Rumination of the Goddess kind

[eumelia]

I decided to get rid of the Spiritual Filter, because it's not something I'm ashamed of and not something that should be restricted from people who read this LJ.

For your convenience it is under the cut.

Many... well a few months ago, I wrote about my intention to try and combine my old-time religion (Agnostic Judaism) and my actual spiritual beliefs (Shamanistic Paganism).

With the current state in which I find Judaism that isn't going to work. I simply can't accept Judaism as it is today as the basis for my spiritual practice, it's too constrictive, too anachronistic, even with it being an evolving religion that keeps historical tradition, it has completely negated the female aspects of GD.
Like many Jews I try not to use GD's name in vain, mainly in writing which is why I don't write the whole word, only in fiction do I use the whole word.
But the Jewish GD is one I have a hard time wanting to spend time with, I'm Agnostic, because I have no way of proving or disproving the existence of a deity. A deity exists out of the power of belief and faith, it's a beautiful thing, and throughout my albeit short life, I have gone from Believer to Atheist and back again, though a few years ago I came to the conclusion that it doesn't matter, if GD truly exists or not. The GD of which I speak, is unfortunately not mine. The GD of my people is a shadow of what the divine should be, because the concept is a direct reflection of the believers and most of the believers, at least in Israel, are out of touch with what I consider truly holy, or more the point, what should be considered equally holy.

In Judaism there is the a concept known as the Shechina or Shekinah, the spelling varies in English though in Hebrew it is written as שכינה, which comes from the root שכן which is literally translated as "to dwell". And the Shekinah is considered the presence of GD of Earth and thus considered merely a tiny piece of the universal GD of Judaism. This is the transformation that occurred over thousands of years where for reasons I still do not fully understand, the female principal was shushed, quited down and made mute. But seeing as they couldn't kill the spirit of their women, since they, ya know, ensured the continuity of their sons (their daughters weren't as important, obviously), the GDess remained in the silenced, almost negligible role as being GD on Earth, though not really, just a little bit.

It used to be that GD the celestial father and GDess the earth mother were equal, with different functions, same as between Human men and women, different but ultimately equal. Something shifted, but the balance tilted and the GDess was lost, silenced, still there but not heard which is worse than killing Her and making the body disappear at least then we wouldn't know any better and Ignorance is Bliss and all that Bullshit.

So Judaism as a Spiritual path is not good for me, though an identity, culture and mindset I can't get rid of it, that instilled paranoid criticism and guilt that we are not as good as our Makers (parents, GDs, whoever) wanted us to be.

It would seem that the more I think about, the more towards the female principal I go. Which I can't say is really surprising, I always felt more connected to Artemis (Greek Goddess of the hunt, nature, moon and girl children) than to any other deity.
I even have a figurine of her on my shelf, she's very beautiful.

I suppose it's back to Goddess Worship for me.

Comments

[avgboojie.livejournal.com]

Okay, I need to ask: why do deities need gender, anyway? I always kind of thought of the monotheistic god (in which I don't believe, bein an atheist in faith) as a non-sexual or pan-sexual entity, concieved of as male only because of the restricted nature of popular human thought. Even in judaism, in the more serious judaism, god is not considered to be male, but non-sexual. I think the need to make the dichotomy into male/female deities stem from the same disease that makes the people on the street concieve of god as that ominous male figure with long white beard and all that bullshit. Deities are just not human, they don't really need the human division into genders. They can have it all in one entity.
I, personally, like it better that way, I mean, as a way of thought. I don't like male/female being dichotomised, certainly not when it comes to powers of nature. It's all one power, non-sexual, non-differential, all-loving, etc.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Obviously deities don't "need" or even "have" gender.
My own philosophical and theological ideas are long winded and need a whole post on their own.
I find it difficult to relate to GD as a one all power, it's very impersonal and is too much like Deism to make me feel spiritually connected to life (which to me is what faith and spirituality is about). Also, despite the fact that Jewish theology shows GD, as you say, non or pan-sexual, the prayers are given to a "King" and "Master", to a "Father". No "Queen", "Mistress" or "Mother" and that's what I feel lacks.

Several thoughts on the subject

[antongarou.livejournal.com]

Maybe it all started simply because there is no neutral gender in Hebrew?צורת הסתמי is male, and so the deity is referred to as male "by default".The Rambam wrote that trying to define the deity's bodily attributes was blasphemous because s/he/it has been defined to have no body and be beyond description(and so no bodily attributes).

Another point:all these attributes seem to be there as a way to acknowledge the deity's power over the praying person.How many powerful, non-negative female figures were there in the societies in which Judaism evolved(and was later propagated)?Not that many, if at all.It may have even been socially accepted that powerful women are bad by definition.Add in the fact that Judaism, by its very nature as a legalistic system, is immensely conservative and it may simply be a leftover from a society were powerful and positive women was literally an unthinkable concept.

Re: Several thoughts on the subject

[hagar-972.livejournal.com]

So the Deity is refered to as male not because it is believed to be male, but because the possibility of a powerful, positive female figure is unthinkable. I fail to see the effective difference here.

(Clarification: i'm not being offensive. I'm being sarcastic. Please don't take offense. Thanks.)

Re: Several thoughts on the subject

[antongarou.livejournal.com]

The second point was totally separate from the first:)- i.e. given that religious Judaism refers(and thinks of) to the deity as male although the deity is supposedly bodiless and without gender, why?

Re: Several thoughts on the subject

[hagar-972.livejournal.com]

Gotacha.

And - wanted to say this before and forgot - צורת הסתמי is everything but neutral. That the male form is used as the general, 'neutral' form, in Hebrew and in other languages, is just proof of the disinclusion of women.

Other than language, I think the most striking examples of the disinclusion of women may be found in medicine. The most famous example: more women than men die from heart attacks. This is also because the symptoms of heart attacks in women are different than in men, and most doctors are still unaware of this. A more daily example: you wouldn't believe the number of doctors who don't know that NSAIDS lower blood pressure. Result? A woman prescribed an NSAID to treat an inflamation she has might reach the ER because the doctor gave her a dosage that'll crash her BP. Men's BP doesn't drop as sharply as women's, and generally is not as low to begin with. But everyone know NSAIDS are bad for the heart - and heart diseases are that much more common in men than in women.

(NSAIDS: non-steroid anti-inflamatory drugs. Ibuprofen [Adex, Advil, Nurofen], Naproxen [Nerocin, Naproxi], Etoricoxib [Arcoxia], Vioxx, etc.)

Re: Several thoughts on the subject

[antongarou.livejournal.com]

Please, reread- I said "because there is no neutral gender".

Re: Several thoughts on the subject

[antongarou.livejournal.com]

As to the doctors thing: that's medical negligence to my way of thinking.Half of their patients are women, after all, they should take care to check differences that are as simple as greater vulnerability to side-effects of common drugs.

Re: Several thoughts on the subject

[hagar-972.livejournal.com]

What is the precentenge of non-Caucasian people among patients in need of organ transplantation? Yes, there is little to no MHC characterisation (tissue typing) data available for non-Caucasian people.

Scary, isn't it?

Medicine is slowly becoming less biased. The heart attack thing is at least somewhat known, nowdays, and becoming more known with time. Five years ago it was virtually unheard of. As for the low BP thing - well, nearly all medical people (not just doctors) will say that low BP is not a medical problem. Tell that to anyone with a BP under 100/80...

Re: Several thoughts on the subject

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

I don't know, figurines Ashtoret (Phoenician Goddess of love and fertility) and Anat (Phoenician Goddess of love and war) were found in archaeological sites over Israel in areas where it known to have Hebrew populations.

Also, the Hewbrews were slaves for a number of generation in Egypt which are very egalitarian in their theology, I mean Isis and Nephtys and Nut, are just as important as Ra, Osiris and Horus.

The Hebrew language is male, its default usage of pronouns are male, making it very, very clear that maleness precedes femaleness which is the exception and the "Other".

Re: Several thoughts on the subject

[antongarou.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure the Egyptian theology was all that egalitarian OTOH I don't know it that well, so several questions:How are Isis, Nephtys, etc. portrayed beyond their power? positive? negative? varied?Where are their powers "placed" i.e. are they concentrated in the household or are they free to do as they want?

Also, another possibility is that Judaism became non-tolerant as a counter to these egalitarian theologies- Judaism is full of borders between in-group and out-group.Take Kosher for example- it creates a border on the one of most basic of social activities: the people you can eat with.

Re: Several thoughts on the subject

[ayellowbirds.livejournal.com]

The big problem with talking about the old Egyptian beliefs is that people tend to treat it as a unified pantheon, with set relationships that don't vary. This is probably because it's just easier to approach it that way, but it is by no means accurate. Most modern people who know of Seth will identify him as an evil god opposed to the others, but in the past there were rulers who incorporated Seth's name into their own, and he was identified as a protector of both the ruler and Ra. The portrayals of the individual goddesses and gods varies widely throughout history, mainly due to which deity's followers were in power. Not surprisingly, a person who is devoted to Aset (Isis, if you want to use the Greek form) attributes the most power and range of abilities to her.

Basically, saying that one deity is as (or more) important as another deity is more a matter of in what time and place you are discussing them.

[hagar-972.livejournal.com]

Well, it depends on whether you're monotheistic or pagan at heart.

If you're of the monotheistic persuasion than yes, there's only one Deity and they're all-encompassing: pan-sexual and whatnot. If you're from the pagan side of the map, though, then everything and anything will have a deity: the natures of the particular deity and the particular entity will be related, and some deities will be more major/minor than others.

As I said above to Mel, though, I don't believe that any particular entity will have only a male or a female deity; I believe that any entity has the potential for both.