NEW BLOCKBUSTER Stars MOTHER GODDESS

In the new 3D blockbuster film Avatar, the good guys worship the Great Mother Goddess Eywa!

Finally -- a film with some real religion in it.

I know it’s late, but if you still haven’t zeroed in on that perfect holiday gift for that special someone, BUY HER/HIM A TICKET to Avatar! (Mercy, buy tickets for that un-special someone. Buy tickets for everyone on your block. This is a film everyone needs to see. Take it from your Auntie Athana!)

Wishing YOU ALL A GODDESS-FILLED WINTER SOLSTICE!

A few Winter Solstice Goddesses:

• Alcyone (Greek): Alcyone is the Kingfisher goddess. She nests every winter for two weeks, and while she does, the wild seas become calm and peaceful.
• Ameratasu (Japan): In feudal Japan, worshippers celebrated the return of Ameratasu, the sun goddess, who slept in a cold, remote cave. When the other gods woke her with a loud celebration, she looked out of the cave and saw an image of herself in a mirror. The other gods convinced her to emerge from her seclusion and return sunlight to the universe.
• Bona Dea (Roman): This fertility goddess was worshipped in a secret temple on the Aventine hill in Rome, and only women were permitted to attend her rites. Her annual festival was held early in December.
• Cailleach Bheur (Celtic): In Scotland, she is also called Beira, the Queen of Winter. She is the hag aspect of the Triple Goddess, and rules the dark days between Samhain and Beltaine.
• Demeter (Greek): Through her daughter, Persephone, Demeter is linked strongly to the changing of the seasons and is often connected to the image of the Dark Mother in winter. When Persephone was abducted by Hades, Demeter's grief caused the earth to die for six months, until her daughter's return..
• Frau Holle (Norse): Frau Holle appears in many different forms in Scandinavian mythology and legend. She is associated with both the evergreen plants of the Yule season, and with snowfall, which is said to be Frau Holle shaking out her feathery mattresses.
• Frigga (Norse): Frigga honored her son, Baldur, by asking all of nature not to harm him, but in her haste overlooked the mistletoe plant. Loki fooled Baldur's blind twin, Hod, into killing him with a spear made of mistletoe but Odin later restored him to life. As thanks, Frigga declared that mistletoe must be regarded as a plant of love, rather than death.
• La Befana (Italian): This character from Italian folklore is similar to St. Nicholas, in that she flies around delivering candy to well-behaved children in early January. She is depicted as an old woman on a broomstick, wearing a black shawl.
• Spider Woman (Hopi): Soyal is the Hopi festival of the winter solstice. It honors the Spider Woman and the Hawk Maiden, and celebrates the sun's victory over winter's darkness

~from the article "Thanks to Deities of the Winter Solstice,”
by Patti Wigington
______________________
Thanx to Oriana.Italy for the pic; go here to see more.

Keeping COMPANY WITH A GNAT’S EYEBROW

Lou Engle, a big YAJ* dude (Jehovah followers think he’s metacool), is actually telling Christians to martyr themselves in the name of anti-abortion. As in, “be willing to die” for the "cause."

He’s also shouting about a 2nd American Civil War – Abortion-Rights dudes in the left corner, and Right-to-Lifers – where else? -- in the right. (Pssst! Don’t tell anyone, but I think he means ‘war’ with real guns and live ammunition….)

And here’s a comforting bit of news: biggie Republicans in Congress are actually being seen with this gnat’s eyebrow (Sam Brownback, Jim DeMint, and Michele Bachman, for starters).

Thnx to Rachel Maddow for the tip on this situation. Check out dailykos for MORE >>>>>
___________________
YAJ is short for Yahweh-Allah-Jehovah, who many think is three separate deities, but who is really just one god -- the god of Abraham.

__________
a big round of applause to astrophotography for the foto of the gnat's eyebrow.

CULTURE WARS: WHO Killed BABY JESUS?

Action star Mr. Chuck Norris says Obamacare woulda killed Baby Jesus.

Shooting back from the hip, Washington Post writer M. Kessler says Christian-dude Chuck Norris woulda killed Mary even before she’d delivered Jesus.

Afterall, Mary was an unwed mother. Before he’da let her give birth in his holy Christian manger, Chuck woulda let her freeze to death out on the plains.

Dudes, dudes, I say! Stop your sniping! Save your lovely breath! Nobody killed baby Jesus -- Jesus never existed!

Not one shred of evidence exists that a man named Jesus of Nazareth walked the planet from 1 to 32 AD. None. Nada.

As in zip, zero and zilch.

Posted by Athana
_________
thnx to okinawa soba for the pic; go HERE to see more

Striking A NERVE?

Why are so many suffering apoplexies over the simple notion that, in the past, the world might have revolved around goddesses?

Take, for example, Mr. Robert Sheaffer at “The Debunker’s Domain.” Mr. R.S. must have spent months -- if not years -- scouring the planet for every document he could scare up that might possibly besmirch the notion of Goddess.

For the best yucks, read all the way to the final article. In “Why Is the ‘Goddess Movement’ Being so Vehemently Promoted?” Mr. S. explains that it’s all a lesbian plot (to what? Turn him into a lesbian?).

Frankly, my dears, methinks mi’lady doth protest too much….
___________
Thnx to dogwelder for the foto; go HERE to see more of his work.
__________
P.S. For a refutation of nearly everything Mr. R.S. says, read Switching to Goddess: Humanity's Ticket to the Future, by Jeri Studebaker, 2009, O Books: Winchester, UK. You can put your hands on a copy of STG at almost any online bookstore.

INTERNATIONAL Childless PEOPLE’S DAY

Since Mother Earth is suffocating under skanky loads of human flesh, doesn’t it follow that the world’s true heroes are our radically fab and super-cool childless men and women? Those who say, “No. I refuse to add to the refuse. I WILL not use my body to pound out more earth-polluting human flesh!"

In honor of these most awesome of the Earth’s awesome, I hereby dub today, December 10, “Childless Peoples’ Day.”

Thank you, fab Childless People, for working to wipe human-flesh pollution off the face of the Earth. You blow me away!

Of course parents are important too. Parents will pump out the people who’ll celebrate Childless People’s Day – kids who -- we all pray -- will become childless themselves one day.
_________
Thnx to fbako for the foto; go HERE to see more of her work.

ANCIENT GODDESSES Score BIG

Yikes!

Two days ago, one of the biggest US newspapers ever – The New York Times –actually printed an article about that “little-known” Goddess culture, Old Europe!

And from what I understand, this article was plopped onto the front page of this Grandmama of all US newspapers!

According to the article, since Old European figurines, jewelry and other stuff are currently on display at New York University, Old Europe is now being “rescued from obscurity.”

‘Bout time, I say!

Of course the article is not without its flaws.

First, the author downplays the notion that women had power in Old Europe, or that the “ubiquitous” female figurines were – gasp! – goddesses (Oh no! Not scary goddesses!).

The explanation at the end of the article as to what these figurines “were” is a hoot. Don’t miss it! Apparently the author threw a bunch of words into a bag, shook hard, dumped the words, and then printed them out on paper.

The resulting paragraphs read like crow tracks rambling across a snow bank.

Second, a guy’s quoted saying the Old Europeans had a social hierarchy – you know, social classes, snooty snobs, and all that ick? Hafta give the author of the article credit, though. At least he clears his throat and voices a gigundo concern, namely this: if the Old Europeans had snooty snobs, why didn’t the snoots live in nicer houses than everyone else did?

Thing is, Old Europe *had* no “nicer” houses with “nicer” stuff in them. All the houses were equal, and plumped up with equally nice furniture, dishes, art, and so forth.

Well, enough of my rambling. Here for your reading pleasure, are a few snippets from the article, A Lost European Culture, Pulled From Obscurity, by John Noble Wilford, published November 30, 2009

Before the glory that was Greece and Rome, even before the first cities of Mesopotamia or temples along the Nile, there lived in the Lower Danube Valley and the Balkan foothills people who were ahead of their time in art, technology and long-distance trade.

SNIP

Their graves held an impressive array of exquisite headdresses and necklaces and, in one cemetery, the earliest major assemblage of gold artifacts to be found anywhere in the world.

SNIP

Until recent discoveries, the most intriguing artifacts [found from this culture] were the ubiquitous terracotta “goddess” figurines, originally interpreted [sic] as evidence of the spiritual and political power of women in society.

SNIP

At its peak, around 4500 B.C., said David W. Anthony, the exhibition’s guest curator, “Old Europe was among the most sophisticated and technologically advanced places in the world” and was developing “many of the political, technological and ideological signs of civilization.”

A few towns of the Cucuteni people, a later and apparently robust culture in the north of Old Europe, grew to more than 800 acres, which archaeologists consider larger than any other known human settlements at the time.

SNIP

“The concentration of imported prestige objects in a distinct minority of graves suggest that institutionalized higher ranks did exist,” exhibition curators noted in a text panel accompanying the Varna gold.

Yet it is puzzling that the elite seemed not to indulge in private lives of excess. “The people who donned gold costumes for public events while they were alive,” Dr. Anthony wrote, “went home to fairly ordinary houses.”

SNIP

An entire gallery is devoted to the [human and primarily female] figurines, the more familiar and provocative of the culture’s treasures. They have been found in virtually every Old Europe culture and in several contexts: in graves, house shrines and other possibly “religious spaces.”

Go HERE to read the entire article.
__________________
The pic above shows a Cucuteni goddess figurine. She dates from 4045-3800 BC.

Clawing YOUR WAY INTO HEAVEN

By being slaughtered, raped, or both, women can claw their way into Jehovah’s heaven.

Or, by pumping nails into the heads of peacefully sleeping men:

“Blessed above women shall Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite be…. She put her hand to the nail, and her right hand to the workmen’s hammer; and with the hammer she smote Sisera, she smote off his head, when she had pierced and stricken through his temples.” ~Judges 5.24-26.

Excepting the deep-down brain dead, what woman would willingly call herself a Christian?

And what cool dude would touch a Christian woman with a ten-foot pole?

________
Thnx to Jo Harpley for the foto; go HERE to see more of her work.

BURKA WEARERS Bamboozled

"In the 21st century, the Islamic burka, the full-face-and-body veil, adopted by more women every day, has become the most potent human symbol on earth. But what exactly does it symbolize? Many say it stands for piety. No, that's wrong, says Marnia Lazreg, an Algerian-born professor of sociology at the City University of New York. Piety has little to do with it; the Koran doesn't even mention the veil.

In truth, the veil stands for political ideology and male power."

MORE >>>>
________
Thnx to jjay69 for the foto; go HERE to see more of his work.

PLEASE Pass THE YAJ*

Ever notice how YAJ* barks and bites at himself -- 24/7? It’s not just Yahweh stomping on Allah, Allah jumping on Jehovah, and Jehovah yammering away at Yahweh. It’s Baptists beating up on Methodists, and Methodists mopping the floor with Mormons.

And each sect beats up on its own, the Reformed Baptists blistering the Free Will Baptists, and the Evangelical Methodists bellowing about how the United Methodists don’t have a *clue.*

And so on.

Even in YAJ houses of worship there’s a feast of fussing and fighting. How to spend the church coffers. Who to hire to replace the priest (rabbi, iman, etc.). How many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

Maybe the way to sweep away the entire mess is just to let YAJ fight himself harder and faster, and faster and harder -- until he becomes a puddle of butter.

And we can take that butter home to Mama, who’ll make us some pancakes.

Yum!
___________
*YAJ: the god Yahweh-Allah-Jehovah. Most think YAJ is three separate gods, but they're wrong. YAJ is just one mean old dude with a split personality. He's the god of the Old Testament patriarch Abraham.
_______
Thnx to jeromestarkey for the foto of the Afghan dog fight. Go HERE to see more of his work.

WARFARE IS not IN OUR DNA

This article in NewScientist is worth a look-at. Says what I do in Switching to Goddess: anyone who thinks warfare is in our genes is off track:

OPTIMISTS called the first world war "the war to end all wars". Philosopher George Santayana demurred. In its aftermath he declared: "Only the dead have seen the end of war". History has proved him right, of course. What's more, today virtually nobody believes that humankind will ever transcend the violence and bloodshed of warfare. I know this because for years I have conducted numerous surveys asking people if they think war is inevitable. Whether male or female, liberal or conservative, old or young, most people believe it is. For example, when I asked students at my university "Will humans ever stop fighting wars?" more than 90 per cent answered "No". Many justified their assertion by adding that war is "part of human nature" or "in our genes". But is it really?

MORE >>>>

CHICKEN WINGS & Red PEPPERS

Am microwaving chicken wings, brussels sprouts, squares of sweet red peppers and broccoli spears for dinner.

The aroma is wafting out to me on my sunporch and I’m salivating.

AND thinking about how the wonderful chemicals and substances and nutrients in these foods come directly from Mother Earth – really, they ARE Mother Earth, Her gift to us.

Amazingly, She gives of Her Body to sustain us and keep us alive and in good health.

Thank you Great Mother. I adore You more than words can tell.

Dressing THE BRIDE

This poem moved me to tears. Called "Dressng the Bride," it was written by Goddess Pages Editor Geraldine Charles.

Geraldine captures the heart & soul of what on this blog we call the 6000-year "slippery slide" of the Goddess into Her current underground hideaway. But read all the way to the end, because there you'll find a golden promise:

Sure, ‘twas as though the granite bones
And flesh of earthen Mother,
Rose up, said, “Well, I’ve a will to be wed
To my white and golden lover
My white, my gold-haired lover.

“He’s a son of the sun and a son of my own
So the sun and the sky I will wed,
For they say I’m owed a warrior bold
To protect the fields in my stead
To preserve the land in my stead.”

Will Sheelah-na-Gig then jig for joy?
Will fairies then dance in a ring?
Or will Morgan le Fay angrily say,
“We’ve started a terrible thing
Oh, begun a terrible thing.”

“Oh, Mother”, we said, “don’t marry that man,
We need no warriors bold and brave -
His kind will call you whore and hag,
Rip minerals from your caves,
Yes, rape iron and oil from your caves.

“No, Mother, don’t marry the son of the sun,
His sons will bring you sorrow -
They’ll shit in the ocean and piss in your wells,
For you there’ll be no tomorrow,
For all of us no tomorrow.”

And Sheelah-na-Gig won’t jig for joy,
The fairies won’t dance in a ring -
And Morgan le Fay will sadly say,
“We’ve started a terrible thing
Oh, begun a terrible thing.”

We’ll give you a day like you never had
A day of praises, joy and mirth -
Far better than tying yourself to that lad
A day for Mother Earth
Just to celebrate Mother Earth.

We’ll dress you in green; we’ll dress you in brown,
We’ll polish your lakes, from swords make ploughs,
And braid wildflowers into your crown -
And berries for your brow,
Gather berries for your brow.

And Sheelah-na-Gig will jig for joy,
The fairies will dance in a ring -
And Morgan le Fay will gravely say,
“We’ve avoided a terrible thing
Oh, escaped a terrible thing.”

But oh, my darlings, sad to say,
She wed the warrior bold and brave.
His sons forced all our maids away,
Ripping minerals from the caves,
Raping iron and oil from our caves.

So we went down to Troytown,
One cold and bitter winter’s day -
And danced into the Maizey Wheel,
And never came out again,
Not for five thousand years and a day.

And Sheelah-na-Gig is forced to church,
The fairies are no longer near.
And Morgan le Fay’s called bitch and whore,
There’s no place for the Lady here,
No, no place for the Lady here.

***

Now the dragon paths are trod again,
The veils are lifting from our eyes -
As earthen mother breaks her chains,
Flicks the warriors off like flies,
Flicks the warriors off like flies.

We’ll dress her in green; we’ll dress her in brown,
And polish her lakes, from swords make ploughs,
And braid wildflowers into her crown -
With berries for her brow,
Yes, to bind around her brow.

And Sheelah-na-Gig will jig for joy,
The fairies will dance in a ring -
And Morgan le Fay will gladly say,
“Our mother is everything
Mother Earth is everything.”

And Sheelah-na-Gig will jig for joy,
The fairies will dance in a ring -
And Morgan le Fay will sing all day,
“Our mother is everything
Mother Earth is everything.”

©2004, Geraldine Charles

When I read this poem, I want to sing it. Actually, I did sing it, in a Medieval kind of minor key that I just made up as I went along.

For me, singing this poem is a powerful experience. Try it, I think you'll like it!

In Switching to Goddess, I call for artists of all kinds to create works of art that bring The Goddess to the attention of the world.

This poem certainly does just that. I wonder if Geraldine would mind if a musician in our community put this poem to music?
__________
Thnx to Geraldine for letting me use this foto of her.
_______
Postscript: July 5, 2009. Geraldine said she has music to go with the poem. However, anyone who wants to put new music to it can, just give her credit for the words. Also, she's going to ask a good friend of hers -- a professional singer -- to make a podcast of the song. Alright!

MRS. B. BOWERS Explains MARRIAGE

In this not-to-be-missed video, Mrs. Betty Bowers, America's best Christian, explains marriage to everyone else:

THE WICKED CHILLY LINK BETWEEN War & RELIGION

It’s no accident that the Christian Bible is peppered over 300 times with the words “war” and “warrior.”

It’s no accident either that the History Channel offers almost nothing but shows on war and the bloody, blood-soaked Abrahamic religions*.

Fact is, there’s a wicked chilling link between war and the Abrahamaic religions*: It’s the Abrahamic and other war religions that cause war.

So how do we rid the world of war? Well, unless you’re willing and able to scrap the war religions, might as well forget it and go home, prop your dogs up, and snooze.
_______

*The Abrahamaic religions are Christianity, Judaism and Islam. So few differences exist among these three that they might as well be one religion. And since they spread like cancer, they now infect over half (53%) of the people in the world.
____________
thnx to spatial mongrel for the foto; go HERE to see more.

HAPPY SUMMER SOLSTICE!

Seems everyone who's anyone in the northern hemisphere celebrates (or has celebrated) the Summer Solstice.

Everyone except YAJ* that is, who despises Mother Earth as much as flies despise flypaper (because She's way more powerful than he is. Temper, temper, YAJ*!)

“Most societies in the northern hemisphere, ancient and modern, have celebrated a festival on or close to” the Summer Solstice.

For example, the Ancient Celts, Ancient China, Ancient Gaul, the Ancient Germanic countries, the Slav and Celtic tribes in Europe, Ancient Rome, Ancient Sweden, the Essenes, Native Americans, and the people of Prehistoric Europe.

Even the early Christians set their feast day of St. John the Baptist on June 24. It’s “one of the oldest [of all Christian] feasts, if not the oldest, introduced into both the Greek and Latin liturgies to honour a saint.”

Go HERE to read more.
_________
*YAJ is the god Yahweh-Allah-Jehovah, a schizoid diety who usually tries to pass himself off as three totally distinct holy dudes.

COMPASSION -- Like a Fox

These technically fab but amazingly violent illustrations come from a rare antique children's book I found recently.

I'm blown away by how violent and chillingly callous this book is. I can't believe that only a little over 100 years ago we, in our YAJ*-based culture, were reading this stuff to our four- and five-year-olds.

The book has four stories.

The pictures you see here come from "Tittums and Fido," and "Reynard the Fox."In "Ann and Her Mamma," Mamma points to a beggar girl and tells Ann to think how much more god has given her, Ann, than he has the beggar.

This girl is in bigtime trouble: "... her hands look like skeleton's bones; She has got a few rags, just about her to tie; And her naked feet bleed on the stones...."

And yet there's no mention of helping this human being starving right in front of their eyes; she's only an object lesson for lucky little Ann.

So much for Jesus and Christian compassion.

While I think we've come a long way, baby, since 1871, I seriously doubt YAJ* or Jesus had anything to do with it.

I just think the Goddess is on the rise again.

BTW, if you're interested in owning a book like this -- if only to remind yourself how far the Goddess has gotten us -- I'm selling it on eBay. Go HERE to see it (it's the red book with the parrot and crow on the front, called The Poll Parrot Picture Book).

You won't find any other copies of this book for sale on the Net -- it's just too rare. But you will find two copies in UK’s National Art Gallery.

The first was given to the Prince of Wales as a gift . Its gift inscription reads “To Prince George of Wales. June 3rd 1871 Michys (?), humble devoted duty. Many happy returns of the day.” Also in the book is this: "This book was presented to the Library of the Victoria & Albert Museum by Her Majesty Queen Mary."
______
*YAJ is Yahweh-Allah-Jehovah, the god of Abraham. Many think YAJ is three different gods, but on this blog we know he's just one mean ol' cuss who's shot the world into the mess you see it in now.

WHY DON'T CHRISTIANS Act MORE LIKE CHRISTIANS?

You’ve seen it: Christians behaving badly.

Very badly.

They murder doctors (see two posts below), they murder their own children*, and they’ve even been known to wipe out entire flocks with one fell swoop of their poison-Koolaid pitchers (enter “Jim Jones” and “Peoples Temple” into any search engine and read all about it).

Where’d this pipe spring a leak? I’ll tell you where: In the Old Testament.

The Old Testament – which Christians refuse to burn and bury – is run by Jehovah the control freak, or as the famous British writer and scientist Richard Dawkins puts it, “… a vindictive, bloodthirsty …, misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”

Dawkins adds: “Those of us schooled from infancy” in Jehovah’s ways “can become desensitized to their horror.”

And there you have it. This is why Christ means nothing -- as in zero, zip and nada – to Christians. His daddy Jehovah swamps him out.

Christians have never behaved like Christ.

From their beginnings in Rome when they ran around burning and looting the city, through their bloody Inquisition and “witch”** purges in the Middle Ages, to their modern Jonestowns and systematic killings of physicians, gays and their own sweet offspring,* Christians have been “misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bullies.”

The nut never falls far from the tree, does it?

But please, mamas, don't let your kids grow up to be Christian!


_________________________________
*Go HERE to read about Andrea Yates, Susan Smith, Deanna Laney and Christina Rigg.
_______
**I put "witches" in quotes here because while many of the women burned and tortured by Christians during the Middle Ages might have been real witches -- in the real sense of the word, i.e., women with the power to do magic -- it's a well-known fact that most of them were not.

The Christians went hog-wild killing and maiming during the Inquisition, and after a while didn't care who they ground into the dirt with the heels of their boots. Why? Partly because The "Church" was making it profitable for them to do so.
___________________
Thanx to alfire for the foto; go HERE to see more.

WAS JESUS REALLY A Goddess?

Compared to his dad Jumping Jehovah at least, Jesus plays ball more like a goddess than a god. For example, he says, “Suffer the little children to come unto me” (although you’d be hard pressed to find him doing anything awesome for, to or with any of the kiddies in the Holy Bible).

He says, “Hey! Listen up dudes! I’m really serious about this: Do. Not. Hit. People. Or do anything else mean and janky to them.”

I do, however, think Jesus goes a tad further than any healthy, respectable goddess would go when he says, “Be a doormat. Someone bites you, sit on your big, throbbing need to bite back and offer the back of your other hand to let them sink their teeth into.”

In bigtime contrast, I think the Big-Cheese Guiding Mother Goddesses tell us not to hold out our hands for mutilation, but to teach, educate and reform biters.

The Mothers aren’t keen on having any of their babies bitten once, let alone twice.

And maybe *that’s* why Jesus’ disciples were mostly men! About 90% of all goddesses are heterosexual, and what good het goddess doesn’t adore the company of men?!?

And there, too, is why Jesus never married. His dad would sooner salt and oil gays and fry them up for breakfast as look at ‘em. So of course Jesus the goddess could hardly go around dating men. How would that make Her daddy look to all his carefully trained homophobic Christian buds?
________________
Many thnx to ElenaRay for the picture above. Go HERE for more of her fab work.

A CLUE: RELIGION ISN’T Going ANYWHERE

I don’t know about you, but I’m getting fed up with the “Religion is so bad to us -- why won’t it go away” camp. (See this article and the snippets from it below).

First, dust off your anthropology books, sweeties. Religion won’t go away ‘cause we humans exit mommy’s womb blank slates – stupidos, really – and we need something to clue us in on how to behave.

Animals have all the luck – they’re born with instincts. We aren’t. To survive, we hafta hang on for dear life to a “culture” – a connected spider web of rules for how to do everything from raising baby Bing to tying your shoe laces.

And religion is the center around which all cultures spin. Every single society anthropologists have studied has had religion. Why? ‘Cause without religion, humans can’t cope. (Well, dudes like Chris Hitchens can cope, but that’s only because they suck off a society already organized around a religion).

Second, the only reason some think religion is bad is this: The only religions they “see” are the ones with daddy-war gods ruling the roost: Yahweh’s religion, and Allah’s, and Jehovah’s, Ares’, Mars’, Zeus’, Indra’s, and the daddy-war god religions of the ancient Aztecs, Incas, Mayans, and Egyptians.

Jeesh, dudes, get a grip! Reams of other religions in the world haven’t lead to “political excesses … intolerance, persecutions, expulsions, forced conversions, [and] autos-da-fé…”. And guess what? They weren’t run by daddy-war gods. Look for example at the religions of the Pueblos, the Tahitians, or the Inuit.

And for big, beautiful complex civilizations run without daddy-war gods, feast your eyes on the Minoan and the Indus Valley Civilizations. All signs point to these two swirling around not daddy-war gods, but gorgeous guiding oddesses.
___________

“Prominent secularization theorists like Peter L. Berger who, as recently as the 1960s, openly conceded religion's demise, are having to radically alter their forecasts. They have had to invent new concepts and categories to describe the phenomenon of religion's unexpected global resurgence.”

SNIP

But Jeesh, look at “… the historical and political excesses of dogmatic belief: the intolerance, the persecutions, the expulsions, the forced conversions, the autos-da-fé….”

From Reason vs. Faith: the Battle Continues
______________________
thnx to SLS Photography for the fine foto; go HERE to see more of her work.

AUNTIE ATHANA ON Tiller's KILLER

Sweet Babies, this is your Auntie Athana speaking.

I've come to bark at you again about how we've gotta boot YAJ off the planet before he boots us all off, along with all other life on earth (well, YAJ would have a hard time booting cockroaches, lice and sharks off our Mother. These dudes have been around so long they have tricks up their sleeves to smear and spank just about anything that might do them damage. Besides -- since he's a lice-and-cockroach infested shark himself, YAJ feels right at home with these critters).

As most of you know by now, YAJ is Yahweh/Allah/Jehovah, the god of Abraham.

Most think YAJ is three separate gods, but naaaaah. He's just one old slimy, primitive, desert war god drunk with the desire to do us all in. On a regular basis, this sick slickie takes normal, sane human beings and turns them into deadly dirt.

Take today's christian killer of Doctor George Tiller in a YAJ house of worship, for example. This dude was born an innocent, sweet-as-pie little human, blessed by the Goddess. But the lord god Jehovah got his cockroach hooks into him, and look at him now. A piece of human waste.

But what else can you expect when a human gets sucked in by a primitive tribal war god who thinks he can give birth? Excuse for a minute (HAHAHAHAH, HA, HA HA HA HARDY HAR HAR!!! [hachoo].) Ahem. Okay. Better now.

Anyhoo, it's time to make YAJ disapper so he can't infest any other beautiful, gorgeous human being with soul lice. You can see what YAJ-infected people do if they don't get their way. They kill. They murder. They gun people down even in places supposedly sacred to YAJ. Of course this isn't hard for them, because almost nothing's actually sacred to YAJ. That's all a scam. The only things sacred to YAJ are war, killing, and getting his own way. Go do a serious scan of his book the Bible if you don't believe me.

But it's not people who're at fault. People just get suckered in by YAJ. YAJ makes them miserable, and then they think the only way to get unmiserable is to suck up to YAJ. What we need to do is boot YAJ off the planet. For good. Period. End of sentence.

And then we can all return to female and mother deities as our major guiding lights.

Unless of course we all want to live in a world run by killers, murderers, war-starters and control freaks. (I won't even go into the history of mass murdering done by YAJ and his sucky sucked-in followers. I haven't had dinner yet, and I'd like to eat before next week is over.)

____________

Thnx to Leopard Girl for the foto "Lunch - La Cucaracha." Go HERE to see more of her work.

Breaking NEWS: BUSH'S WAR & THE bible

Hot-off-the-press: Rumsfeld used Bible verses to help keep G.W. Bush in the Iraq War:

ON THE MORNING OF Thursday, April 10, 2003, Donald Rumsfeld’s Pentagon prepared a top-secret briefing for George W. Bush. This document, known as the Worldwide Intelligence Update, was a daily digest of critical military intelligence so classified that it circulated among only a handful of Pentagon leaders and the president.... On this particular morning, it showed the statue of Saddam Hussein being pulled down in Firdos Square, a grateful Iraqi child kissing an American soldier, and jubilant crowds thronging the streets of newly liberated Baghdad. And above these images, and just below the headline SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, was a quote that may have raised some eyebrows. It came from the Bible, from the book of Psalms: “Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him…To deliver their soul from death.”

This mixing of Crusades-like messaging with war imagery, which until now has not been revealed, had become routine. On March 31, a U.S. tank roared through the desert beneath a quote from Ephesians: “Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.” On April 7, Saddam Hussein struck a dictatorial pose, under this passage from the First Epistle of Peter: “It is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men.” (To see these and more Bush-administration intelligence cover sheets, visit GQ.com’s exclusive slideshow)."

Other verses Rummie used:

Their arrows are sharp,
all their bows are strung;
their horses' hoofs seem like flint,
their chariot wheels like a whirlwind. Isaiah 5:28

Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go." Joshua 1:9 (shown with pics of tanks and a war plane)

No king is saved by the size of his army;
no warrior escapes by his great strength.
A horse is a vain hope for deliverance;
despite all its great strength it cannot save.
But the eyes of the LORD are on those who fear him,
on those whose hope is in his unfailing love,
to deliver them from death
and keep them alive in famine.
Psalms 33: 16-19

All this comes from some very cool investigative journalism by the Gentlemen's Quarterly (GQ). Go HERE for the rest of the article.

BTW, if you're ready to hear more about how Jehovah is first and foremost a war god, read Switching to Goddess: Humanity's Ticket to the Future.
_________
a big thnx to Josef Meixner for the suit of armor; go HERE to see more of his work.

WORLD without GODDESS: TOTALLY WACKED

After we humans lost the Goddess as the center of life, liberty and sunny joy,* we morphed into a totally wacked out, wiggy species:

”Today most of the world’s business is conducted by wolf- and dog-like dominance hierarchies peopled by packs of young men headed up by top-dog alpha-males.

"Like a bunch of starving psychotics in a small sandbox, the world’s major nations today spend most of their energy violently snatching food and other resources out of the hands of 'weaker' nations. From our constant wars and interpersonal violence (if you [feel you] never have enough you 'need' to take from others) and our rape of women, their children and the environment (deep down we feel Mother Earth abandoned us) to our obesity, overpopulation and propensity to hoard, starvation culture supplies explanations for almost everything about ourselves we deeply despise. As a matter of fact, when you finally realize it, it’s hard to see why we didn’t see it before. Almost everything we loathe about ourselves looks suspiciously like the behavior of wild dog packs, wolf packs, or the unhinged humans we keep locked up in mental and penal institutions."

~From Switching to Goddess: Humanity's Ticket to the Future, 2009, Jeri Studebaker, Winchester, UK: O Books, p. 206

How did we lose Goddess? It has to do with long-ago climate change, and something called "starvation culture."

Is your interest piqued? Then tap those keys on over to your fave online bookstore and pick up a copy of Switching to Goddess: Humanity's Ticket to the Future.

Whether you live in the UK, Australia, Canada, Italy, France, Germany, the Netherlands, China, Japan or the US, there's an online bookstore in your country selling Switching to Goddess.


LIVE IN THE U.S.? Switching is being sold at the following online U.S. bookstores:

Buy.com $19.24
Alibris $19.93
Paperbackshop-US $20.00
biggerbooks.com $20.74
Overstock.com $21.72
Bookbyte $22.36
ecampus.com $23.43
TextbooksRus $23.62
Blackwell $28.44
Powell's Books $28.93
Barnes & Noble.com $28.94
A1Books $16.42
SuperBookDeals $18.46
Buy.com $19.24
Copperfields $19.50
Allstarbooks $21.07
Destined2Buy Books $22.70
Robin Pugh's Nest of Treasures $27.65
all_books $37.84
SuperBookDeals $18.46

LIVE IN THE UK? Switching is being sold at the following online UK bookstores:
Pickabook $19.45
Blackwell $23.57
Amazon.co.uk $27.04
Browns Books $19.93
The Saint Bookstore $22.50
Books2Anywhere.com $24.44
Revaluation Books $27.88
Quartermelon $38.30
ABC Books $36.19

LIVE IN CANADA? Switching is being sold at the following online Canadian bookstores:
Amazon.ca $24.54
chapters.indigo.ca $33.90

LIVE IN FRANCE? Switching is being sold at:
Amazon.fr $32.39

LIVE IN AUSTRALIA? Switching is being sold at:
AussieBookSeller (via AbeBooks) $52.88

LIVE IN THE NETHERLANDS? Go to:
van Stockum $46.63

LIVE IN ITALY? Go to:
deastore.com $31.07

LIVE IN GERMANY? Switching is being sold at:
Amazon.de $39.92
buch.de $44.53

LIVE IN JAPAN? Switching is being sold at:
Amazon.co.jp

LIVE IN CHINA? Switching is being sold at:
Amazon.cn
______________
* This happened first around 4000 BC in the Middle East but may still be going on in places recently discovered and still centered on Goddess.
______________
thnx to mediageek for the foto of "cyrus whackin weeds."

The Vanishing Face of [Mother] Gaia: A Final Warning

A few tidbits from a review of James Lovelock's new book The Vanishing Face of Gaia: A Final Warning:

THE GIST OF THE BOOK: "‘The Earth, in its but not our interests, may be forced to a hot epoch, one where it can survive, although in a diminished and less habitable state. If, as is likely, this happens, we will have been the cause… too many people, their pets and their livestock - more than the Earth can carry.’

WHO IS LOVELOCK?: "... creator of the ‘Gaia hypothesis’. Back in 1974 ... Lovelock wrote cheerfully: ‘Assuming the present per capita use of energy, we can guess that at less than 10,000 million we should still be in a Gaian world. But somewhere beyond this figure, especially if the consumption of energy increases, lies the final choice of permanent enslavement on the prison hulk of the spaceship Earth, or gigadeath to enable the survivors to restore a Gaian world.’

"[Lovelock is] an intelligent man who developed highly sensitive scientific instruments for NASA, ... a free thinker who could be selectively quoted to provide succour to an enormous range of views, from the failings of climate science to the benefits of nuclear power.

WHY DOES THE REVIEWER THINK LOVELOCK IS DANGEROUS?: " ... his writings ... throw up the possibility of a world in which Nature is placed before humanity, with irrational and reactionary consequences.

WHAT IS THE GAIA HYPOTHESIS?: "For Lovelock, the Earth is a self-regulating, living system. He was initially struck by just how precisely the Earth’s atmosphere suited the maintenance of life compared with that of Mars, and concluded that this could not have simply been some geophysical accident; he argued that a web of complex feedbacks helped to ensure that the proportions of different gases were closely maintained.

"Lovelock is certainly in no doubt that the Earth is alive, though he is not really sure what that means. ‘Why do you keep on talking about the Earth as alive? This is a good question, and there is no rational answer; indeed to some of my friends my suggestion that the whole planet is alive is not “scientifically incorrect”, it is absurd. In reply, I say that science has not yet formulated a full definition of life.'"

For other reviews, zip on over to Amazon.com.

HOW YAJ* Grew INTO A BIG DUDE

This is an oldie but "goodie": a 2007 article I bumped into about how UK Muslim teenage girls are being beaten up in the streets if they refuse to become Muslim. Some are in for double trouble: beaten up AND forced to quit the university.

If you've ever wondered how sects as skanky as the war-god religions* have swamped the earth -- they've now infected over half the world's population -- wonder no more. This is exactly how they did it: by ramming it up our noses.
_________________
*YAJ is short for Yahweh/Allah/Jehovah. Many think Yahweh, Allah and Jehovah are three separate gods, but they're not. They are just one god -- the god of Abraham.

**Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism -- are all headed up by warrior gods who do almost nothing all day but kill, maim and slaughter. Open up a christian bible sometime and check out how often Jehovah does anything else. Think there might be any connection between that and the fact that Big J's followers kill, maim and slaughter on average about once every decade or so?
___________
thnx to Mr. Azza for the foto

Praying TO GODDESS?

Anyone wanna take a stab at answering a friend of mine?

"I'm reading [Switching to Goddess].... One thing that occurs to me is that many of the people you are apparently addressing, i.e., religious people who are slave to male god concepts, hold very dear the idea of personally communing with God by means of prayer.

"Almost all the religious people I know (i.e., the two or three) plus my own memories, involve prayer. I find the goddess or pagan religions don't emphasize this much. In Spiral Dance, is that the Starhawk?, anyway I recall reading lots about ceremony and ritual, but not about prayer.

"So the question is, in what manner does one access the goddess? Is it largely an intellectual idea, or is there an analog to Christian prayer? How human is the goddess?"

STILL Hiding THE GODDESS

Unbelievable! This May 2009 NatGeo article about China's Sichuan and Yunnan Provinces mentions zip & nada about that region's most totally amazing people: the Moso (Mosuo) of Mother Lake.

Not only do the Moso center their lives around goddesses, they're also the only known culture in the world giving the old heave-ho to the institution of marriage.

Although the article's subtitled "Searching for Shangri-La," the author says he didn't find it.

Of course the poor dude didn't! He didn't visit the Moso!

For the real story on the real Shangri-La, get your hands on a copy of Switching to Goddess: Humanity's Ticket to the Future, 2008. In it you'll find an entire up-to-date chapter on the marriageless Moso and their magnificent goddesses.

Love,
Athana
____________
thnx to Dirk Borchers for the foto of the Moso girl.

Helping GODDESS SUCCEED

"...the fact is that almost all new religious movements fail....

"The sociologist Rodney Stark is one of the few people who have been willing to develop specific ideas about what makes new religious movements succeed.

SNIP

"'The main thing you've got to recognize,' he [Stark] told me, 'is that success is really about relationships and not about faith. What happens is that people form relationships and only then come to embrace a religion.'

SNIP

"'Something else: give people things to do.... The Mormons are great at giving people things to do too. You know, they not only tithe money but they also tithe time. They do an enormous amount of social services for one another, all of which builds community bonds. It also gives you this incredible sense of security—I'm going to be okay when I'm in a position of need; there are going to be people to look out for me. That makes a difference.' "

Go HERE for MORE, to "Oh Gods!" in The Atlantic >>>>>>> .

I Adore CHRISTIANS

I adore Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Jews and Zeus worshippers. They're all sweet, lovable beauties born out of the Goddess.

It's their earth-killing, people-eating "religions" that make me want to punch holes in pillows.

Sweeties, tons of religions are out there to choose from. Why latch onto the ones that are mean, ugly, and out to take the human species to the cleaners?
____________________
thnx to jaki good for the foto; go HERE to see more.

Buried MOTHER-GODDESS STORIES

Buried in an old box of books I snapped up at an auction last week, I discovered a great old 1934 book called Tales of the Cochiti Indians. These stories were collected by the anthropologist Ruth Benedict. Nestled in this book are 10-15 stories about the Cochiti Mother Goddess. Here, for your reading pleasure, is part of one:

"The Origin of Death

"They were coming up from Shipap. One of their children became sick and they did not know what was the trouble with him. They had never seen sickness before. They said to the Shkoyo (curing society) chief, 'Perhaps our Mother [Goddess] in Shipap will help us. Go back and ask her to take away this trouble.' He went back to our Mother and she said to him, 'The child is dead. If your people did not die, the world would fill up and there would be no place for you to live. When you die, you will come back to Shipap to live with me. Keep on traveling and do not be troubled when your people die...."

This story is an "origin tale." Benedict collected these stories in the summer of 1924, from old Cochiti. Why old people? Because "in Cochiti the first age group to be systematically sent to Government boarding school is now about 35 years old, and below that age even the commonest tales are known only by hearsay."

Good reason for this: Once in the "boarding schools," the Indians of the American Southwest were tortured until they cried uncle (i.e., agreed to skip out on every last inch of their old Mother Goddess ways).

I guess we're lucky that plucky old anthropologists like Benedict waltzed in and snapped up the last traces of the indigenous American Mother Goddess. Otherwise, instead of knowing next to nothing about Her -- we'd all know *totally* nothing.

But it makes you wonder, doesn't it? How many hundreds of thousands of Mother Goddesses around the world got pitched into the scrap bag before anyone could save any trace of them?
_______________
thnx to teyacapn for the foto of the Cochiti family. Go HERE to see more.

Ice AGE WORDS?

Wowza! Here's a linguist says some of the words we use today were used back in the days of the cavewoman: I, who, we, thou, two, three, five.

For MORE, go HERE.
_____________
thnx to wiccan for the foto; go HERE to see more.

HITCH Beaten UP BY CHRISTIAN THUGS

If Christopher Hitchens was my hero before, he's more so now. Last week he risked his life to stand up against Christians and Muslims terrorizing Lebanon. As a result, he was beaten, kicked and smacked in broad daylight, by a gang of Christian/Muslim thugs, on a major street in Beirut:

Christopher was encircled by four or five of them. They were geared up to smash him, and I reached for his hand to pull him away. One of the toughs clawed at my arm and left me with a bleeding scratch and a bruise. I expected a punch in the face, but I wasn’t the target.

Christopher was the target. He was the one who had defaced their sign. One of the guys smacked him hard in the face. Another delivered a roundhouse kick to his legs. A third punched him and knocked him into the street between two parked cars. Then they gathered around and kicked him while he was down. They kicked him hard in the head, in the ribs, and in the legs.

Jonathan and I had about two and a half seconds to figure out what we should do when one of the SSNP members punched him in the side of the head and then kicked him.

For more, go HERE.

Kiddies, our entire little earth village is being beaten to a pulp -- not just by Allah, but by Jehovah and Yahweh too.

These three are one and the same: the god of Abraham, Yahweh/Allah/Jehovah, or YAJ for short.

It was the father/sky/war god ancestors of YAJ who beat the Great Goddess into the dust. When we centered ourselves around Her, we lived in utopian communities.

For proof, read Switching to Goddess: Humanity's Ticket to the Future, on sale at most online bookstores. And if your local land-based bookstore doesn't carry it, I'm sure they'll be glad to order a copy for you.

So scoot on out and buy this book. You owe it not only to yourself, but to your entire little earth village.

Interestingly, Hitch did not fight back. What was this about? Do you think it came from a place of strength, or of weakness?
___________
thnx to matthewPHX for the foto; go HERE to see more.

MEN WOMEN, & WOMEN MEN?

Ancient Northern Europeans believed when they died they got sucked back into the warm, loving womb of their Great Mother Goddess Holle (Hel, Ella, Hella, Holga, Helga, Holda, etc.).

And then, from Mother's womb, you waltzed out into your next earthly incarnation.

So -- wouldn't men return sometimes as women, and women as men?

Whaddya think, dearies?

And if so, would this have handed our ancestors a different view of the opposite sex than the views we have?

& THE DUDE Bore A 9-lb BLONDE

We humans come in two fun models: the first can make life (let’s call this model the “Gynes”), the second cannot (let’s just for the heck of it call this model the “Non-gynes”).

And let’s just play a little joke, ok? Let's try to fool people into thinking it’s the type of human who can’t make life -- that actually made all life.

Wowza! In my humble opinion, why things got turned totally upside down and backwards -- those who can’t give birth become the divine birth givers -- is something to be very, very worried about.

But boy did those non-gynes puff and pant to give birth! Here's just a few examples of how they grasped at any straw to explain their (totally physically impossible) feat of giving birth:

Ra from Egypt gave birth from his mouth.

Zeus from Greece gave birth through his head.

Atum from Egypt (Heliopolis) created the first two humans by masturbation and self-fertilization through his mouth.

Kun from China gave birth by “Caesarian section.”

Ymir from Norseland gave birth from his “sweaty armpit."

Loki from Norseland “Gave birth to Odin’s horse after making himself pregnant by eating a woman’s heart.”

Kumarbi of the Hittites became pregnant “by eating his rival’s penis…."

Apollo of Greece gave birth by sitting on eggs.

Jehovah from all over gave birth by waving a magic wand over a rib.
__________________________
*Sources: Walker 1983; 106-08; Hassan 1998: 107.

Crushing CHRISTIANITY

To my great shame and horror, I live in a place calling itself "a Christian nation."

Today I watched a Christian dude open up a U.S. Senate session by reading from the bloody butchery book this nation lives by, one of the most barbaric books ever written: the Bible.

Although your Christian minister will bend over backwards to hide it, this butchery book is dripping with HUNDREDS of little bloody gems like the following:

"And the Lord said ... take all the heads of the people, and hang them up before the Lord against the sun...." Numbers 25:4

"He (the Lord God Jehovah) hath utterly destroyed them, he hath delivered them to the slaughter. Their slain also shall be cast out, and their stink shall come up out of their carcasses...." Isaiah 34: 2-3

"Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones [i.e., infants and toddlers] against the stones" Psalms 137.9

"Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth." Zechariah 14:12

And my personal fave (it has rhyming words in it):

"The sword of the LORD is filled with blood." Isaiah 34: 6***

Gee. I wonder. Could there be any connection between verses like these* and the fact that we elect presidents who go gaga over torturing people? (Most other societies** don't torture.)

The fact that we adore war? (Many societies don't do war; go to peacefulsocieties.org to see.)

The fact that we have runaway child abuse? (Many if not most other societies don't damage their own kiddies).

"Religions" that center around war gods like Jehovah, Allah and Yahweh aren't religions at all. They're really -- secretly -- political control mechanisms.

These so-called religions are sacs of sickness. And out of love for ourselves, our children, and the world in general, we need to pass laws making them illegal. And ASAP!
_____________
* And there are (literally) hundreds more where they came from.
** Hundreds of different cultural groups exist in our world. Most of the indigenous ones do not torture. The rest of us have been conquered centuries if not millennia ago by war gods like Jehovah, Allah, Yahweh, and various Hindu and Asian war gods.
*** For more of these blood-curdling passages choking the book that guides America, go to The Skeptics Annotated Bible.
___________
thnx to liamalexander for the foto; go HERE to see more.

WHY GODDESS Beats JESUS

Jesus is a great guy.

When times are good, people follow him like the people of Hamelin followed the Pied Piper.

But when times are tough, people line up behind Jesus' dad, the war god Jehovah.

With the Great Guiding Goddess, there's no choice: ya hafta be good *all* of the time.

... & THEY Burst INTO TEARS

Think YAJ* isn't pounding your world into the dust behind your back? Getta load outa this:

In October 2008, a group of about sixty American science teachers met to compare notes, at the Center for Science Education at Emory University in Atlanta, and they had some revealing experiences to relate. One teacher reported that students “burst into tears” when told they would be studying evolution. Another teacher described how students repeatedly screamed, “No!” when he began talking about evolution in class.

Go HERE for more.

Those busy little Christian bees have been brainwashing their kiddies for years, now, force-feeding them with trashy stuff about how Darwin's evolution is a lie. Now these poor, dumb kidlets are college-age. And they're infesting our college classrooms, making it next to impossible for our college students to learn science.

Last time the Christians went to town on science, they pushed us into the Dark Ages. Are we going to let them do this to us again?!? (To read more about how, more than anything else, it was Christians who pitched the West into the Dark Ages, go HERE .)

Richard Dawkins penned a great comeback for bumbleheads who think evolution is bunk:

Just as you entrust your travel to a Boeing 747 rather than a magic carpet or a broomstick; just as you take your tumour to the best surgeon available, rather than a shaman or a mundu mugu, so you will find that the scientific version of truth works.

SNIP

Science gets you to the moon and back. Even if we bend over backwards to concede that scientific truth is no more than that which enables you to pilot your way reliably, safely and predictably around the real universe, it is in exactly this sense that – at the very least – evolution is true.
Go HERE for more.

___________
*YAJ is the god Yahweh/Allah/Jehovah. Many think YAJ is three separate gods, but he's not. He's the god of Abraham. He has multiple personalities.
____________
thnx to loungerie for the foto; go HERE to see more.

Break THEIR TEETH, O LORD

Why do Christians make their kids memorize only certain Bible verses -- like, for instance, "God so loved the world"?

Other verses are far more to the point about how much God loves the world. For example:

"The LORD will smite thee with the botch of Egypt" (Deut. 28.27).

"Thy carcass shall be meat unto all fowls of the air" (Deut 28.26).

"Him that dieth of Baasha in the city shall the dogs eat" (1 Kings 16.4).

"He slew all the house of Baasha; he left him not one that pisseth against a wall" (1 Kings 16.11-12).

"Behold, with a great plague will the LORD smite thy people .... And thou shalt have great sickness by disease of thy bowels, until thy bowels fall out" (2 Chronicls 21.14).

And my personal fave:

"Break their teeth, O God, in their mouth" (Psalms 58.6).
__________________
thnx to jstownsley for the foto; go HERE to see more.

WHAT WOULD A GODDESS COUNTRY Look Like?

Richard today asked three dynamite questions: "What would a Goddess country be like? What do you think the laws and the culture of a modern nation that modeled itself after the Goddess be like? How do you think it would be perceived by the wider world?"

Fab questions, Richard. First let me say I'm not absolutely certain that a Goddess country could survive alone in today's world. That's why I've always stressed that the world needs to move together toward understanding and diluting what I call "starvation culture"* (which affects most of the world today, mostly through starvation-god religions such as the Abrahamaic religions and Hinduism but also through the older, outlawed starvation-god religions in places like China and Russia).

At the same time we're bashing the toxic old starvation gods, we must begin bringing back the old Guiding Goddess** ways of life. What would a Goddess country look like in the world today?

Social Equality. First, there'd be no social inequality. Everyone would be considered as equally valuable as the next person. Just as a healthy mother sees all her kids as equally lovable and valuable, so the people in a Goddess country would see everyone -- despite anyone's IQ, abilities, age, looks, skin color, or what have you.

Financial equality. Second, there'd be no poor people. Everyone would be rich. The Goddess-centered Minoans and Indus Valley people were some of the wealthiest in the world -- but everyone in these civilizations was equally wealthy. For example, in the large Indus Valley cities of 4000 years ago, everyone had the same high-quality stuff -- including indoor bathrooms. Indoor bathrooms for everyone was never again to happen until the 20th century -- when most in the West at least gave up their outhouses and turned to indoor plumbing.

Playful, creative, sensual. Third, compared to the people in most countries today, everyone in a Goddess country would be extremely playful, creative and sensual. There'd be a premium placed on one's abilities in these areas, so instead of considering them sinful or a waste of time, everyone would be totally lauded and praised for how well and often they showed playfulness, creativity and sensuality.

Economics. Fourth, I think a Goddess country would operate on the basis of a gift economy. The person most highly honored would be the person who could give away the most. For a great look at a modern-day gift economy, read Leaving Mother Lake, about the Goddess-centered (until recently at least) Moso of the Chinese-Tibetan borderland. The big problem in any economic system is how do you urge people to produce when we'd all rather sit back with our feet propped up sipping fine wine. In a gift economy, everyone works hard to produce so they can give the most away, and thereby win the praise of all their countrypeople.

Risk-Taking. Fifth, I think the people in a Goddess country would place an extremely high premium on risk-taking, pioneering, knowledge seeking, curiosity of all kinds, and adventure seeking. The Minoans had their bull-leaping and their wide-ranging mariners. Likewise the Indus Valley people had wide-ranging, curious, adventure-seeking mariners. Moso men go on long, adventurous trading journeys.

Government & Politics. The interesting thing about both the Goddess-centered Minoans and Indus Valley peoples was that we can't see any signs of their leaders. The Egyptian pharaohs (who lived at the same time) plastered pictures of themselves everywhere. But not the leaders of the Minoans and the Indus Valley. I wonder if the Minoans and the IVC weren't governed by councils with rotating, elected "moderators" to "lead" each council? In a society in which everyone is equal, why would a council moderator be any more "important" than anyone else? I'm envisioning the kind of direct democracy the North American Iroquois Indians had.

Law enforcement. In a mature Goddess country, there'd be no such thing as a police force. The archaeologist Jane McIntosh says that the up to 80,000-large Indus Valley Civilization cities had no police forces. Apparently there was no need for them.

Laws. I'm not sure a Goddess country would have "laws" as we know them. "Laws" are needed only when cultural morays no longer work. Laws were probably invented by the state (starvation culture).

War. If you don't even have a need for a police force, you're certainly not going to need armies (unless there are still starvation-culture countries left on the planet -- which we all need to work to get rid of ASAP). There's absolutely no indication whatsoever that the quarter-of-a-million-square-mile Indus Valley Civ. had armies or made war anywhere at any time (See Jane McIntosh's A Peaceful Realm).

__________
*For an explanation of Starvation Culture, plug the term into this blog's search box below.

**A "Guiding Goddess" is a goddess who births everyone and everything in the universe; who has no violence-prone, warlike god hanging over her right shoulder; and who isn't abused in any way by any possible gods in Her pantheon. The Moso, Basques and Hopi are three modern societies who, until recently anyway, had such Goddesses. I believe that many societies in the Neolithic and early Bronze Ages revolved around Guiding Goddesses. For more on this, see Studebaker's Switching to Goddess: Humanity's Ticket to the Future.
____________
Thnx go to Dirk Borchers for the foto of the Moso girl above (Dirk gave me permission to use this photo in Switching to Goddess, and hopefully he won't mind if I use it here too)

PLEASURE: Icky-Dip STUFF?

Dude called Paul Martin says "pleasure" is a Good Thing, but then burbles on about "dissolute" dudes like "Suetonius’s Twelve Caesars ..., Elvis Presley, Errol Flynn, Janis Joplin and the 17th-century libertine Lord Rochester...."

Dissolute?

Libertine?

Yikes! Those two words don't sound like pleasure to me! They sound more like icky-dip stuff!

Then this dude tosses out Plato, and how Plato said pleasure is the "greatest incentive to evil."

Whew. I don't know about you, but to me this poor Dude doesn't seem bitten lock, stock and barrel by the idea that pleasure's a Good Thing.

How about you? We know the Goddess loves us to bask in the pleasures She gave us. But how do you know you've ever really felt pleasure? Can any of us who've grown up under the cloud of a daddy/war god ever really feel pleasure?*

Go HERE to read more about Paul Martin's new book, Sex, Drugs and Chocolate: The Science of Pleasure.
______________
*Modern daddy/war gods are Jehovah, Allah, Yahweh, Vishnu and the like. Plato's daddy/war god was Ares. In ancient Rome the Big Daddy was Mars. The old Norse put up with Odin/Wodan. I could go on (and on and on).

______
Thnx to dog ma for the foto; go HERE to see more of her work.

GODLESSNESS iS GOOD

Another awesome article trumpteting the news that the more you got god, the more got a grungy, grubby place. (If I had a dollar for every one of these articles printed lately, I'd be a gazillionaire).

This article was pumped out by the Chronicle of Higher Education's Chronicle Review.

The subtitle snaps and crackles: "The least religious nations," it says, "are also the most healthy and successful"!

Of course we all know that by "religious" they mean "god worshipping." Unfortunately for the world, few know beans about the Goddess.

Yet.

What are societies like when faith in God is minimal, church attendance is drastically low, and religion is a distinctly muted and marginal aspect of everyday life?

Many people assume that religion is what keeps people moral, that a society without God would be hell on earth: rampant with immorality, full of evil, and teeming with depravity. But that doesn't seem to be the case for Scandinavians in those two countries [Sweden and Denmark]. ... their overall rates of violent crime — including murder, aggravated assault, and rape — are among the lowest on earth.

SNIP

So the typical Dane or Swede doesn't believe all that much in God. And simultaneously, they don't commit much murder. But aren't they a dour, depressed lot, all the same? Not according to Ruut Veenhoven, professor emeritus of social conditions for human happiness at Erasmus University Rotterdam. Veenhoven is a leading authority on worldwide levels of happiness from country to country. He recently ranked 91 nations on an international happiness scale.... According to his calculations, the country that leads the globe — ranking No. 1 in terms of its residents' overall level of happiness — is little, peaceful, and relatively godless Denmark.

SNIP

[R]eligion ... can often be one of the main sources of tension, violence, poverty, oppression, inequality, and disorder in a given society. ...many of the most religious and faithful nations on earth are simultaneously among the most dangerous and destitute. ... the majority of the most irreligious democracies are among the most prosperous and successful nations on earth.

SNIP

I simply wish to soberly counter the widely touted assertion that without religion, society is doomed....

The claim that without religion, society is doomed deserves to be challenged because, aside from being poor social science, it is a highly political claim that is regularly promulgated by some of America's most popular and most influential Christian conservatives. Those individuals do not represent or speak for the majority of believers in America, but together they do constitute a formidable and uniquely zealous chorus that reaches the hearts and minds of millions of people on a regular basis.

...Ann Coulter, the Christian conservative media pundit, who has written in one of her best-selling books that societies that fail to grasp God's significance are headed toward slavery, genocide, and bestiality, and that when Darwinian/evolutionary theory is widely accepted in a given society, all morality is abandoned.

SNIP

But the fact still remains that it is not the most religious nations in our world today, but rather the most secular, that have been able to create the most civil, just, safe, equitable, humane, and prosperous societies. Denmark and Sweden stand out as shining examples. The German think tank the Hans-Böckler Stiftung recently ranked nations in terms of their success at establishing social justice within their societies; Denmark and Sweden, two of the least-religious nations in the world, tied for first.

Phil Zuckerman is an associate professor of sociology at Pitzer College. This essay is adapted from his book Society Without God (New York University Press, 2008).

Go HERE to read the whole article.
_______
Thnx to bruno tessa for the foto. Go HERE to see more of his work.