WaPo and the Goddess - post #2

On Faith: Wendy Doniger: Respect For Women Yes, Worship of Goddesses No

I replied:

Hi, Solange -

I have to respectfully disagree. Recent research is finding that people are not naturally violent. Our species was initially successful because of our ability to cooperate. Violence might occur some places in nature, but not everywhere. Everyone is fond of comparing us to the behavior of chimpanzees, but we are more likely to have been sensual and cooperative as bonobos are. There have been human societies without violence. There is evidence that war was virtually unknown to the Minoan culture. Archeologists are looking for it, but they can't find it. They find lots and lots of Goddess statues, though, even though they try to gloss over their gender.

Remember that the prevailing theories in anthropology and archeology have been through the patriarchal filter of academia. We have to sift through the androcentrism to find the truth. It benefits the power structure for us to buy into the lie that we will always be violent. A very few people make a lot of money by keeping us at war, and they don't care who has to die, or how many, as long as their coffers are filled. The rest of us don't count - Hurricane Katrina should have erased any doubt of this.

There have indeed been gender egalitarian civilizations, including some Native American groups. The First Nations were not homogenous - different groups had vastly different cultures and practices. Not all were violent, and most were not patriarchal until forced onto reservations, when they had to have male authorities to interface with the white patriarchal government. The Haudenosaunee still retain a semi-matriarchal structure. You might want to check out some of the surviving matriarchies - the Mosuo of China, for example- to see a culture where there is no marriage, no concept of women as chattel, and no oppression of women.

I guess I have a more positive view of the potential of people. A sensible man is quite capable of making the shift into the Gaian mind - many already are, though they don't fully realize it yet. When enough people realize that "the team" is a racist, sexist, elitist core of a few very rich, very white people who are robbing the rest of us, they'll take back their power. The international Green Party, and the new attention to the environment are a part of this. People are waking up. Why do you think the government is so terrified of "eco-terrorists?" Environmentalism, consumer protection, corporate regulation and social responsibility cut into profits, and money is what really matters to them.

I believe the crisis of climate change is going to accelerate this process. "The team" created this mess, so the team needs to be disbanded, and control returned to the people. It's a change vital not to the Earth, because She is a self-healing organism, but to us. If we continue to act like a cancer that grows out of control and destroys the body, Her body will rid itself of us. It won't be a "punishment" but rather a normal function of Gaia's immune system. We have no choice but to live in harmony with Her - there's no life without Her.

Even if you don't believe the Earth is alive, wouldn't it be more practical to act as if it were? We aren't going to colonize the moon this year. This is our one and only home. It just makes sense to maintain it.

It doesn't take much to put Goddess values into practice, because they are practical. Witches only use what works. As soon as people stop thinking of planets as dead rocks and the Universe as a computer, and understand that they are living organisms, the new paradigm will lead them to understand our place in the world.

The problem right now is that policy is being made by people who are following codes written by nomadic tribes from 5,000 years ago. These might have made sense then, but they are keeping us from moving forward as a species. We have to adapt and grow, and a part of that is getting back in touch with the Earth.

It doesn't require "belief." If anything, it requires doubt. The ability to admit that we might be wrong can put us back on track. Moral certainty is what drives a person to strap a bomb on his back, or to pass legislation that oppresses people for arbitrary reasons, or disenfranchise entire groups or genders or to kill 600,000 people for no reason at all. Would you drop a bomb on someone if you thought you might be making a mistake?

The simple reality is that any one of us can be mistaken. The scriptures people rely upon might be incorrect, inaccurate, deliberately altered for various reasons or mistranslated. Even if they are of divine origin, our understanding of them may not be. We can be wrong, and none of us can know for certain what the nature of the divine is until we die. In the mean time, a little critical thinking would go a long way toward solving our problems.

Goddess sensibilities can save us. Seeing each other as children of the same Source can give us respect for those who differ from us. Seeing the Ocean as the Womb of Life - and it is - discourages dumping waste and chemicals into it. Open, healthy sensuality without guilt, guile or repression reduces the violence in a society. Respecting others as a part of ourselves creates calmer, kinder people. The Goddess demands no sacrifice, discourages violence, encourages cooperation, sees women as the Source of Life, children as gifts of the Goddess, embraces men as Her own children. There's no war, no hell, no damnation, no guilt in the Goddess, there's only love for ourselves and each other. I'll take those blessings over a god of war any day.