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Kirata -> RE: God's Wife (3/23/2011 2:56:23 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: rulemylife
No one still believes in the Greek or Roman gods and goddesses as anything but mythology.
What makes this different?
At issue is the inclusive masculine and feminine nature of divinity. These masculine and feminine qualities are represented by gods and goddesses with different forms and names in different cultures, but the particular form and name is irrelevant. Myths will differ from culture to culture, but they are typically expressions of the same underlying themes concerning divine and natural phenomena.
Our Abrahamic traditions, however, have suppressed the feminine component of the ageless divinity myth. In Yahweh and Christ and Allah we have Osiris without Isis, Shiva without Shakti, when there can be no Osiris without Isis, no Shiva without Shakti.
I know that some people view myths simply as outrageous faerie tales, told on a grand scale. But Joseph Campell, Heinrich Zimmer, and Carl Jung, among others, have seen in our myths and archetypes a transcultural guide to the nature of the self. It is often observed, typically dismissively, that man created god in his own image. But it is seldom realized that it is by that very image that man may come to know himself more fully, for it shows him more of himself than his world-distracted mind encompasses.
But our Abrahamic traditions have mutilated the ancient divine myths in the service of temporal power, and spread themselves at the point of a spear; by war, extermination, and cruelty beyond imagining. And from start to finish, the God of this tradition has changed to suit the changing needs of power.
At first, an entire people would be punished for the actions of a single man. Think of the Nazis standing up 20 villagers in front of a firing squad when there was a partisan in the town. Not a good approach for the long run, of course. People don't like it. So eventually, in the service of maintaining power, God became a fellow who eschewed inflicting mayhem upon the good along with the bad.
With Christianity, he finally evolved into the author of the most pernicious guilt trip ever laid on humanity, with eternal damnation if you don't believe it, of course. The Abrahamic god may change, but never the underlying power motive.
This mutilation of the ancient myths has mutilated man's psyche and civilization wherever it has raised its ugly head. And those who passionately argue against the misogyny of our Western faiths will find strong support in the divine myths that our Abrahamic traditions have shed so much blood to discredit and destroy.
From the genocidal slaughters by the Hebrews, to the Christian Crusades, to Islamic terrorists and pro-life murderers, the Abrahamic legacy is one of male power, for power's sake alone, and at any price. What difference does it make if it becomes known that Yahweh had his Asherah before a male-dominated hierarchy mutilated the old myths in the service of its lust for self-exhaltation? I don't know, but it's a step in the right direction.
K.
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