"Why Women Need the Goddess"

[bloom]

This could be titled "Why People Need the Goddess" - but at any rate - it's worth thinking about. I am not about to start "believing" that there actually is a Goddess - but as the article mentions - it's the symbolism that counts. And we are affected by the symbolism of the male God whether we "think" about it (consciously) or not.

A lot of people deny it and say that God is a neutral term. I don't buy it. Just like the evangelical who made it very clear to his congregation that he was endorsing God, the Father of Creation and NOT Mother Nature (in Moyers "God is Green" show) - the whole Christian (and Jewish and Muslim) religions are based on the power of men over women. Sometimes it's more obvious than others. Some groups emphasize it more than others. But it's still there nonetheless.

It's there in the verses that say "Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord, 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church" Ephesians 5 & "But I-do-not-allow for-a-woman to-teach nor to-be-in-a-position-of-authority over-a-man, but to be in silence". (1 Timothy 2:12-15)

And these sorts of verses continue to be read from pulpits all over the world. If all churches denounced them and stopped reading them - it might give some credibility to the argument that they are not applicable nowadays. But that is not the case in most instances.

Plus the whole patriarchy mindset is all re-emphasized with the Male prophet/saviours/sons of "God" - not to mention that people must be "re-born" - since heaven knows that it's not enough to be born once :sarcasm: (by a woman, of course).

But even if you don't actively believe in any of that (Christianity, etc.) - as this essay mentions - we live in this culture that is dominated by this type of believing and thinking - and it affects us whether we confront these ideas or not. It's one thing to say that you "think" this or that (that you are atheist or whatever) - it's another thing to affect the stored conceptions in your subconscious mind.

Why Women Need the Goddess
by Carol P. Christ

At the close of Ntosake Shange's stupendously successful Broadway play for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf, a tall beautiful black woman rises from despair to cry out, "I found God in myself and I loved her fiercely." Her discovery is echoed by women around the country who meet spontaneously in small groups on full moons, solstices, and equinoxes to celebrate the Goddess as symbol of life and death powers and waxing and waning energies in the universe and in themselves....

What are the political and psychological effects of this fierce new love of the divine in themselves for women whose spiritual experience has been focused by the male God of Judaism and Christianity? Is the spiritual dimension of feminism a passing diversion, an escape from difficult but necessary political work? Or does the emergence of the symbol of Goddess among women have significant political and psychological ramifications for the feminist movement?

To answer this question, we must first understand the importance of religious symbols and rituals in human life and consider the effect of male symbolism of God on women. According to anthropologist Clifford Geertz, religious symbols shape a cultural ethos, defining the deepest values of a society and the persons in it. "Religion," Geertz writes, " is a system of symbols which act to produce powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations"4 in the people of a given culture. A "mood" for Geertz is a psychological attitude such as awe, trust, and respect, while a "motivation" is the social and political trajectory created by a mood that transforms mythos into ethos, symbol system into social and political reality. Symbols have both psychological and political effects, because they create their inner conditions (deep-seated attitudes and feelings) that lead people to feel comfortable with or to accept social and political arrangements that correspond to the symbol system.

Because religion has such a compelling hold on the deep psyches of so many people, feminists cannot afford to leave it in the hands of the fathers. Even people who no longer "believe in God" or participate in the institutional structure of patriarchal religion still may not be free of the power of the symbolism of God the Father. A symbol's effect does not depend on rational assent, for a symbol also functions on levels of the psyche other than the rational. Religion fulfills deep psychic needs by providing symbols and rituals that enable people to cope with crisis situations in human life (death, evil, suffering) and to pass through life's important transitions (birth, sexuality, death). Even people who consider themselves completely secularized will often find themselves sitting in a church or synagogue when a friend or relative gets married or when a parent or friend has died. The symbols associated with these important rituals cannot fail to affect the deep or unconscious structures of the mind of even a person who has rejected these symbolisms on a conscious level especially if a person is under stress. The reason for the continuing effects of religious symbols is that the mind abhors a vacuum. Symbol systems cannot simply be rejected; they must be replaced. Where there is no replacement, the mind will revert to familiar structures at times of crisis, bafflement, or defeat...

http://www.goddessariadne.org/whywomenneedthegoddess.htm