Share this comment
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich." Napoleon Bonaparte.
I have studied too much history to share the idea that religion is or even can be a force for good in the world, except in very limited situations that mostly have nothing to do with the religion itself, but the heroic actions of a few within that religion. Goo…
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich." Napoleon Bonaparte.
I have studied too much history to share the idea that religion is or even can be a force for good in the world, except in very limited situations that mostly have nothing to do with the religion itself, but the heroic actions of a few within that religion. Good people do not require religion to be good people. Thom, 1000 years of darkness is pretty telling as to what happens to people who embrace religion of any kind. Patriarchal religion (and they pretty much ALL are patriarchal) creates fearful people, indoctrinated as children, who then find comfort and escape from their (often religiously instilled) terrors on an individual level, while allowing enslavers (overt and covert) to set the rules and exploit them. That anyone could continue to support an institution that burned alive women, mostly widows or women who would not be docile slaves, or hung/strangled men as heretics is a triumph of human evil. Burning does seem to be one of religion's all time greats. The Hindus did it to widows, too, those who were considered superfluous after their owners/husband's deaths. Their own sons, those to whom they gave life, were the ones required to enforce widow-burning. Now, it is infrequent, but I have read Hindu scholars who will say it is only "a matter of time" before they are burned again.
Look at the immense wealth collected and held by the Catholic Church and the Protestant mega-churches. See hucksters tell us about God's commandments, while lasciviously watching their wives diddle the pool boy. Observe as, behind closed doors, they sexually molest or physical torture children. One can be a grifter or a mark within a religious system or one can simply (to the degree allowed by the religious rulers) abstain from stone-aged mythology used to control and enslave. That has been my path since I walked out of their churches for the last time as young adult.
When I hear people say, "Oh these Evangelicals/fundamentalist Catholics are not REAL Christians, I can only think, "Oh they are ABSOLUTELY real Christians, historically speaking. The fact that "not all" Christians behave in this manner does not negate the fact that their institutions frequently do.
Thank you Ms. coyote, as usual you are the lone voice which hits the mark.
"Anyone who can make you accept absurdities can make you commit atrocities" attributed to Voltaire.
Anyone who can believe there is a big daddy in the sky will eventually commit or look away from atrocities. The whole point of religion is to control human behavior. It is an extra-biological mechanism of human social control. Its greatest enemy is Democracy which is as an alternative mechanism.
My advice is for all believers to read the five proofs of God's existence in the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas. The greatest thinker in Christianity shows how all the proofs are faulty and unacceptable. I wonder how many Christians have read him and understand the vast implications of what that brilliant thinker said.
Well, yes, but he also said of women, "the female is a deficient and misbegotten male.” He believed we were necessary for procreation and nothing else as we are, in all ways, inferior. He also believed that all fertilized human eggs are meant to be male, but some disruption caused them to be those "misbegotten" males.
He put it thus: "As regards the individual nature, woman is defective and misbegotten, for the active force in the male seed tends to the production of a perfect likeness in the masculine sex; while the production of a woman comes from defect in the active force or from some material indisposition, or even from some external influence."
Suzie the opposite is true, the original state of humans and mammals was female, and we reproduced parthenogentically. I don't need science, to prove it look at nipples on the male, also look at YDNA, it really isn't a Y it is a truncated X, some segments were cut off the X chromosone, and instead of reproductive organs on the inside, the reproductive organs are on the outside,
I know you understand this, but Aquinas did not and he was informed first and foremost by the Bible, and secondarily by Aristotle, who frequently voiced the misogyny of his day.
Wish I could like! Count this.
The whole of the ancient world was patriarchal and thus misogynist. The Priests of Sumer, Akkadia and Babylon, would seek out the prettiest virgins, dress them in white, garland and perfume them, then rape them in private, and then make a big to do of sacrificing them to the god or gods.
Queen Hatsheput of Egypt pulled of one, an became the only female phaRAoh, but still had do cross dress and have a beard affixed to her statues.
Aristotle the first botanist, but it stopped there.
Six things that Aristotle got wrong. No 1 is Women are monstrouos, and in keeping with Aristotle the cult of Rome has carried through, the church loved Aristotle. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/6-things-aristotle-got-wr_b_5920840
he also believe that the speed of an object was proportional to its weight and that heavy objects fell faster than light objects.
I do not accept that "the whole of the ancient world" has always been patriarchal, though the history of the "civilized world" as written by the men does seem so. Even today, anthropologists have a way of erasing female accomplishment. For example, while it was most likely women who domesticated dogs, by throwing them kitchen scraps, all credit is given to men in the most recent documentary I saw - it was all about dogs hunting with men, something that likely only happened after women domesticated those dogs. There was no mention of women's role. It was only about men. Erasure.
Also, recently (within the past few months) DNA analysis shows that Mayans sacrificed male children as well as female, at about the same age often from the same families (at least two sets of twins were found). Call me cynical, but I suspect politics at work with who got chosen as a gift to the gods. Piss off the wrong priest or other elite and tell your kids goodbye.
We have some clues, however, that pre-written records, patriarchy was far less prevalent. I've of late been studying Japanese spirituality (by no means an expert, or even what one would consider knowledgeable - only a smattering; perhaps someone here knows more.) But I was intrigued by this one thing. There were both male and female gods in ancient Japan's Shintoism. The chief deity and origin God was Ameratsu, a female. When the patriarchal version of Buddhism was made the state religion, the female gods genders were changed and they were given male names, their histories mostly erased.
"In 552 A.D the introduction of Buddhism from China would interfere with the Shinto dominated perception of women. According to Dr. Lebra and Joy Paulson, “The aspects of Buddhism which define its character had begun to make inroads on society’s attitude towards women.” This particular form of Buddhism that assimilated in Japan was immensely anti-feminine. Japan’s newfound Buddhism had fundamental convictions that women were of evil nature, which eventually led women into a submissive role of in Japanese society." ... "The anti-feminine tendencies of Buddhism redefined the role of women and continually progressed and regressed over a period of thirteen hundred years. There is an evident change of femininity and matriarchy at the dawn of Japanese civilization to the restricted and submissive women of the Tokugawa era that was “devoid of legal rights,” by the birth of modern Japan"
http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/286/women-in-ancient-japan-from-matriarchal-antiquity-to-acquiescent-confinement
Japan still keeps an oral Shinto tradition and some of the female gods are still revered.
In the Middle East, the advent of Yahweh - father of all three "great" religions - Judaism, Islam and Christianity was when it got really nasty. Yahweh was originally a Jewish war god. He was not the only god in the pantheon, but a special god for the Jewish people, later promoted to the all-seeing, omnipotent deity we have inherited today. Yahwism, in all its forms, is deeply tied to war.
Thanks Suzie! I know Aquinas is a problematic figure if one is female, but I would not have been able to quote!
Ms. Coyote, I am not defending or advocating for Aquinas, only recognizing his insightful logic and importance for Christians. I am an Atheist who studied Symbolic Logic under the great Irving Copi at the University of Michigan a lifetime ago. Copi was, I think, a non believing Jew. Aquinas' foolishness about other topics in no way detracts from his convincing logic about the idea of a god. Just as Euclid's and Pythagoras' foolish ideas about nature detract not at all from their timeless truths, without which there would be no mathematics as we understand it today.
I don't believe you are being defense. I do believe that female voices have been wiped out of educational institutions.
A thunderous standing applause Suzie, well said, well said.
I should say, however, there are real followers of Christ. These are few and far between and generally don't engage in systematic religious repression. I think of my mother, who fed the poor from her own table, though she had very little herself, and, at risk to herself, often sheltered the homeless from the brutal Kansas snow storms.
Ms. Coyote, your mother sounds like she was the kind of Christian friends I have admired, in my life, Amish and Seventh day Adventists. They seemed to be teaching me what they believed in by using their lives as examples.
My late father in law, Mac Harrington lived the same way. He could sometimes be difficult and forceful. But he too took into his farmhouse wandering poor people during the Great Depression. He gave them food, shelter from brutal Michigan winters, minimal pay, and the dignity of useful work, plus a good recommendation when they left. These people were Native American, Hispanic, Black, White or a combination of ethnicities. Mac didn't choose. Mac didn't care. One of those wanderers, a native Ojibway, George Le Galt, stayed for the rest of his life. My wife and I called him Uncle Georgie.
Mac was an Atheist.
The Great Depression was an extraordinary test of the character of America, and it seems many passed! In San Francisco, my grandfather was a "high steel" man with work on the Golden Gate Bridge. He left crab traps out to pick up after work, but also had a cow, a goat, and chickens on a mini-farm at the crest of "Diamond Heights" next door to Twin Peaks. My mother told me how they helped neighbors and strays, and darn if there wasn't a mysterious "Uncle ------?" who lived with them after being injured working on the Bridge!
Thank you, Gerald, for your thoughtful reply. While under the influence of Southern Baptism, my mother could be physically abusive and emotionally cruel. She had been taught that children are evil and need to be whipped into godliness, though SHE was never whipped, by her own admission. There were many complicated factors involved and it has taken a lifetime for me to end my anger and find compassion, which is all I feel now. She had a hard, frightening life with little support. The scars remain, but the anger and blaming do not. But the anger I will always feel towards the Southern Baptist hierarchy is deep and righteous.
Ms. Coyote, Child rearing is a difficult process indeed. I have an old friend who once told me her son was "willful" and she was having a hard time "breaking his will." I was flabbergasted. Needless to say, as soon as her son graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in civil engineering [ he was always a smart, imaginative kid] he moved 2000 miles away to Denver and they rarely see each other. She suggested to him that she would like to buy a second home in Denver so she could be closer to him. He shot that down immediately. She is concerned because he has no wife and no children, only girl friends.
My friend is a deeply religious Christian. In every way she is a good and honest, kind-hearted person, a talented social worker. Her religion insists that the will of Man must be subordinated to the will of her Christian god.
As an Atheist, it never occurred to me that my childrens' will should be broken. I never raised my hand to them. Never tried to push them into anything. I always hoped the example of the lives of their mother and I would suffice. I think it worked. My daughter, a married mother and practicing attorney, lives four blocks from me. My son a medical researcher lives five miles away with his occasional beautiful lady friend and his large, handsome dog. I am lucky. I made out fine. So have my kids.
You are a good dad! No child needs to be hit. I remember a phone call when my mother insisted I "break my daughter's will" after she acted out some childhood issue (non-violent and harmed only herself.) I was so aghast I just held the receiver to my ear, unable to respond. Everything came into sharp focus at that moment. The one thing fundamentalists and people in prison have in common is that, in the vast majority of cases, both were whipped as children.
My kids have lived near me the whole of their lives. My daughter just accepted a position to grow within her company that does require relocation. She's a great mom, but her 16-year old son doesn't want to move. So he's living with me for now. It's no big deal to us; we're a clan, not an isolated nuclear family.
Ms. Coyote, all the Anthropological evidence seems to indicate that the extended family is more beneficial to children than the isolated nuclear family. It sounds as though you have spontaneous, gut level understanding of this truth.