|
Edited on Sat Apr-21-07 07:04 PM by Peace Patriot
(Gaia), and also to the Crone aspect of the Triple Goddess (Virgin, Mother, and Crone) for about 1,500 years. During circa 200 AD to 500 AD, the Christian movement, which had been egalitarian and communal and had worshiped both the male and female aspects of God, was taken over by powermongering males who smashed Roman, Greek and other statues of the Goddess, co-opted and conflated the Virgin-Mother aspects of the Goddess into a sort of lesser deity (beneath God the Father), began using the word "patriarch" to describe bishops (circa 5th century), banned women from speaking in church, required women to wear veils in church, burned and destroyed all the gospels with a balanced male/female view of God (the "Gnostic gospels"), banned and anathematized the Pelagian Christians (Kelts) who had a much more nature-sympathetic form of Christianity, burned the Alexandria Library and brutally assassinated its last great teacher (Hypatia, a woman), and allied the increasingly powerful, and increasingly monolithic church structure with the power of the state--to enforce one monolithic, male-centered doctrine on everyone in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, and to greatly increase the unchristian practice of "baptism by the sword"--that is, forced obedience to a centralized state that was cemented to a centralized religion.
Worship of the Goddess continued, in the form of worship of Mary (the mother of Jesus), and worship of Mary Magdalen (whom some believe was Jesus' wife), much of it underground, and sometimes very brutally suppressed (as in the Albigensian crusades against southern France and its Goddess-worshiping "heretics"). Respect for the Crone, however--that is, the Earth Mother as comforter and receiver of the dead and dying--deteriorated into the caricature of "the witch," often depicted as ugly and warty, and evil, with the result that old women with medical knowledge, for instance, were mercilessly persecuted. The fetish against women persists to this day. It is exhibited first of all by the voodoo about chastity (that women's sexuality and sex with women is bad, dirty, sinful, evil), and secondly by the obsession among the male hierarchy of the Catholic church and all Christian religions that are dominated by male preachers with controlling female sexuality. Until recently, for instance, women who had given birth were not allowed near the altar in Catholic churches until they had undergone a "purification" rite. The message could not be clearer: birth, blood, female functions are dirty. The Church may need women to be "baby machines"--and the state may need them as "cannon fodder" creators--but women are viewed with disgust and suspicion, as the essential message of the Church and other, similar male-dominated institutions, such as the fascist state. Unsurprisingly, the Bush Junta adopts this view for its own purposes, and has created an unholy alliance between the 'Christian' right and global corporate predator and war profiteer interests.
This extremely unbalanced and wrongful view of the deity--as a punishing, jealous and spiteful Father God--is not just a belief, it is a psychological state, a syndrome, that is leading very quickly to the destruction of Mother Earth. It is suicidal. And it must change or we are doomed.
There are many structures upholding this view that operate upon us in different ways. For instance, business corporations--the big ones, the giant monopolies--are structured very like the Catholic Church, but without even the mitigating factor of the better Church teachings (for instance, its modern teachings on war and social justice). They are medieval institutions in which men (or women who are adopting male ways) viciously compete to be "top dog" on the money pile (comparable to being Pope--all powerful in the doctrinal realm). These corporate CEOs and fat cat billionaire fascists identify with an all-powerful Father God, and have, in a short one hundred years time, succeeded in literally raping the Earth, stripping it of its capacity for natural healing and recovery. They don't just take a few trees for profit. They clear-cut entire vast forests, destroying many species of wildlife and natural water systems, so that the forest land is never the same--and ceases to perform its critical functions, for instance, cleaning the atmosphere of CO2. Then they may convert the land to plantations for monoculture of small trees, which are quickly cut down for wood pulp--and the land can never develop the forest characteristics needed for protecting the atmosphere--or they convert the land to development, after it is stripped of its ability to grow trees.
In this relentless drive for profit--which is accelerated by the growth of all-powerful mega-corporations--they massively pollute the Earth with poisons, they mess with the gene pool, seriously endangering the food supply and human health, they entrap millions of people in the purchase of harmful products (automobiles, gas, plastics), and they destroy democracies--which represent the human corollary of evolutionary improvement. Democracy is the human way of creating balance, in society and in public policy, akin to Nature's way of creating a balance among species. And it is also the human way of furthering evolution--of progress, of improving the human species, and improving life for everyone. Both the Catholic Church and global corporate predators hate democracy, because democracy challenges their monolithic rule.
Trade is one thing. It expresses the human need for variety and adventure. Trade and freedom go together. But global corporate predation, and vast, powerful monopolies have nothing to do with freedom and democracy. They are very anti-freedom and anti-democracy. Thus, the kinship between rightwing 'Christians' and corporate predators. Both thrive upon most people remaining poor and miserable--the fascist view of "the human condition." Both succeed through ignorance and propaganda. Both despise open, pluralistic societies in which change and improvement are generated from the bottom, by democratic means. And, while corporations are not obviously anti-female, they are anti-female in effect, through their profoundly anti-family and anti-community policies. They want drones for workers--male or female. Their model of a workplace is a sweatshop--extremely poor pay, slave-like conditions, no family leave, workers imported, say, to Saipan, from some poor Asian country, and cut off from any family or community support, no human or labor rights. Modern corporations create fully alienated societies--people alienated from each other, people alienated from nature, and communities and families broken up and disrupted, unable to create democratic change. To some extent, modern religious movements counter this evil force of conscienceless corporate power, and that may in part account for their popularity. Religious movements provide a sense of belonging in highly alienated conditions. And they may not be all bad, for that reason. But corporate operatives--like those in the Bush Junta--then adopt the language and mode of religious fervor, and bend the more extreme versions of this "togetherness" to their greedy and vile purposes.
A new vision is needed, clearly. And one is being born, by fits and starts. For instance, the view of the Earth as a living being--as Gaia--taken from the ancient religions that the 5th century Christian church tried to wipe out. This view is not anti-Christian. It is simply BETTER than Christian--fuller, more balanced. It is in fact the earliest Christian viewpoint--that of Jesus himself, who was not at war with anyone, neither people nor Nature. Talk to almost any environmentalist, scratch the surface, and you will find a Christian, at least as regards the major teachings: Love they neighbor; go in peace. Paganism is NOT antithetical to the core Christian teaching. It is all of a piece with it--as the Keltic Christians, the Pelagians, knew and felt. Their inheritor was St. Francis of Assisi, who talked to the birds. And Jesus himself said, "Consider the lilies of the field," that is, live in the faith that abundant and beautiful nature will support you and heal you. Live in the faith that God is GOOD. "The kingdom is within you," he said. Within us, in our hearts and souls and clever brains, we hold the creative power to change, which is a characteristic of Nature, and is directly opposed to the powers of monolithic institutions.
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
