Goddess Worship

[Lightkeeper]

Early religions worshipped the Goddess, probably because the woman gives life. Do you think this will come to be again? I have noticed a trend toward Goddess worship is some religions. Assuming this would happen, how do you think this would change religion as we know it?

 

[SaraLee]

Interesting question. It made me wonder if the goddess of past gave any wisdom or if they were just an image or idea that people worshipped. I mean, did any of them give sage wisdom that was written down for us to use today? If not, I doubt it would make much of a difference if people began making a god-dess the center of worship. But I'd like to know if any of those female gods had any good advice that can help us live a good life in our daily life.
SaraLee

 

[huajiro]

Early religions worshipped the Goddess, probably because the woman gives life. Do you think this will come to be again? I have noticed a trend toward Goddess worship is some religions. Assuming this would happen, how do you think this would change religion as we know it?

I would have no problem worshipping a Goddess, as far as I am concerned, the planet is covered with them . A woman gives life, but so does a man. Anytime I see a statement like that, I feel the need to respond at how important the Father is in a child's creation and development.

 

[linwood]

Early religions worshipped the Goddess, probably because the woman gives life. Do you think this will come to be again? I have noticed a trend toward Goddess worship is some religions. Assuming this would happen, how do you think this would change religion as we know it?

I think it would make great inroads towards equality and tolerence.

The few small cultures that worship within a matriarchal society today have entirely different views on family and are as gender equal as is possible.

I don`t think it`ll happen on a large scale but even a small influx of a matriarchal religion into our western culture would be a great thing.

 

[Lightkeeper]

Interesting question. It made me wonder if the goddess of past gave any wisdom or if they were just an image or idea that people worshipped. I mean, did any of them give sage wisdom that was written down for us to use today? If not, I doubt it would make much of a difference if people began making a god-dess the center of worship. But I'd like to know if any of those female gods had any good advice that can help us live a good life in our daily life.
SaraLee

Your question is difficult to answer about very early man and his religion, since all we have is cave paintings and artifacts. Here is a website that says "wisdom is always female."
http://www.amaranthine.freeserve.co.uk/pages/articles/goddesses_of_wisdom.htm

 

[Master Vigil]

Even lao tzu was a feminist. He said to know the masculine, but embrace the feminine. But I am not sure if I enjoy worshipping a god, or goddess with gender. The divine cannot have gender. It is completely illogical. So I do not believe that god is he, or she. I believe god is "it." Would it change our culture? Sure it would. But again, who knows?

 

[linwood]

Here are some examples of a Culture influenced by a "Goddess" centered religion.

Some quotes...

In such societies sexuality and creativity are freely expressed by both women and men without the confines of mandatory monogamy, and the institution of "fatherhood" does not exist.

Property belongs to the family and the mother is in control; children belong to the maternal family and never have to leave home. The mother's brother helps to raise her children, as do all members of each extended family. Pregnancy belongs to women -- it is "forbidden" for men to get involved from pregnancy to the birth of a child. Professor Du raised provocative questions, such as, "Why do you have to love only one person in your life?" and, "Why do you have to get married and turn a pair of lovers into enemies?"

...the word for woman in the Kabyle language is the same as the word for language, and that "the spoken word is the carrier of culture." Calling what women do "ritualized work," she described the social organization around cycles of the moon and the female blood mysteries (menarche, birth). Like the Mosuo people, men are forbidden to be at the birth ritual, which is geared to help a woman "discover that she is a creator," a "religious experience!" She mentioned that Kabyle women coming to the U.S. and seeing our birthing practices are completely shocked and furious, and also that there is no such thing as a "single mother" for Kabyle people because "the child is part of the village."
http://www.universitadelledonne.it/noble.htm

Other examples of matriarchal societies..
http://www.museum.upenn.edu/new/research/Exp_Rese_Disc/Asia/sanday-research.shtml

They love without monogamy and the family stability is founded completely alien to our way...but seem to have a different concept of love.

The society is woman centered to the point that instead of a man and woman joining together to raise a family the offspring of any relationship are raised by the womans family unit whether the man is a part of that or not.

Which makes the geneology of thier family trees truly female centered since instead of a woman taking a mans name in marraige and therefore passing that name down through the ages the family "name" is passed down through the matriarchal(female) side through the ages.

 

[painted wolf]

While I don't know about goddess worship, women have always had an important role in Native American spirituality.
Many Native American nations were matriarchal, but still held the genders to be equil. Property was the womans save for the man's personal posessions. (his weapons, cloths and sacrid objects) In some nations the woman could choose to 'divorce' her husband and take a new one should the old one be abusive or incapable of caring for her and her children. Women often served in leadership positions, (often, equil to but seperate from the male leader) a fact that was ingnored or misinterpreted by Eurpoean settlers. Infact in order to be reccognized as a soverin 'friendly' nation (and thus keep thier indipendance) by the fledgling USA the Cherokee had to eleminate this role for women in their constitution. Eventually the USA broke this treaty wich resulted in the trail of tears and in the 1980's a woman did rise to power as the leader of the Cherokee nation. Her name is Wilma Mankiller.

wa:do

 

[huajiro]

While I don't know about goddess worship, women have always had an important role in Native American spirituality.
Many Native American nations were matriarchal, but still held the genders to be equil. Property was the womans save for the man's personal posessions. (his weapons, cloths and sacrid objects) In some nations the woman could choose to 'divorce' her husband and take a new one should the old one be abusive or incapable of caring for her and her children. Women often served in leadership positions, (often, equil to but seperate from the male leader) a fact that was ingnored or misinterpreted by Eurpoean settlers. Infact in order to be reccognized as a soverin 'friendly' nation (and thus keep thier indipendance) by the fledgling USA the Cherokee had to eleminate this role for women in their constitution. Eventually the USA broke this treaty wich resulted in the trail of tears and in the 1980's a woman did rise to power as the leader of the Cherokee nation. Her name is Wilma Mankiller.

wa:do

I am more and more interested in your religion when I see your posts. Could you tell me where to get more information about it?

 

[SoulTYPE]

Is it the Native Americans that say "He who Speaks loudest, says nothing" ?

That's a great quote.

 

[Grian]

Interesting question. It made me wonder if the goddess of past gave any wisdom or if they were just an image or idea that people worshipped. I mean, did any of them give sage wisdom that was written down for us to use today? If not, I doubt it would make much of a difference if people began making a god-dess the center of worship. But I'd like to know if any of those female gods had any good advice that can help us live a good life in our daily life.
SaraLee

I think Nature is a book of wisdom - the Goddess' bible if you will. By observing the cycles and the processes of Nature we can learn more about her lessons and what her religion can teach us. This can be compared, in a way, to the philosophies of Zen which finds clues about existence in the natural world around us.

 

[charles brough]

Early religions worshipped the Goddess, probably because the woman gives life. Do you think this will come to be again? I have noticed a trend toward Goddess worship is some religions. Assuming this would happen, how do you think this would change religion as we know it?

There exist feminist websites that push the creation of a mother-goddess religion and society. One such webside claims the site cost them $50,000 to build and is filled with marvelous pictures, some of them a bit riskey by even modern standards!

My investigation into the ancient pre-history mother goddess society is that it was ultimately destroyed by the concept that men actually played a role in the fertilizing process! As the hunting age declined from the over-killling of big animals world wide, the women gatherers gained influence in society and took over. Thinking that they bore children autogenesly, they could reduce men to a superfelous role---and did. I would assume the men well played their part and made up a useless, demoralized and troublesom caste! When repressed, they do tend to riot, burn and rape . . .right?! Anyway, some 7 thousand years ago the idea that men played a role in reproduction developed out of animal husbandry. It spread to the pastoralists who took the idea and worked it into a male god religion in which women only INCUBATED the offspring!:yes:

The result was the rise of barbarism and barbarians. . . and we've had trouble ever since! Since then, When ever a society became to feminine, barbarians always swept in and straighten things out again. Mankind cannot return to the belief that men play no fertilizing role! So, societies ever since have swung back in the direction of the old feminist system but barbarism has always stopped it. )( That process contiues to this day. . .

 

[PureX]

Early religions worshipped the Goddess, probably because the woman gives life. Do you think this will come to be again? I have noticed a trend toward Goddess worship is some religions. Assuming this would happen, how do you think this would change religion as we know it?

When we changed from a female concept of deity to male, we seem also to have changed from worshipping the life force to worshipping the concept of power. I don't really know why we would have changed in this way. Perhaps it's as simple as our brains evolving to allow our thoughts to become more abstract. Maybe our egos evolved to become more self-centered and demanding. Who knows?

In any case, it's not likely that we will go back anytime soon. That doesn't seem to be the way evolution and cultural changes like this work. All we can do is hope to evolve beyond our current state and into something more healthy.

 

[painted wolf]

Early religions were varied, not all of them were godess worshipers.
Most early religions didn't have a 'humanized' concept of god or goddess at all.
Many still don't.

wa:do

 

[MaddLlama]

There exist feminist websites that push the creation of a mother-goddess religion and society. One such webside claims the site cost them $50,000 to build and is filled with marvelous pictures, some of them a bit riskey by even modern standards!

My investigation into the ancient pre-history mother goddess society is that it was ultimately destroyed by the concept that men actually played a role in the fertilizing process! As the hunting age declined from the over-killling of big animals world wide, the women gatherers gained influence in society and took over. Thinking that they bore children autogenesly, they could reduce men to a superfelous role---and did. I would assume the men well played their part and made up a useless, demoralized and troublesom caste! When repressed, they do tend to riot, burn and rape . . .right?! Anyway, some 7 thousand years ago the idea that men played a role in reproduction developed out of animal husbandry. It spread to the pastoralists who took the idea and worked it into a male god religion in which women only INCUBATED the offspring!:yes:

The result was the rise of barbarism and barbarians. . . and we've had trouble ever since! Since then, When ever a society became to feminine, barbarians always swept in and straighten things out again. Mankind cannot return to the belief that men play no fertilizing role! So, societies ever since have swung back in the direction of the old feminist system but barbarism has always stopped it. )( That process contiues to this day. . .

"Mother-goddess" society? Are you talking about ancient cultures like the Greeks, or some sort of ancient, unidentifiable matriarchy that nobody has any evidence for the existence of?

 

[PureX]

Early religions were varied, not all of them were godess worshipers.
Most early religions didn't have a 'humanized' concept of god or goddess at all.
Many still don't.

wa:do

But fertility goddesses are by far the most common icons found in ancient archeological digs, all over the world. Clearly, early on, humans saw the female as the symbol of the life-giving and sustaining force, and imagined the forces that governed the Earth as being femenine in nature. When we changed to view the gods as male, we also tended to see them as very humanized; social, political, vengeful, etc. And when we began to adopt the single 'mega-god' concept, this too tended to be a very human male image, endowed with great destructive power and the authority of our own religious mandates.

As our gods became more male, they also became more human, and more destructive, and threatening, rather than creative and nurturing.

 

[Mercy Not Sacrifice]

http://www.universitadelledonne.it/noble.htm

Wow. Fascinating read.

See, I've said it before: Executed properly, such a system would be liberating to both women as well as men. Once you learn to let go of the reigns of control, your life becomes freer. It appears that this culture has realized this.

It is also very refreshing to hear concrete evidence of a society that has a markedly fewer instances of in-law, romantic, and marital problems; i.e., there is tangible proof that it CAN be done, that there is indeed a solution out there to the obvious problems that we are all well aware of.

Grian, thank you for ressurecting this thread.

 

[painted wolf]

I think things Interpreded as fertility godesses are common.
The prehistoric "venus" figures are not synonomus with a goddess, they were more likely divination devices due to the nature of thier damage. (Hot/cold fracturing)

I'm afraid that the omnipresant "goddess cult" doesn't have much in the way of good evidence. Just guesswork and supposition.

Most of the oldest religons don't have a god or goddess figure at all. Many have an overspirit that is often not anthropomorphic.

The most common symbols found are actually very finely worked tools like stone knives and arrowheads. Obviously not ment for use, they are too perfect and too pretty for such things.

Next to that are decorative objects of all sorts. "Fertility godesses" are actually quite localized to the Eur-asia area. (Mostly Europe)

wa:do

 

[Moses the God Archetype*]

*........shrimati Radharani........*hello

 

[Ashley-Yin]

the Woman and the Goddess ruled the earth without oppression
women aren't violent and out number men 2-1 but still men and gods wanted to dominate
2 perfect examples are Christianity and Islam in both women are treated as possessions.
women need to call upon the Goddess once more to achieve a balance.