John Fiala, Texas Priest, Charged With Hiring Hitman To Kill Teen Who Accused Him Of Sexual Abuse
Behold! The war god Jehovah in full swing! Gobble the forbidden bird, and then squash what’s left so it can’t squeal.
In my book, Switching to Goddess*, I explain why we need to trade in Jehovah and our other war gods for the peaceful, unconditional-loving, guiding goddesses many human societies used to center around.
Go HERE to read the article.
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* Buy copies at the following online bookstores:
Abebooks
TextbooksRus
Valere Books
Alibris
Biblio
Half.com
TextbookX
Bookbyte.com
BiggerBooks.com
eCampus.com
pickabook
Barnes & Noble
Choosebooks.com
Amazon
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Goddess TELEVISION
Wheeee! Oprah Winfrey is hunting down new TV talent!
Go HERE to help Karen Tate land a Goddess-Spirituality TV show.
Vote for Karen’s show as many times as you want/can/have the time for – but do it before July 3, because that’s when the voting ends.
Golden chance – help push the Goddess out there for the entire world to see and love!
Go HERE to help Karen Tate land a Goddess-Spirituality TV show.
Vote for Karen’s show as many times as you want/can/have the time for – but do it before July 3, because that’s when the voting ends.
Golden chance – help push the Goddess out there for the entire world to see and love!
Friday, April 09, 2010
Answering WILLIAM
Today, William left the following on an older post :
MY REPLY:
Dear William,
First, thank you for reading Switching to Goddess. I’m glad you agree with the book’s general premise; hopefully you can introduce it to one degree or another to those in your sphere of influence.
For humans, religion is like speech, upright posture, and the incest taboo – all human groups have it. The most important job ahead of us now is not to banish religion (which would be impossible), but to banish war religions, and replace them with something healthy. Healthy mothers love us equally, whether we’re rich, poor, male, female, pretty or plug ugly, so I think they make the perfect role model for us.
Evidence suggests that before roughly 4000 BC, many groups around the world were guided by this kind of mother love. What happened to change that isn’t as important as just switching back to this "mother mode" of interacting with each other and the world. On the other hand, if we can figure out what caused the change, it might help us shove the gears into reverse and ride back home to the “good old days.”
I think you make a good point when you say matriarchal versus patriarchal tribes are more likely to survive disastrous conditions. Your reasoning makes sense. However, I think what happened around 4000 BC was not your everyday garden-variety disaster, but disaster on a scale rarely seen on the planet. Evidence suggests that a good quarter of the earth dried up and left millions to starve to death. This was “Saharasia,” a giant strip of land stretching from the Atlantic across Africa and Asia and all the way to the Pacific.
Read Colin Turnbull’s The Mountain People (1972) for insight into what long-term starvation does to a group. It’s an eye-opener. Turnbull lived for a few years among a large group of starving, isolated Africans, the Ik, who had been barely surviving famine for several generations. I can’t even begin to describe the deep-down horror these people lived with. You wouldn’t even recognize them as human – either the men or the women.
But today’s starving people are surrounded by groups who aren’t starving, and so any barbaric mode of living they might develop is sooner or later swamped out by the rest of us leading relatively normal lives. Not so in 4000 BC Saharasia. There were no “normal” people to swamp out the behavior of the Ik-like groups that managed to hang on to survival in this humongous expanse of land.
And here’s what haunts me, William. Anthropologists can see a difference between modern indigenous cultures living in or near Saharasia, versus those living outside it. Saharasians have harsher child-rearing methods, harsher coming-of-age ceremonies, and to one extent or another, violence pervades much of what they do. What’s more, there’s a direct correlation between how violent an indigenous culture is, and how close to Saharasia it’s located.
All my best,
Jeri Studebaker
“I have read your book, Switching to Goddess and very much liked the first half of it. But i have to say, i have real problems with the theory that famine and starvation caused the rise of patriarchy.
“People starving to death still happens today. And the problem of starvation is not that people turn into savages, Reports from charity organizations is that people who are starving become very lethargic and don't do much to help themselves.
“Also i think in desperate conditions a matriarchal tribe is far more likely to survive than a patriarchal tribe. This is because in a patriarchal tribe it will be the men who will commandeer what little food they have and the women and children won't have anything....” MORE>>>>
MY REPLY:
Dear William,
First, thank you for reading Switching to Goddess. I’m glad you agree with the book’s general premise; hopefully you can introduce it to one degree or another to those in your sphere of influence.
For humans, religion is like speech, upright posture, and the incest taboo – all human groups have it. The most important job ahead of us now is not to banish religion (which would be impossible), but to banish war religions, and replace them with something healthy. Healthy mothers love us equally, whether we’re rich, poor, male, female, pretty or plug ugly, so I think they make the perfect role model for us.
Evidence suggests that before roughly 4000 BC, many groups around the world were guided by this kind of mother love. What happened to change that isn’t as important as just switching back to this "mother mode" of interacting with each other and the world. On the other hand, if we can figure out what caused the change, it might help us shove the gears into reverse and ride back home to the “good old days.”
I think you make a good point when you say matriarchal versus patriarchal tribes are more likely to survive disastrous conditions. Your reasoning makes sense. However, I think what happened around 4000 BC was not your everyday garden-variety disaster, but disaster on a scale rarely seen on the planet. Evidence suggests that a good quarter of the earth dried up and left millions to starve to death. This was “Saharasia,” a giant strip of land stretching from the Atlantic across Africa and Asia and all the way to the Pacific.
Read Colin Turnbull’s The Mountain People (1972) for insight into what long-term starvation does to a group. It’s an eye-opener. Turnbull lived for a few years among a large group of starving, isolated Africans, the Ik, who had been barely surviving famine for several generations. I can’t even begin to describe the deep-down horror these people lived with. You wouldn’t even recognize them as human – either the men or the women.
But today’s starving people are surrounded by groups who aren’t starving, and so any barbaric mode of living they might develop is sooner or later swamped out by the rest of us leading relatively normal lives. Not so in 4000 BC Saharasia. There were no “normal” people to swamp out the behavior of the Ik-like groups that managed to hang on to survival in this humongous expanse of land.
And here’s what haunts me, William. Anthropologists can see a difference between modern indigenous cultures living in or near Saharasia, versus those living outside it. Saharasians have harsher child-rearing methods, harsher coming-of-age ceremonies, and to one extent or another, violence pervades much of what they do. What’s more, there’s a direct correlation between how violent an indigenous culture is, and how close to Saharasia it’s located.
All my best,
Jeri Studebaker
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Cousin Harold & TAXES
Today, my right-wing Cousin Harold got the following from me:
Dearest Cuz,
Since you detest taxes, why are you still using things taxes buy?
When your house catches fire, put it out yourself!
If someone burglarizes you, jail the burglar (I KNOW building your own jail is expensive, but … so are taxes).
You can’t drive on roads -- they’re paid for with taxes -- so you’ll have to knock on doors getting permission to prance across lawns to get where you need to go.
Also, you won’t be using bridges any more – get a good boat.
Hopefully you have money for private schools for the grandkids?
Sick? My, isn’t it dreadful you can’t drive on roads to a hospital!
And BY ALL MEANS don't forget: when America’s attacked, the military can’t protect *you* – the military’s built with taxes.
Your dearest Cuz who delights in keeping you honest,
Athana
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thnx to jared wilson for the foto; go HERE to see more of his work.
Monday, February 15, 2010
& THE 2010 Stupid AWARD GOES TO…
...THE TEXAS STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION!
My deepest regrets to all my Texas friends.
But really, dear ones, you might want to spit-polish your politician-picking process. I should be able to drop the following story into the TOO WEIRD TO BE TRUE pot. Unfortunately, since it IS true, it can’t be pitched into the pot:
Here’s the story:
According to the new Texas state education guidelines, pieced together by the wheezing old geezers you Texans fingered for your State Board of Education, Moses was a real, live dude who helped stitch together the U.S. Constitution:
“In the new [Texas state education] guidelines, students taking classes in U.S. government are asked to identify … the individuals whose principles of law and government institutions informed the American founding documents,” among whom they include Moses….” MORE>>>>
Last time I checked, Moses was just a Fig Newton of someone’s imagination. And, speaking of Fig Newtons, this same bunch of Texas bobble heads not only want to put Newt Gingrich into your history textbooks – they want to leave Ted Kennedy out:
“… the board considered an amendment to require students to evaluate the contributions of significant Americans. The names proposed included Thurgood Marshall, Billy Graham, Newt Gingrich, William F. Buckley Jr., Hillary Rodham Clinton and Edward Kennedy. All passed muster except Kennedy, who was voted down….” MORE >>>>
Jeezum ... Newt Gingrich …. Name rings a bell. Wasn’t he kicked outa Congress for being a bad cookie? I sure hope you add his crimes to your textbook bio. And Teddy Kennedy – wasn’t he the “lion of the Senate,” loved by everyone left and right for all the fab legislation he managed to squeeze through the Senate?
(I’d say we need to keep our beady little eyes on Texas like sharp-shinned hawks, so they don’t strip the textbooks clean of John F. Kennedy and Franklin D. Roosevelt -- but I don’t wanna give the dudes any ideas…).
All this wouldn’t be so bad except that U.S. textbook companies follow Texas around like a bunch of sheep. Since Texas Christians pump out babies by the boatload, Texas buys most of the nation’s textbooks. Which means many to most other states feel forced to use the same texts.
Which also means that in the near future your kids could be penning school papers on Moses and Cookie Gingrich -- while remaining stone-cold stupid about Ted Kennedy, John F. Kennedy, and Franklin D. Roosevelt.
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thnx to benkuhns for the fab foto; go HERE to see more of his work.
Friday, February 12, 2010
GODDESS Goes RADIO
The awesome and metacool Karen Tate (California Goddess minister, author, and radio host) has asked me to tell you that ....
FOR MORE INFO >>>> GO HERE
"....Voices of the Sacred Feminine Radio has been creating an archive of the brightest minds of our time for the last twenty months.... This is in response to your requests!
"Just some of the guests interviewed since last September:
Layne Redmond
Judy Grahn
Starhawk
Joan Marler
Barbara Walker
Genevieve Vaughan
Patricia Monaghan
Charlene Spretnak
Riane Eisler
Elinor Gadon
Isaac Bonewits
Phyllis Chesler
Ava Park
Miriam Robbins Dexter
Luisah Teish
Carol Christ
Jean Shinoda Bolen
"Be sure to tune in. Or call in. Or send your email questions prior to the show."
UPCOMING SHOWS:
2/17/2010 9:00 PM
Phyllis Chesler & Prof. David Hillman - Noted author, feminist and foremother Phyllis Chesler, famous for her book Women's Inhumanity to Women, will discuss her views of feminism, contemporary challenges of women, and her books, including Women's Inhumanity to Women. AT THE BOTTOM OF THE HOUR hear scholar David Hillman discuss the new movie Percy Jackson and the Olympians as we delve into Greek Mythology we've learned through a Western/Christian lens versus what the ancient texts actually say and mean."
2/24/2010 9:00 PM - Cristina Biaggi
3/3/2010 9:00 PM - Heide Goettner Abendroth
3/10/2010 9:00 PM - Michael York
FOR MORE INFO >>>> GO HERE