wannabe misfits"

Women Die Out in 20th Century?

What will future archaeologists make of the world as we know it? Elizabeth Gould Davis has a startling, but convincing theory:

“’Remarkable’ is the word invariably employed by archeologists when they come upon evidence of the former dominance [I would say “co-dominance”] of women. ‘Remarkable’ will be the reaction of archeologists of the eightieth century, digging in the ruins of the lost civilization of the twentieth; for any evidence that women even existed in the last few centuries of the Christian era will be utterly lacking. Future archeologists will find that all our statues are of men, all our coins bear male likenesses, the cornerstones and capstones of all our public buildings are carved with the names of men only, and all our archives preserved by chance in subterranean caves will deal solely with the deeds of men…. Eventually one of our future archeologists will come up with the astounding theory that Christian era man was able to reproduce himself … anthropogentically and, like the Amazons of old in reverse, murdered his female offspring* and reared only the males.”

From Elizabeth Gould Davis, The First Sex, Penguin 1975, pp. 74-75.
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*Current theory suggests Amazons did not kill their children, and that they consisted not of women alone, but of both sexes.

Anger & GODDESS

Recently I posted the following on Sour Duck -- about the appropriateness, in feminist blogging, of anger (I've done a bit of editing since I posted on SD):

“The women speaking here [about anger] seem so uncertain, so lost. It's my opinion that humans need shared “superordinate constructs,” or Big Guiding Symbols, to help us move in rhythm and in sync re: important life areas. One such construct is the Mother Goddess, and whether you see her as an actual deity or as a symbolic construct, She can be a force showering feminists (and everyone else) with incredible power.

“Take the question of anger. Using the Great Mother, we notice that healthy mothers love their children -- but get incredibly ANGRY when those children are hurt or threatened. If we see ourselves as the Great Mother, then questions about the appropriateness of anger (when, where, how, how much, why, etc.) are instantaneously answered: We have not only a right, but a duty to get angry when our "children" (i.e., other humans) are hurt or threatened.

“When to get angry? At the time when our anger will produce the biggest payoff (sometimes this will be immediately; sometimes it’ll be in a day or two).

“Where to get angry? At the place where it will produce the biggest payoff in reducing the threat to our “children.”

“How to get angry? In a way that will produce hefty payloads (this will vary depending on the situation).

“How much anger should be let loose? Enough to finish the job (protection of each other).

“At whom should we get angry? At those who threaten others, and those who refuse to restrain threateners.

“Why should we get angry? Because properly directed anger can be one of our most powerful tools for good.

“Contrary to what we’d love to believe, I doubt that human beings -- men or women -- are intelligent enough yet to operate without superordinate guiding constructs. Let’s face it: we're primates: animals who depend on groups for survival. Unlike chimps, bonobos and our other close cousins, however, we don’t come with automatic “operating instructions” (instincts). In order to work effectively in the groups that keep us alive, we humans need things that put us all on the same page. Large symbolic constructs like The Great Mother Goddess do just that.”

Unfortunately, so do jealous, kill-your-sons-to-prove-your-love warrior gods like Jehovah, Yaweh and Mohammed. The directions these lovelies have taken us are toward jealousy, killing, war -- and the edge of extinction.
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thnx to stockcharl and stock.xchng for the foto

Scooter's INDICTED!

Yes! Yes! Yes! Today, Mr. I. Scooter Libby was indicted on five counts by a Grand Jury! I know I'm supposed to be concentrating on god and Goddess on this blog, and I am. This is how it all hangs together:

o Bushy is a god-guy president, and a most rabid one.
o Like all god-guys, Bushy wanted to play war.
o So Bushy lied to America about yellowcake uranium.
o But Joe Wilson blew the whistle on Bushy.
o Then Bushy punished Wilson by outing Wilson's wife Valerie.
o Then I. Scooter lied to protect Bushy.

See how everything bad begins with god?

I just adore this observation from right-wing blogger, Andrew Sullivan at AndrewSullivan.com:

"I'd say this [today's indictments] looks like the very beginning of something, rather than the end. And that, in itself, is crippling" [i.e., for Bush & Co.]

As part of the Great Mother Goddess, my first priority is protection of my children, the human race. So naturally I am extremely eager to see Bush & Co. crippled -- before they cripple my world any more than they already have.

[What I wanna know is, what does the "I." stand for?]

Jimmy, Son of Dob

I trust you all know that the main god-guy to keep our collective eye on is Mr. Jimmy Dobson, of "Focus on the Family" fame (or, as I prefer to call him, Jimmy, Son of Dob)? This is the guy who’s more or less single-handedly running the country down the road to christo-fascism. He used to teach in the Dept. of Medicine at the University of Southern Cal., so, unforturnately for us, he’s no dummie, dang it.

The Boston Globe did a recent article on Mr. Jimmy, Son of Dob (actually, he’s the son of a Nazarene minister who wore his knee caps out praying on the floor; Son of Dob has erected a statue to his daddy at Focus-on-the-Family headquarters; from what I hear it's so big nothing else will fit in the room):

Dobson has targeted several ''red-state" Democratic senators for defeat in 2006, including Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Robert Byrd of West Virginia, Kent Conrad of North Dakota, Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, and Bill Nelson of Florida. Dobson played a big role in the 2004 defeat of Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota, the former minority leader, who helped block a Constitutional amendment to define marriage as only the union of a man and a woman. Last year, Dobson attended several rallies against gay marriage in South Dakota and addressed about 70,000 people, or 10 percent of the state's population.

Dobson made Daschle's defeat a keystone of his effort to elect senators who would approve conservative justices to the Supreme Court. Dobson fell short in his bid to topple Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter, a moderate Republican who was expected to head the Judiciary Committee and said in his victory speech that judges determined to overturn Roe v. Wade would be difficult to confirm.

Dobson's fury at that statement resulted in a flood of angry telephone calls from his supporters to the Senate. Specter backed off, announced he would support the president's choices, and was elected committee chairman.

In these and other ways, Dobson had served notice that he would not hesitate to wield his political clout like a hammer.

According to The Globe, other big, bad god-guys to watch out for are:

... Richard Land, the politically connected Washington lobbyist of the Southern Baptist Convention, [and] Rick Warren, an evangelical pastor who has built an enormous following both at his Southern California mega-church and through his best-selling book, The Purpose Driven Life.

The word "goblin" keeps popping to mind (Goblin, Dobson, Goblin, Dobson...). Remember that scary, scary line from the old poem "Little Orphant Annie"? "...And the Goblins'll GITcha if ya don't ... watch ... out!!!"

HIJACKED BY god

It's always good news when a Republican wakes up to the fact that his party has been hijacked by god:

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) -- Former Sen. John Danforth said Wednesday that the political influence of evangelical Christians is hurting the Republican Party and dividing the country.

snip

"I think that the Republican Party fairly recently has been taken over by the Christian conservatives, by the Christian right," he said in an interview. "I don't think that this is a permanent condition, but I think this has happened, and that it's divisive for the country."

He also said the evangelical Christian influence would be bad for the party in the long run.

MORE >>>

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thnx to splenetic for the foto

American Solidarity

"American Solidarity" is a new progressive movement looking for supporters. Maybe you'd be interested in signing up? Morgaine at The-Goddess says this about it:

"American Solidarity is designed after the Polish "Solidarno??" Movement that pretty much, in my opinion, brought down the Soviet Union. It is intended to be non-partisan, so that support will be focused on individual candidates of any party who support Progressive causes. No anti-choice or anti-gay marriage Dems need apply."

Go see NewsHog for more info.

Here's the email message I sent (to newshogATgmailDOTcom):

I am a blogger interested in beginning the internet hub of American Solidarity.

Athana at Radical Goddess Thealogy
http://godmotherascending.blogspot.com/

Pulverizing THE PATRIARCHY

The Liberal Hillbilly left a thought-provoking comment a few days ago on the “How’d Amazons Get Their Name” post (Oct. 22). He said women won’t be able to govern in today’s world unless they play by the rules of the patriarchy:

“Women have to play the game the way men do if they don't want men to win, because it's our game and we made the rules. That is the unfortunate aspect of society at-large.”

Go HERE to read his entire post, because it’s good, and I’m not doing it justice.

In my mind, what The Liberal Hillbilly’s comment boils down to is this: how DO we replace the patriarchy with something sane?

Here’s my short version of the patriarchy: 4000 to 6000 years ago, a large group of mentally-ill people overpowered the sane people of the world. To do this, they used methods the sane people had had no experience with: institutionalized violence and a bizarre, anti-woman, violence-worshipping culture. The result: most of the world today lives under that criminally-insane culture in which violence is the meat of every meal, and woman-destruction is the dessert.

Now what I hear you saying, Liberal Hillbilly, is that the only way we can rid ourselves of this culture of insanity is through violence.

I disagree.

That’s what this blog is all about: taking back the world by changing it from the bottom up, and non-violently. And we do this by re-introducing the overarching symbol, the deep organizing principle, that our last sane ancestors had: the feminine, maternal deity.

The Great Mother is one of Carl Jung’s famous archetypes. An archetype is “a predisposition to respond emotionally to certain categories of experience residing in the collective unconscious.” The Great Mother Goddess is a powerful tool that automatically evokes human love, tenderness, caring, and so forth.

I think we can use the Great Mother as an archetype to heal ourselves. I think we can use Her as a superordinate construct to mend ourselves from the ground up. I think when we do this we dilute the patriarchy sufficiently to break its back.

Getting the Great Mother archetype grounded across the globe will result in a global human psyche incompatible with war, violence, hierarchy, domination, and the other mentally-ill tools we’ve been using to organize our human communities for the past 6000 years.

On Aug. 5, I posted a “Goddess*Peace Timeline” for moving from a god to a Goddess world by the year 2025. That same day, Morgaine at The-Goddess posted her own timeline. Our timelines focus on the media, politics, and grass-roots organizing as vehicles to broadcast the connections between god and institutionalized violence on the one hand, and female deity and peace on the other.

I think we have several things going for us, here -- not the least of which is the phenomenon of the “tipping point,” and the fact that the world is rapidly shrinking.

Rosa, I Miss You Already

Goddess speed Bright Blessings to one of the purest women on earth:

Civil Rights Pioneer Rosa Parks, 92, Dies

DETROIT (AP) -- Nearly 50 years ago, Rosa Parks made a simple decision that sparked a revolution. When a white man demanded she give up her seat on a Montgomery, Ala., bus, the then 42-year-old seamstress said no.

MORE >>>

wITCHES fOR dUMMIES

Know anyone who needs a primer on Witches? Send them on over to Anne the Goat Judge at The Gods Are Bored. And you might wanna skip on over too -- even if you think you're an ace on Witches. Even you might pick up a few startling tidbits you didn't "possess" before reading Anne's....

..."WITCHES FOR DUMMIES
By Anne Johnson
Author of Goats I Have Known and Loved

"1. Sorry, Sabrina. Witches are mortal. They are human beings. They begin as babies, grow up, ask a bunch of questions, get wise, get wiser, get wiser still, pass along some wisdom, and die. (This is also true of druids.) Sorry, Philip Pullman. Witches don't live any longer than anyone else, unless they exercise, eat right, and avoid tobacco and alcohol.

"2. Before they became ugly crones with no teeth and green skin, riding in the sky on broomsticks or snuggling up for sex with demons, witches were DOCTORS. Yes, doctors....

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Sweat-Soaked FEAR

According to The Los Angeles Weekly, Riane Eisler’s The Chalice and the Blade [about the Goddess] is “The most significant work published in our lifetimes . . . [&] might make the future possible.” Recently, in AwakenedWoman.com, Eisler argued that fundamentalism – Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim or what-have-you – doesn’t fuse with democracy. Why? Because at the core of fundamentalism, says Eisler, is the whip-thrashed family. You’ve seen this happy group: Dad draws blood on Mom and the kids unless they suck in, stand at attention, and salute as he struts by; and Mom & kids live in mortal, sweat-soaked fear.

“Slogans like ‘traditional values’ often mask a family "morality" suited to undemocratic, rigidly male-dominated, chronically violent cultures. They market a "traditional family" where women are subordinate and economically dependent, where fathers make the rules and severely punish disobedience -- the kind of family that prepares people to defer to "strong" leaders who brook no dissent and use force to impose their will.” [Sig Heil!!!]

snip

“It's not coincidental that for regressive fundamentalists -- whether Christian, Hindu, Jewish or Muslim -- the only moral family is one that models top-down rankings of domination ultimately backed up by fear and force. It's not coincidental that the 9/11 terrorists came from families where women and children are terrorized into submission.”

snip

“We can't expect to build societies respecting human rights and democracy when millions of people grow up in authoritarian families that routinely violate human rights.”

Go HERE for more.

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thnx to mmagallan for the foto

Children & THE GODDESS

While looking through my books the other day I came across Starhawk’s Circle Round: Raising Children in Goddess Traditions.

I was struck -- as I often am -- about how critical our children are to our movement. In order to meet our goal of replacing GodFather with GodMother by 2025, we can’t neglect them!

Snips from readers’ reviews:

“This is as good as it gets, when dealing with Pagans who have children or starting to have them. This book deals with love and relationship not only with the Goddess, but with "family" as a whole. It’s very well detailed and the stories, songs, and crafts are really fun to do. If you are Pagan and have children, make this your ‘starter’ book first. Highly recommend. Well worth the time and money.”

“A fantastic resource book for the inner child/younger self in all of us! ... Delightful illustrations, fun games and songs, and terrific stories. I have 3 copies!”

Go HERE to read more reviews of Circle Round.

HOW’d the Amazons GET THEIR NAME?

“Those Without Husbands: How the Amazons Got Their Name” was a fascinating paper presented by Vicki Noble at last month’s Matriarchy Conference.

A few tidbits:

o The Amazons were the last remnants of the old Goddess societies. They did not kill their boy babies. Their groups included not just women, but men and women both.

o Marriage was a tool the patriarchals used to “colonize” us. In the old Goddess days, women didn’t marry. When the patriarchals took over, however, they forced women to marry them. This, says Noble, is how the Amazons got their names. (“Amazon” means “women without husbands.”)

o Women, says Noble, should be governing society, and there’s a biological basis for this. Like Bolen (see yesterday’s post), Noble cites the recent UCLA study showing that men and women react differently to stress. With men it’s “fight or flight.” With women, on the other hand, it’s “tend and befriend.” (So, who do you want running your world – people who either fight or run away from bad stuff? Or people who form bonds and tend to one another?)

o Men would be *calmed*, says Noble, in a society with strong female bonding and female governance.

Go HERE to hear Vicki’s whole presentation. I predict you'll like it.

Urgent MESSAGE FROM MOTHER

Out of the discussion Morgaine, ursa, andygrrl, anonymous and I had today, I discovered a gold mine: Urgent Message from Mother: Gather the Women, Save The World, by Jungian analyst Jean Shinoda Bolen, author of runaway bestseller Goddesses in Everywoman, Crones Don’t Whine, etc.

Speaking of whining, my furnace began whining late last winter about retirement, and I have been trying SOOO hard since to sit on my credit cards. When that old geezer quits, I need a feisty fistful of cash for his successor. However, from its title alone you can see why I need to be forgiven for whipping out those cards for this book!

Mother’s “Urgent Message” is the same as Barbara Walker’s (see Wednesday’s post): it’s up to Goddess-oriented women to save the world. Bolen gives scientific evidence why men can’t, and why women can (save the world).

A few review snippets:

“Gather the Women … is an urgent message from [the] Mother [Goddess] to her Daughters … to end conflict and violence in the world.”

snip

“[Bolen] points to a fascinating UCLA study proving that women react to stress differently than their male counterparts. Instead of the "fight or flight" reaction, women have a "tend and befriend" response as a result of an increase in oxytocin, the maternal bonding hormone. While men become more adrenalized and aggressive, women nurture and protect—biologically. From this and other compelling evidence Bolen makes a strongly convincing case that now is the time for women to lead—to fiercely protect all that we love.”

Snip

“Bolen explains Rupert Sheldrake’s Theory of Morphic Resonance, which describes how societies and even species can undergo rapid evolution when they reach a tipping point. She explains that "we’ve learned that women gathering together in groups and telling the truth of their lives can actually change the world."

Snip

[from a male reviewer]
“I discovered this book because I came to the conclusion that the right wing in the USA and fundamentalists throughout the world are engaged in a huge backlash and war against … women, women's rights, and the feminine archetype. I concluded that their reaction is a last dying paroxysm of resistance to a trend that is inevitable -- that women regain the rights and privileges they had thousands of years ago, before agriculture and the hierarchical culture and slavery it produced appeared -- when goddesses and priestesses were common and when women shared in leading society.”

Go HERE to read more.

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thnx to mmagallan and stock.xchng for the foto

MORMONS DISCOVER THE Goddess

Whaddya know! The Mormons have discovered the Goddess Movement!!

Ya know you’re becoming a celebrity when the Mormon Church feels forced to warn their faithful against you.

Go HERE to see their write-up on “Goddess Worship.” (Actually, they make us sound quite good! Oh, well, I know you tried hard, Mormon-guy writer, but you can’t win ‘em all!) Here are a few snippets from Mormon guy’s write-up:

“Organization Structure: This [Goddess Movement] philosophy transcends a number of organizations and movements. Lacking its own organizational structure, goddess worship permeates and affects such diverse and seemingly unrelated areas as radical feminism, Jungian psychology, general Pantheism and extreme environmentalism.”

Snip

“Not only has the Goddess been written about in New Age/Occult books, touted by noted psychologists as being a universal part of the human psyche, and heralded as a rallying point for anti-Christian feminists, she is also being spoken of in public schools throughout America. [GASP!]

snip

“Tal Brooke, a Christian author and researcher with the Spiritual Counterfeits Project in Berkeley, California stated, 'Children watch plays about Mother Earth; they are taught that to despoil the goddess who gave them birth by polluting the environment is more than just ecological crime, it is essentially blasphemy.'

snip

“…Jalaja Bonheim’s … Walking Prayer for the Earth …: ‘The earth is not dead matter. She is alive. Now begin to speak to the earth as you walk. You can speak out loud, or just talk to her in your mind. Send your love into her with your exhalation…. I ask forgiveness for having injured you. Forgive us, Mother Earth.’

snip

“Thus, from radical feminism and pagan witchcraft to elementary school textbooks, Goddess worship, in its many manifestations, is ever creeping into modern society.”

I gotta tell ya, noting offends me but that last sentence. I don’t think we’re creeping into society! I think we’re barreling into it!!!

WOMEN Saviors

If you're female and part of the Goddess Movement, get ready to rock 'n roll, sister! Barbara Walker thinks it's Goddess women who will, in the end, rescue the human race:

“Only women who are enabled to sense a female divinity within their own spirit can bring about the profound changes that need to be made if humanity is to last much longer as one of earth’s life forms. Male aggression in the wild is created by nature to sort out the stronger healthier males, to improve the breed…. Male aggression is civilized society is a useless anomaly…. The survival of any species depends on the nurturing behavior of its females, not the aggressive behavior of its males. And even animals know better than our patriarchal gods, for among animals the males do not usually attack females or their young.” Barbara Walker, p. 81, Restoring the Goddess: Equal Rites for Modern Women, Prometheus, 2000.

DRIVE OUT THE BUSH Crime Family

The World Can't Wait!
Drive Out the Bush Regime!
Mobilize for November 2, 2005!
No work, no school!

Favorite Goddess Pieces

Yesterday, in a comment, ursa left one of her favorite Goddess pieces:

Words of Bridged: “..... I put songs and music on the wind before ever the bells of chapels were rung in the West or heard in the East ....... And I have been the breath in your heart and the day has its feet that will see me come again like a flame upon dry grass- like a flame in the great wood.” Old Irish, author unknown

For an hour I searched my bookshelves for something as rich and beautiful. Here’s the best I could do: Since I’m still half enthralled by the movie Merlin I watched last night, I’m quoting from Merlin Stone re: the Isle of Avalon:

“Where to hunt for Celtic Avalon …. [I]s not that island always to the west? … Perhaps … no matter how far to the west one goes, the [isle] is yet further west, forever lit by the glow of the setting sun. For is it not there that the Mighty Regina, Morgan, Mistress of Avalon, waits for each of us to one day sail to Her – there to learn that beyond the setting sun is the Morgan that is morning?”

Anyone else have anything to share?

Morgan and Merlin

Tonight, for the third time, I watched the movie Merlin – with Sam Neill playing Merlin and Isabella Rossellini playing Nimue. Bittersweet: it’s a good script and serious acting, and I cried when Merlin and Nimue finally got together in the end (always to me at least, a sign of a “good” film).

But the take on the Arthurian legends is pure god-tripe. Morgan Le Fay is bad; The Lady of the Lake is physically weak; and Guinivere is morally weak. End of story about the women. The men are (as always in patriarchal society) the shining stars, here.

I’ve been spoiled by Marion Bradley Zimmer’s The Mists of Avalon. In Zimmer’s book, Morgan is the central character. It’s been a while since I’ve read the book, but in my memory, Morgan is strong, complex, compassionate, good, and Goddess centered. Avalon is a magic island where the last of the goddess religion resides. Morgan is a priestess there. The book stands out like a shining star among books I’ve read over a lifetime.

If you haven’t read Mists of Avalon, please do. I promise – you won’t be disappointed. You can get copies at Amazon.com for under $2.00, plus S&H. And I just discovered that Zimmer has written sequels to Mists! Oh, goodie, goodie!!! I ordered them, and when they arrive I’ll be in Goddess Heaven!

Better Off WITHOUT GOD

It’s The Land Down Under again! – only this time I traveled south to visit them – to the home of one “An Australian Anarchist.” (And, technology being what it is, as I traveled I sat on my New England sun porch and watched pumpkin-orange leaves drift off the trees.)

Turns out that An Australian Anarchist (AAA for short) has read the sizzling Gregory Paul Study – you know, the one that shows god is worse for you than a case of the Asian bird flu? AAA, however, puts a more positive spin on it than I do: he titles his post “Better Off Without God.”

So, without further ado, and for your reading pleasure, here are a few snippets from AAA’s look at the Better-Off-Without-God Study:

“Paul’s graphs show far higher rates of death among the under-fives in Portugal, the U.S and Ireland and put the U.S. – the most religious country in his survey – in a league of its own for gonorrhea and syphilis.”

snip

“The U.S. is the only rich nation with teenage pregnancy levels comparable to those of developing nations: it has a worse record than India, the Philippines and Rwanda.”

snip

“Three sets of findings stand out: the associations between religion – especially absolute belief – and juvenile mortality, venereal disease and adolescent abortion."

MORE >>>

Also, go to my Oct. 11 post to read more about the Paul study, and to get links to the original report in the refereed Journal of Religion and Society.

I Love HINDUS

Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus and Buddhists are not bad people. I love ‘em all. But make no mistake about it – they’ve been eaten alive by a sickness called “god.” And they desperately need to be liberated from that sickness, or they’re going to sink and drag the rest of us down with them. We badly need to rehabilitate them. Help them break free from the brainwashing, and that Hell-as-control-mechanism keeping them duped and in chains.

DECENCY SHOWING Some Teeth

I couldn't have said it better than Echidne of the Snakes:

"I feel all tingly and warm when I hear about [Karl] Rove's misfortunes. But this is not really Schadenfreude over the misfortunes of a political opponent ... but a feeling that finally decency is showing some teeth here. Maybe she will even bite a butt or two in the process."

RING THOSE BELLS: IT'S Australia!

Beat the gongs and ring the bells! Yesterday we were honored with a visitor from The Land Down Under! agrophobic from Australia said:

“Interesting … religious politics for a country that was founded by people fleeing religious persecution.”

Could agrophobic be suggesting, here, that the Radical Goddess might persecute god worshippers? If that’s the case, he’s sooooo wrong. We’re not trying to persecute god worshippers -- we’re trying to stamp them out! We want to wipe every last one of those deadly little rugrats off this planet by the year 2025! But we don’t believe in persecuting anyone, not even murderers and maimers, only in rehabilitating them. (I suspect that, in all of human history, the god boogeypeople have produced more death and destruction than all other forces combined).

The high-god “religions” aren’t religions.* They’re poisonous political-control mechanisms. Hell is the hammer wielded to terrify people into submission. Beds and straps are also used: strapped onto beds, women become baby-making machines (or, rather, soldier-production devices). God-people breed like flies, and consequently overload the planet with their offspring (I’m one, and unless you, agrophobic, are an Aborigine, you probably are, too).

The first cities shot up when oodles of god-people huddled together in defense against other god-people. Next came the nation states. It’s all artificial. And deadly. It’s Jehovah, Jahweh, Vishnu, Mohammed, and Buddha, oozing like cancer all over the globe. And those god women strapped to the beds are just pumping and pumping out those babies, and the planet and its precious, protective ozone layer is groaning under the weight of all that god-baby bio-mass.

Here’s the difference between me and the Church that sent my 17th-century ancestors flying to America:

The Church said (to my god-worshipping ancestors), “Based on pure, unadulterated faith, we know YOUR brand of god worship is no good and grungy.” In contrast, I’m saying (to all god people), “Based on rational evidence, your religion has killed more people than anything else on the planet, bar none.”

The Church said “Based on no observable, rational evidence whatsoever, we demand that you ditch your dim-witted religion.” In contrast, I’m saying “Observable, rational, and measurable evidence shows that god worship kills, maims and destroys; god, therefore, must be outlawed.”

god IS WAR

If you don’t think god IS WAR, listen to this:

“COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- A new coalition dedicated to converting thousands to Christianity and getting thousands more on voter registration lists got its start Friday in a tightly scripted rally that resembled a revival meeting.

SNIP

“'Sound an alarm. A Holy Ghost invasion is taking place. Man your battle stations, ready your weapons, lock and load,' Parsley said to enthusiastic applause.”

MORE >>>

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thnx to gamexer for the foto

Intelligent Design

"Intelligent design (ID), the hot new rebranding of Christian creationism, is extremely clever, profoundly disingenuous, and, I think, dangerous. It must be beaten back and kept out of the public schools.

"Why have I gotten so riled now? Because when and if, God forbid, the history of America’s theocratic transformation is written, these past few months will be seen as a turning point."

MORE >>>>

god IS NOT DEAD 2

A few days ago I posted on the Gregory Paul study that shows a choke-hold correlation between “religiosity” (i.e., god worship) and all kinds of nasties like homicide, suicide, STDs, teen pregnancies, and the like. Well, it seems there’s an imaginary tale going around the internet that this study is flawed because it defines “religiosity” as Literal Belief in the Bible. Not so. On another blog, I tried to explain this to a commenter there. Here’s a somewhat verbatim copy of our little conversation:

THE OTHER COMMENTER Said...
The problem I have with [the Gregory Paul] study, is that it defines "religiosity" as Biblical literalism. But Biblical literalism is a recent, geographically specific phenomenon; it's not the traditional form of Christianity at all. Rather, it's a specifically American, 20th-century freak of history. So the study radically redefines its central term in a highly tendentious manner.

ATHANA said...
I'm sorry to say, OTHER COMMENTER, that you are wrong. Gregory Paul did not define “religiosity” simply as "Biblical Literalism." Go look at the study. "The plots include Bible literalism and frequency of prayer and service attendance, as well as absolute belief in a creator, in order to examine religiosity in terms of ardency, conservatism, and activities" (p. 5). Also look at the study graphs. Each of the above criteria (prayer, attendance, etc.) are plotted in *separate graphs*, against homicides, suicides, etc., for all 18 countries.

Also, if Bible literalism is a "specifically American, 20th-century freak of history," as you put it, and if the study had used Bible literalism as the sole index of religiosity, how would there be any data at all for the 17 countries outside the U.S.? (And BTW, the religion data in the study was collected not by Paul, but independently by the International Social Survey Program).

THE OTHER COMMENTER Said...
Also, the idea that the Christian God is simply male is, in most mainstream theology, considered an error. The "Father" aspect is a well-known metaphor, of course, but, the "Holy Spirit" aspect is, by many, regarded as a female aspect. But God as a whole is regarded as being beyond gender. So that's another thing that the American fundamentalists are missing.

ATHANA said...
So God is not male; "he" has no gender, or, rather, parts of God are not male; parts of "him" are female; and "Father" is a woman.

Sounds as if you wouldn’t mind if we just drop "god," "him," "he," and "his" altogether? Let's go with "Goddess is not female." Or, "parts of Goddess are not female; parts of her are male." Mother is a man. Or, the part of her that's the man is the ghost part.

Nope, that doesn't make much sense either.

I appreciate the liberal churches' attempts to begin to welcome female divinity. At this point, however, in my opinion, they're not making much sense.

Men Who Love Goddess

If you didn’t get a chance to read the article about Men and the Goddess I posted a few weeks ago (9-25), here’s another part of it that struck me: it was about a group that regularly re-enacts this scenario: First, a god is cut into pieces by his brother. Second, because She loves this dismembered guy so intensely, the Goddess roams the world gathering up his pieces. Then he is reassembled and “brought back to life within the context of the Goddess.”

Of course this is the myth of Isis and Osiris. But what a new meaning this ritual casts upon them for me! What a metaphor for our times! The old, destructive gods are ground up into bits, and we start over from scratch, building them anew within the mold of a loving Goddess. A Goddess who refashions them through the sieve of her tender, personal love.

god IS NOT DEAD . . .

. . . He . . . Is . . . DEATH.

See these graphs? People, these dudes are chilling. They might as well be labeled “gods `R` Homicide & Suicide.” They come close to scientifically proving that god is not dead -- HE’S DEADLY!

These graphs come from a study published in the current issue of the highly respected and refereed Journal of Religion & Society. In a nutshell, they say this: Of all the developed countries in the world, the U.S. has the highest rate of god worship, along with – by a runaway mile -- the highest rates of homicide. (See below the list of countries in the study, as well as their graph letter-names. “U” is United States.)

Unfortunately, there are more graphs in the JR&S study. Suicide, abortion, sexual promiscuity, juvenile mortality, early adult mortality, STD infection, and teen pregnancy rates are also graphed. Americans flunk in those areas too. Yep.

The country boasting the lowest “religiosity”? Japan. And guess who also ranks among the lowest re: the above dysfunctions. You guessed it – Japan.

People, happiness is not god.

I look at these graphs, and I wanna zip out and start passing laws banning god worship. Not out of religious fervor, but to keep my friends and family safe from this pestilence. The Constitution separates church and state, but since Bush has his wrecking ball out knocking down the wall between the two, I say, goody! Let's pass laws banning god worship! It’s killing us! Don’t we still have laws against killing? Or did I miss something?

“Religiosity” in this study was based on belief in Bible literalism; frequency of prayer; frequency of “service” attendance; and belief in a “higher power” (p. 4-5). Were Goddess worshippers included in this study? The research report doesn’t say, but wanna bet me on it? Not!!!

Countries in the study:
A = Australia
C = Canada
D = Denmark
E = Great Britain
F = France
G = Germany
H = Holland
I = Ireland
J = Japan
L = Switzerland
N = Norway
P = Portugal
R = Austria
S = Spain
T = Italy
U = United States
W = Sweden
Z = New Zealand

See how, on the graphs above, the “U”s (symbolizing the United States) stand all alone by their little itsy-bitsy selves or in a corner? That corner is the god-and-death corner. It’s where you go if you’re high on the graphs' Y axes (“godly”), and also high on the X axes (“homicidal”). (Don't hold it against me if I have Y and X mixed up here, it’s been a while since I took Y & X stuff in school).

Yep, that’s us. Homicidal godly-acs. In fact, WE HAVE THE GOD AND HOMICIDE RATES OF A THIRD WORLD COUNTRY. Looking at our murder and god rates, we resemble third-world countries more than we do the “civilized” nations on our planet.

That “P” that veers off in our direction on all the graphs? It’s the one country not in the “1st-world” gang – Portugal. Portugal’s considered a “2nd-world” country – not quite as spiffy as the “first world,” but not as sad and sooty as the 3rd. And we fall below Portugal!!!

Here, from the London Times, are some snippets about this earth-shaking study:

"According to the study, belief in and worship of God are not only unnecessary for a healthy society but may actually contribute to social problems.

SNIP

“In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies.

“The United States is almost always the most dysfunctional of the developing democracies, sometimes spectacularly so.”

“Gregory Paul, the author of the study and a social scientist, used data from the International Social Survey Programme, Gallup and other research bodies to reach his conclusions.

SNIP

“The study concluded that the US was the world’s only prosperous democracy where murder rates were still high, and that the least devout nations were the least dysfunctional….”

Oh, and to add a time element to this study, as Europe’s god-worship has fallen off over the past two hundred years, so has its homicide rate (p. 6).

Go HERE to read the London Times story on this monumental study, and HERE to the Journal of Religion & Society to read the actual study report. Don’t forget to check out the graphs. They’re presented as a horizontal list (“Figure 1,” “Figure 2,” etc.) and to open them, you have to click on them one at a time.

Oh, and while you’re web surfing, check out this review:

“In Greek mythology, the intrusion of the divine into the human world was invariably portrayed as rape. The sexual appetites of Zeus, the king of the gods, were insatiable, and there is nothing in the whole catalogue of his adulteries with mortal women but a series of often literally animal violations.”

Do we really need to wonder why gods R suicide???

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Thnx to joatklipa for the foto

THE TECHNOLOGICALLY SUPERIOR Goddess

The geographer James DeMeo has admitted that his academic colleagues are “subtly evading the obvious," i.e., that the ancient Goddess-worshipping Minoans were probably technologically superior to their god-dominated contemporaries:

“In short, there is a subtle evasion of the obvious, a reluctance among contemporary scholars to consider that the peaceful matristic Minoans could have been technologically superior to the patristic, war-dominated societies of the region.”*1

The Minoans were mind-bogglingly sophisticated: 1,200 years before the ancient Greeks, they boasted multi-storied apartments, running water, city sewers, steam heat, primitive flush toilets connected to exterior sewage systems, primitive steam power, woven fabrics, movable type-faces (took Gutenberg another 3000 years to reinvent these), ships with square-rigged sails and multiple oars, and light-wells allowing natural light into all rooms of their large buildings. Also, “primitive bi-metallic batteries have been suggested [for them] in archaeological findings.” *2

Another writer, Charles Pelegrino*3, thinks that

“…had not the Minoans been … destroyed, their rate of technological development was so rapid they might have developed rockets and landed on the moon by the time of Jesus.” *3

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*1 James DeMeo, 1998. Saharasia: The 4000 BCE Origins of Child Abuse, Sex-Repression, Warfare and Social Violence in the Deserts of the Old World: The Revolutionary Discovery of a Geographic Basis to Human Behavior, p. 293.
*2 DeMeo, p. 291
*3 In Unearthing Atlantis: An Archaeological Odyssey, 1991.
*4 DeMeo, p. 291

______________
The picture is a reconstruction of the "palace" or "temple" of Knossos. Who knows what it was? Sometimes I think it was a combined shopping mall, government building, and religious center where you could also settle in a small cafe for a nice glass of wine.

To O. Snowe on H. Miers

Dear Senator Snowe:

I urge you to vote against the nomination of Harriet Miers to the U.S. Supreme Court. In addition to the fact that she has almost no experience for the job (no experience in constitutional law or as a judge), she is also an open fundamentalist Christian who (as I understand it) heard God call to her in her law office.

Recent important new research suggests an exceedingly high and almost perfect correlation between the degree of “religiosity” of a country and the mental health of its citizenry, specifically its rates of homicide, suicide, infant mortality, teen pregnancy, and other social ills. The most prestigious newspaper in England, the London Times has a summary of this study HERE.

The study itself, published in The Journal of Religion & Society, may be read HERE.

Even before obtaining this concrete evidence of what many have heretofore feared – that certain religions cause, versus prevent, human misery, I had been deeply concerned about the eroding boundaries between church and state in this country. Harriet Miers will help blur those lines even further. And if placed on the Court, she would potentially harm millions of Americans for the next twenty to thirty years to come.

ANNE THE goat JUDGE

anne the Goat Judge at "The Gods Are Bored" weighs in on Harriet Meier:

"Welcome to 'The Gods Are Bored,' where we never fail to underestimate the stupidity of the current president!

"He's nominated a person to sit as a judge on the nation's highest court who has never been a judge before.

"That makes me more qualified than her. I'm a renowned goat judge. I've done a lot of judging in my day. This is my 20th anniversary, in fact. If you have a goat, I'll tell you what I think, fairly and squarely.

"There's only one little tip-off as to this candidate's complete inappropriateness for the job to which she has been nominated.

"Today's newspaper quotes her as calling George W. Bush 'the most intelligent man I've ever met.'

"In the humble opinion of the entire staff of 'The Gods Are Bored,' that proves this judicial candidate is probably a poor judge of when it's safe to cross a street."

I guarantee that if you visit anne HERE, you will not leave without giving up a belly laugh or two. Or three.

Whooo-eeee!! – AUDIOS AVAILABLE

Go HERE to listen to audios of speakers from the Sept./Oct. “Societies of Peace: 2nd World Congress on Matriarchal Studies” Conference!

Here are just a few:

Barbara Mann, Bear Clan of the Ohio Seneca, Iroquois, USA. "They Are the Soul of the Councils": The Iroquoian Model of Woman-Power [Keynote Speaker]

Heide Goettner-Abendroth, Germany. Origin of Patriarchy -Criticism of Theories and a Suggestion for the Solution

Vicki Noble, USA. Those Without Husbands: How the Amazons Got Their Name

Joan Marler, USA. Old Europe through a Matriarchal Lens

Wilhelmina J. Donkoh, Akan, Ghana, West Africa. Female Leadership among the Ashante

Lucia Chiavola Birnbaum, Italy/USA. Black Madonnas, Cathars, and Witches – Peaceful Societies and Violence

Claudia von Werlhof, Austria, The Utopia of a Motherless World – Patriarchy as "War-System"

Peggy Reeves Sanday, USA. Divine Queenship: Considerations from the Minangkabau of West Sumatra of West Sumatra

And many more! (I know what I’m going to be doing for the rest of the evening.)

God – Symptom or Cause?

If I understood her correctly, Ursa last week suggested that gods are only a symptom of our problems -- the real, root cause is men.

In other words, the patriarchy came first, and the gods followed. Or, put another way, the gods didn’t produce the patriarchy, the patriarchy produced the gods.

Hmmm.

I thought about this so hard I hadda take Tylenol. I’m gonna go with this: It’s complicated (don’t you just hate when people say that?). I think what was at work was what cyberneticists call a “circular feedback mechanism.” The environment changes the system, but then the system bites back and changes the environment, which in turn strikes back and works on the system again, and so forth and so on. For more on circular feedback mechanisms go here.

About 6000 years ago, the rising value of men and the falling value of women* lead to a jump in thoughts about male deity and a decline in thoughts about female deity; this made male behavior a little more valuable in people's minds and female behavior a little less; this in turn boosted male gods but not female gods; and the cycle just keeps going on and on.

You may have heard this slang term: “vicious cycle.”

To me, the important question is this: If we replaced our gods with Goddesses, would our patriarchy melt away into something sane? I think the answer is yes.

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*The theory is that, due to centuries-long desertification of Northern Africa, the Mid East and Central Asia, young males were often the only members in any group to survive, and almost always the group members most able to fight for nearly non-existent food and water resources. This of course, is only a mild hint at the enormous and enormously varied pressures put on our ancestors in this kind of long-term ecological crisis.

"This is god, calling George"

This is from Echidne of the Snakes:

"Does Jehovah talk to George Bush? Does George talk to Jehovah? Are they on first name basis? We don't know for sure but a new documentary argues that the answer to all these questions is yes."

"Mr Shaath, the Palestinian foreign minister in 2003, claims Mr Bush told him and other delegates that he was spoken to by God over his plans for war.

"He told the film-makers: "President Bush said to all of us: 'I'm driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan. And I did, and then God would tell me, George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq... And I did.

"'And now, again, I feel God's words coming to me, Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East. And by God I'm gonna do it.'"

"The Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, who attended the June 2003 meeting as well, also appears on the documentary series to recount how Mr Bush told him: "I have a moral and religious obligation. So I will get you a Palestinian state."

MORE >>>

Mark this coming Monday on your calendars; this documentary appears to be a BBC series beginning then. Station? No info was given on that; check your local TV listings.

BAN ON Lesbian PREGNANCIES

“(Indianapolis, Indiana) Legislation has been introduced in the Indiana legislature that would prohibit gays, lesbians and single people in Indiana from using medical science to assist them in having a child.

[Snip]

“Among the determining factors is a requirement that the women be married to a person of the opposite sex. The assessment would contain a description of the family lifestyle and automatically exclude lesbians. Women would also have to provide proof that they have participated in faith-based or church activities. [and what kind of faith do you suppose that might be?]

MORE >>>

Oh, goodie! Now that we all get to decide who can get pregnant, let’s pass these laws:

O Anyone wanting to get pregnant hasta pass six years of classes on child rearing.

O No more than two kids for anyone.

O No kids for child molesters, rapists, or wife batterers.

O No kids for people in religions causing murder, suicide and STDs (see my 9-28 post showing jaw-dropping correlations between god-religion and murder, suicide & STDs).

O No one with an IQ under 120 may have babies (half the population must have IQs under 80, since they voted for George Bush; if future babies had IQs of 120+, we might be able to drag the average IQ back up to 100 -- eventually).

Computers are Human, Too

Computer problems! I'm back!!

Authority Vs. Power

"I like the distinction between authority and power. It shifts the ground of discussion in a most interesting way. That’s a really neat idea, the vision of our winning not by struggling for power but struggling for authority, or finding authority, or becoming authority. It seems to me that a cogent distinction between authority and power is that authority people want to make it a tradition, to hand on the authority, in order to teach others how to ‘author’ their own lives; whereas power people are devoted to keeping the power.” (From Restoring the Goddess, interview with a Goddess woman, p. 368-69.)

Although “power” runs the world today, I predict “authority” will run it in Goddess times.

Power is something wrested away, or stolen. In contrast, authority is earned -- by people others trust to do the “right” thing.

Power is a gun. Authority is influential ideas.

Whadya think?

Don't Send $ to Red Cross?

"The harsh truth that I must report to you is that the federal government and Red Cross relief efforts are still a disorganized, embarrassing mess with little or no help reaching most people -- this more than a month after Katrina. It is the freelance guerilla efforts like ours that are getting through. We aren't waiting for approval and we aren't stopping. We will make sure Bush and Co. pay for their failure later, but right now hundreds of thousands are homeless, hungry and in need of medical attention. And the rest of us have a responsibility to help them." ~Michael Moore

Thanks to Morgaine at The-Goddess for this.

Everyone knows Bush & Co. can't bear government. And they’ve ID’d a fabulous way to prove government doesn't work! Just smash at it when thousands need it to survive!

At any rate, might be better to send our donations to people like Michael Moore than to established organizations (who might be beholden to the Bushies).

The Issue of Evil

Yesterday Duncan and I drove to the local Universalist Unitarian church to check out their new lesbian minister, Reverend Myke Johnson (Duncan, of course, as always, volunteered to stay behind to guard the car).

Rev. Myke’s sermon was thought-provoking. She thinks perhaps the reason the liberal churches haven’t grown as fast as the fundies is because they’ve failed to address the issue of “evil.” Since this is a Goddess theology issue too, I stayed for the after-church coffee-and-discussion group. The discussion, however, was not about the sermon but about the upcoming fight between Maine fundies and Maine’s GLBT population. What an extraordinary church!

Societies of Peace Fotos

I was crushed yesterday -- I tried all morning, but couldn't get Real Player to bring in any of the audio of the Societies of Peace Conference. Hopefully they'll put some of the speeches in their 2005 audio Archives. I guess I'll just keep checking on the FIRE site.

Anyway, there are some really nice images here of the conference, which was the 2nd World Congress on Matriarchal Studies, "Societies of Peace: Past, Present & Future."

“A Husband Is Dust”

Oh my, oh my! Listen to this: “A husband in his wife’s house is like dust or ashes in the wind. He blows away if he’s not a good guy.”

The man who said this was the final speaker yesterday at the 2nd World Congress on Matriarchal Studies Conference in Austin, TX, "Societies of Peace." He’s a member of a group called the Minangkabau, of Sumatra, Indonesia.

What a mind-blower to hear speaker after speaker talk about this upside-down world where women have authority, and men respect them! Groups featured yesterday included the Tuareg and Berber of North Africa; the Ashante, Akan, Namibia and Khoisan of Subsaharan Africa; the Khasi, Garos, and Nayar of India, the Minangkabau of Sumatra; and the Mosuo of China

Tune in here to hear the Conference, which continues today. They don't begin today until 10 am EST, and I don't think you can tune in until then (I've been trying, and I just get error messages). So wait until 10 am Eastern Standard Time (or a little before) and then tune in to heaven!