3 KINDS OF Humans?

Today I stumbled across an interesting bit of tid I know you'll all wanna hear:

According to Plato, who got it from Aristophanes, once upon a time three kinds of humans hustled about the earth: males, females and androgynes.

Each bristled with multiple limbs: four legs and four arms for each of these fabulous critters.

But alas & alack, all three types of honeys got too sassy for the gods, so the gods split them all in two.

From the females, came lesbians.

From the males came gay men.

And from the androgynes blossomed heterosexual men and hetero women.

And the reason all of us make love? Out of a deep, primordial urge to recreate our original, eight-limbed ancestors.
___________________
From Leeming’s 2005 Oxford Companion to World Mythology, p. 18
____________
Thnx to Alan Light for this foto of him and Ellen Degeneres. Go HERE to see more.

Goddess & THE GOOD GODS

In a world where Goddesses swim at the center, what role should male gods play?

In his fine comments re: my March 11 post, Mandos suggests that male gods should somehow relate to the male role in procreation.

But is this really a top-notch, primo role for guy gods? Could there be better roles? If deities are models for how we want to treat each other, the earth, and everything on it, what male god would be best?

1. The Mother Goddess’s lover?
2. Mother’s hubbie?
3. Mother’s son?
4. Mother’s friend?
5. One who helps Mother care for and protect the kiddies?
6. One who watches over the community and keeps it safe?
7. A Dionysian-type dude in charge of good times?
8. All of the above?
9. None of the above?

Of course there’s no getting around it: since daddy-war gods such as Jehovah, Allah, Yahweh, Zeus and others punched most of our good male gods into the dust long ago, we are forced to find new ones.

Personally, I think which gods we settle on should rest on what kinda world we want to live in.

For example, among the marriage-less Moso of China, the main male god is not the Mother Goddess’ hubbie, but her lover -- ‘cause the Moso put marriage in the same category with the 24/7 ingestion of red-hot, skin-dissolving chile peppers.

But among the daddy-war-god ancient Greeks, the main guy-god had a wife he treated like the floor of a pigpen.

And the early Indo-Europeans’ main god was a dirt-bag who incested his daughter, Usas, Goddess of the Dawn.

So unless we are dying for incester, rapist, and child-molester men, or dudes who’d rather slice rice all day than marry, I’d suggest we avoid gods such as the above.

But floating around out there are lotsa fine dude-gods with “pick me, pick me!” written all over them. Some of my fave are the helper, guardian and protector gods. Take Koyote of Native American fame, for example, or Faivarongo of the Polynesian Tikopia, or Tokoyoto of the Koryak of SE Siberia. And then there are Osande, the elderly guardian god of the Ovimbundu of SW Africa (Angola), and Tanuta, also of the Koryak, and guardian of the earth, plants and animals.

A great old Chinese child-guardian god, Chang Hs’ien, is sometimes shown aiming an arrow at the earth-threatening dog star, Tien Kou (Jordan, Encyclopedia of the Gods, p. 54).

And then there’s the Aztec Huehuecoyotl, “god of sexual lust,” as author Michael Jordan puts it in The Encyclopedia of Gods.

So, zee qvestion of zee veek, liebchen, eeze, “What other dude gods model the kinda human dudes you’d like to see walking the earth today?”
__________
Thnx to aeroporc for the foto; go HERE to see a close-up and more of aeroporc's work.

Drowning IN PUNDUSTRY

"THE CRUDDIEST MOMENT OF THE CRAPPIEST DAY OF MY LIFE ON EARTH happened as I found myself watching five televisions simultaneously, each containing a different political pundit opining on the same subject. When I looked down toward my computer screen to see what the bloggers were saying about it, I noticed that a button on my shirt had come undone.

"There I was, literally contemplating my own navel. But I didn't even crack a smile because, in the relentless drone of insipid opinion, irony no longer held any meaning."

MORE>>>>

__________
Thnx to Redheaded And Ready for the foto; go HERE to see more.

IN A Nutshell

To fix things we need to dump the father/war/sky gods and plug healthy Life-Models in the empty places left behind. And a grand life-model is Goddess. She’s what we used to use – when we lived in Paradise.

Goddess makes sense: mothers bear us, not fathers. We all come from mother goddesses, not father gods.

If you want proof that the major world gods today were just phonies made up to control people, all ya hafta do is think about the idea of male gods giving birth.

Excuse me, please [Bwahahahahahaha! Hahahaha! BwaHa!]

Okay, better now [wiping tears from her eyes].

Of course males can’t make babies, so many ancient male gods had to make up stuff – hilarious stuff, like making babies from ribs. Or having them pop out of daddy's head, like Zeus did with Athena. Or out of their penisis, mouths or armpits.

Goddesses -- especially mother goddesses -- will make super healthy role models for us. Why? Bbecause healthy mothers are natural, unconditional lovers of their children.

If we treat each other the way healthy mums treat their kids -- voila! We solve most of what ails us.
_________________
Thnx to Janchan for the foto; go HERE to see more.

Spanking THE CHRISTIAN RIGHT

Another new book out slashing at YAJ* and his hooey hooligans, and exposing the danger they pose to our health, welfare and wellbeing:

God's Profits: Faith, Fraud, and the Republican Crusade for Values Voters by Sarah Posner and Joe Conason (Hardcover - Jan 22, 2008)

* Sarah Posner has produced the definitive expose of America's leading "prosperity gospel" preachers. With direct access to the Bush White House and Republican lawmakers, these televangelists have injected their Armageddon-based agenda into U.S. foreign policy…. --- Max Blumenthal ---

* Sarah Posner introduces us to the stars of a new evangelical movement who have declared welfare Satanic, poverty a religious curse, and redistribution of wealth "contrary to the word of God."... --- Esther Kaplan --- [Yes, yes, remember that passage where Jesus says "Let the poor eat cake!"?]

* God's Profits is an astounding tale of religious hucksterism--and its role in politics…. It features a cast of charlatans, demagogues, con men, and the pols and presidents who pander to them. It is also a window on the rise of the Bush family dynasty and details how John Hagee, Rod Parsley, and their ilk treat faith as a cheap political commodity on its behalf. --- Frederick Clarkson ---

_____________
*YAJ is the god YahwehAllahJehovah, who many mistakenly think of as three distinct deities.
_____________
Thnx to codyaya for the foto of Marie Antoinette; go HERE to see more of his work.

MCcAIN & THE Wicky-Wacky FRINGE

"McCain 'Proud' of Endorsement From John Hagee, Who Calls Catholics 'The Great Whore.' Where's Tim Russert Now?"

Huffington Post

Makes me bite my nails and sweat bullets to think there are actually dudes out there walking upright who think McCain could win the White House. What do they know I don't? After eight years of Dubya, how could "Bush Light" possibly turn anyone's head?
________
thnx to Air America and Rachel Maddow for the foto

Sitting AT THE FOOT OF THE MOUNTAIN

Two women - 101 and 91 years old - put us younger women to shame as they say why they voted for Hillary.



Woman number 2: I watched when Hillary "had to climb up the rough side of the mountain." I saw her respond with "courage, strength, dignity, discipline and patience. With determination she got to the top again, polished like gold...."

But how did I decide to vote for her? I "looked at what our needs are. America our country is down at the foot of the mountain. We need someone with experience, someone who's ready, willing and able to bring America back up again -- polished like gold."

Question of the day: Why is it mostly older women who have courage to support women? Male newscasters are kinder (somewhat) to Hillary than female newscasters -- who often seem to race to see who can slime Hillary with the ooziest of ooze.

To date, Harvard women lead the pack: Obama advisor Samantha Power, in a public forum, called Hillary a quote-unquote "monster."

C'mon, Sam! What's Hillary done to deserve that handle? Sounds to me, more than anything else, like a bit of self-loathing.

PLEASE, CAN WE Get You A PILLOW?

Go HERE to see the Saturday-Night-Live funny-bone buster of a debate between Hillary and Barack.
________
Thnx to Jul!e T for the foto; go HERE to see more.

Calling ALL CATHOLICS: COME HOME TO MAMA

My Dearest of Catholics,

Deep in your heart you know it's true. Poppa Pope is an old boy who belongs in the Ice Age. He has a frozen heart, just like all the phonies who’ve tried, for 2000 years, to convince you that Mary isn’t the Great Mother Goddess, the true center of the Universe.

So come on. Come home to Mama. She adores you. That father/son/ghost thingie is as phony as a three-dollar bill. Fathers don’t birth anything. They don’t feed you from their bodies. What a bill of goods we’ve all been sold!

And Jeesh! You’ve tried to compromise! You’ve tried to work with the daddy/son/ghost rule book (aka bible) -- despite the fact that it’s crammed full of violence, war, torture, misogyny, and just purely primitive desert-deity hogwash. (Go HERE for a short list of cruelty in the Bible -- but don’t go if you’re short on time.)

All you’ve asked is that instead of always daddy/son/ghost, you can sometimes use words like “creator,” “redeemer,” and “sanctifier.”

But Poppy Popie says no. Go sit in a corner and don’t leave until you promise always to say “daddy, son, and holy (masculine) ghost,” says Poppy.

Earlier this week, "The Vatican said anyone baptised under the [above] feminist [sic] terms could invalidate their marriage.”

And, “Cardinal Urbano Navarrete ... gave warning that anyone who attempted to baptise someone with a gender-neutral form would be penalised.” (Go HERE to see more of this amazing March 3rd article).

Lighten up boyz! Get used to it! You’re dinosaurs in a world beginning to smell your prehistoric, rancid breath and get brief glimpses of your green-glowing, lizardy eyes.

Since you don’t have long, why not just sit back and prop your dogs up? Chill, dudes! Why give yourselves ulcers on your way out?

Lovingly Yours,
Athana
_____
Thnx to Mandana for the foto; go HERE to see more.

Wincing OVER BAUBO

I admit it: I’m conflicted. Three posts ago I wrote about “happy” goddesses. Because she was on the list, I included the Goddess Baubo. I hate to discriminate.

On the other hand, I’m a firm believer in the notion that the human body, male and female, is sacred. And then Baubo waltzes in making the body profane – in the worst sense of the word: the swearing, soggy, sordid sense.

But is Baubo for real? Or is she a war-god makeover of some ancient sensual goddess who made the war gods blush? (The war gods are as uptight about the body as a tick about burning match heads.)

Maybe she made them sweat so much they had to discredit her.

I’m thinking of Usas, one of the few goddesses allowed into the earliest war-god pantheons (the proto-Indo-European).

Usas didn’t really do much. All she “did” was get raped by her daddy, the PIE Father God, whose name was Dieus, forerunner of Zeus and a whole host of other Indo-European Daddy Gods, way back when.

Although Dieus’ great, great, grandbaby Zeus raped grown women, the books rarely tell ya that Zeus' great, great grandaddy was a pedophile and an incestor. (By “incestor” I mean someone who commits incest; according to my online dictionary, “incestor” is not a word. I don't know why; seems like a perfectly good one to me.)

The war-god dudes did a number on all the goddesses they ran across (or should I say “over”). Is Baubo just one more war-god casualty?

Or is she some kind of shadow-side deity, a kind of once-a-year-let-your-hair-down kind of goddess, or one that serves as some kind of psychological letting-off-steam spicket?

But then why don’t we hear about male gods who have eyes at the end of their penes, and who “tell rude jokes” from their “fannies”? Or do we? Are there such gods I don’t know about?

So dear readers, I'm curious: What are your feelings about Baubo?
_________
Thnx to Anole for the pic; go HERE to seem more.

YAJ: BIG Blowhard in the BACKWATER?

Is YAJ (YahwehAllahJehovah)* just a big blowhard who’s on the down tick? Writer Alan Wolfe thinks so.

In his look at the state of religion all over the world (“The Coming Religious Peace,” The Atlantic), Wolfe says the world is getting not more, but less religious.

Interesting tidbits

ATHEISTS ON THE RISE IN AMERICA

“Some signs indicate that the Christian right may be losing steam, or at least moderating, as a political force. Nonbelief, meanwhile, is increasing: not only are atheist manifestos selling in large numbers, but the percentage of those who express no religious preference to pollsters doubled between 1990 and 2001, to 15 percent.”

YOUTUBE AND TELEVANGELISM HIT THE MIDEAST

“Americans worried about the clash of civilizations tend to focus on those forms of Islam called salafist…. Perhaps they should focus more attention on Muslim religious leaders like Amr Khaled, an Egyptian televangelist now living much of the year in England. Combining idealistic themes of self-empowerment with prosperity movement themes of self-improvement, Khaled appeals to young people….

“So does Mustafa Hosni, a young Egyptian whose YouTube videos bring messages of self-fulfillment and spiritual renewal to jeans-clad Muslims in both Europe and the Middle East.”
________
*Although most of the world mistakes him for three distinct godlets, YahwehAllahJehovah (YAJ) is really only one entity, a primitive desert war deity who's swamped our planet and helps keep it perennially at war.
_________
Thnx to km33068 for the foto; go HERE to see more of her work.