The following was a comment on a blog that I follow:
All scripture was written by human beings who, I believe, unwittingly created God’s nature in their own fallible and often-enough angry, vengeful image. (This may also help explain why those authors’ Maker has to be male.) Too many of today’s institutional Christians believe and/or vocally behave likewise.
Others have made similar observations related to God’s nature.
Personally, I tend to agree.
However, what I found particularly intriguing was the statement in parenthesis.
Thoughts?
Nan's Notebook 
Hello Nan. As you said a god created in their own image. Females had value for only one thing and it was not for their wisdom or ability to reason. Men were listened too, men were in charge, men were powerful. There for the most powerful god, the god above other gods must be male. Only makes sense. What male of that time would have believed in a powerful woman not controlled by a man?
That leads us to why is misogyny still such a deep and widespread problem in the Christian religion and why do they fight so hard to maintain outdated gender roles? I think it is power and control. The weakest man is allowed, promoted, and given the control over any woman. Teen boys in the Morman faith are given authority that even their mother doesn’t have. In Islamic countries an 8 year old boy can travel freely but his mother must have him accompany her if she wishes to go somewhere. It is power and control. What I don’t get is why any woman would put up with it. Scottie
LikeLiked by 7 people
You are so right, Scottie … Christianity, Islam, and other religions have kept women under the thumb of men for centuries and continue to do so today, despite the lengthy and often successful campaigns we have waged to demand our equal rights. I will never forget a time about 3-4 months into my (failed) marriage, when my late ex-husband came home, didn’t like what I had prepared for supper, and informed me that his job was to earn the living and mine was to make sure I had supper on the table when he got home and that it was something he liked. I knew then that I had made the mistake of a lifetime. Hugs
LikeLiked by 3 people
I definitely agree. Funny, though, that the bible speaks of a ‘kind and loving god’, but the evangelicals of today portray him as being cruel and vengeful. The same is true of Allah in the religion of Islam, and most likely every god-like creation in every religion. Marx hit the nail on the head when he referred to religion as the ‘opiate of the masses’ … it is a control mechanism to keep people from giving into their baser instincts, and to try to conform everyone to fit into the same box.
LikeLiked by 5 people
Well, the thing about god is that he/she/it changes to suit the needs of whoever is speaking. So yes, the loving god in one pulpit is a murderous bastard in another. But he/she/it raises money for the padre at the same rate as the preacher.
LikeLiked by 4 people
Excellent point … it raises money and keeps people under the control of the church/mosque/synagogue.
LikeLiked by 1 person
If it wasn’t theism, a different form of fanaticism or extremist belief system would likely take its problematic place. One might look at Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge concept of the righteous society as a scary example of this. Having said that, however, I can see how there could be no greater perceived justification for, or the-end-justifies-the-means motivator of, inhumane/immoral behavior than ‘the Almighty hath willed it!’ …
(As an aside) Some of the best humanitarians I’ve met or heard about ironically were/are atheists or agnostics who’d make better examples of many of Christ’s teachings than too many (whom I refer to as) institutional Christians (i.e. those most resistant to Christ’s fundamental teachings of non-violence, compassion and non-wealth). Conversely, some of the worst human(e) beings I’ve met or heard about are the most devout practitioners of institutional Christian theology.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I think most non-believers would agree wholeheartedly with your last paragraph.
What so many believers seem unable to comprehend is that simply tagging on the title of “Christian” doesn’t change anything. As it says in their Holy Book, 1 John 3:18: Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.
Too may examples indicate that few even know the scripture is there …
LikeLiked by 1 person
Authoritarianism. I think that term may be a little less intimidating than tyrant or dictator, but it is leading to the same end: a hierarchal system in which white males are in charge of society. When we submit ourselves to a religious system, we submit ourselves to the rule of men who make up the rules as they go.
LikeLiked by 5 people
Agreed. There are far too many who believe in the superiority of white males, though most of the truly rotten people I’ve known in my lifetime were white males! I think we barely dodged the bullet on authoritarian rule under the former guy and I fear there are some … how many I don’t know … who would happily give up our democratic foundation at this point. Perhaps we could send them to live in Kazakhstan for a year and give them a taste of what it’s like.
LikeLiked by 1 person
It is not their baser instincts religion tries to control, but rather their class or caste, as well as their minds. Even then rich and powerful people wanted to keep common people down. How better than keeping all the priests and rabbis and such being the second-born son of the rich. The first born son was given the birthright of the fathers wealth and property. The second born was send to divinity school. Any sons after that were sent into the army to leas the so-called enlisted men in wars of plunder and rape. Place of birth meant everything, whether you were suited for it or not.
LikeLiked by 2 people
True — throughout history people have been idiots and religion is just one part of that idiocy.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The bible does NOT talk about a “kind & loving god”. Open that fucker up & read it. It talks about a god that you FEAR.
The “kind & loving god” is a portrait of Jesus that has been given to us via hundred of sermons … that person appears only in a few verses of the New Testament.
The Bible as we know it was a tool of the late Roman Empire & it was about keeping the people in line, using Jesus Christ as a gentle, pastoral preacher who died for our sins … blah blah blah. If Jesus actually existed, he was probably a radical revolutionary, which is why he ended up crucified, like every other criminal in that time.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I’m not, and never have been a Christian, so I haven’t had any cause or desire to read a book that, to me, is pure fiction written by people who hoped to mold the future of humans.
LikeLiked by 1 person
In the case of Christianity, I believe that Jesus was/is intended in large part to show humankind what Messiah ought to and needs to be; to prove to people that there really was/is hope for the many — especially for young people living in today’s physical, mental and spiritual turmoil — perceiving hopelessness in an otherwise fire-and-brimstone angry-God-condemnation creator. [Also, I wonder whether the general need by humans (including me) for retributive justice is intrinsically linked to the same terribly flawed aspect of humankind that enables the most horrible acts of violent cruelty to readily occur on this planet, perhaps not all of which we learn about.]
From my understanding, Judaism’s messiah is reflective of the unambiguously fire-and-brimstone angry-God Almighty of the Torah, Old Testament and Quran. This thus left even John the Baptist, who believed in Jesus as the savior, troubled by Jesus’ apparently contradictory version of Messiah, notably his revolutionary teaching of non-violently offering the other cheek as the proper response to being physically assaulted by one’s enemy. … Perhaps Jesus was viciously killed because he did not in the least behave in accordance to corrupted human conduct and expectation — and in particular because he was nowhere near to being the vengeful, wrathful behemoth so many people seemingly wanted or needed their savior to be and therefore believed he’d have to be.
P.S. It seems that when a public/political figure openly fantasizes about world peace (or universal healthcare coverage, etcetera), conservative ‘Christians’ will reactively presume that that person must therefore be Godless thus evil or, far worse, a socialist. This, despite a big chunk of Christ’s own teachings epitomizing primary components of socialism (e.g. do not hoard morbidly superfluous wealth in the midst of poverty). Just the concept of socialists having any power anywhere on the planet likely distresses them.
LikeLike
God’s nature? Well it all depends on who has the pulpit and what the ancient scribes were like. The character in the Old Testament is certainly different (I am told) than the meek and mild later version. Everyone has their own version of all that belief stuff anyway. God’s nature? Well yes, it’s much like my own. GROG
LikeLiked by 4 people
I wish I had read all the comments before I jumped in. Your version sounds better than mine but the bottom line is the same, huh? The idea of god is open to each grifter to discern.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Great post, Nan.
God didn’t create man in HIS own image, Man created god in HIS own image. Just consider the the overall nature of all scripture; it’s so obviously human, i.e., man-centric, it couldn’t be more obvious. ALL scripture was written BY man, FOR man, period, end of story.
LikeLiked by 3 people
In more ways than one, your comment is spot-on!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Here is the Buddhist take on that
“ Now with the word ‘god’ there is nothing to which it refers, so each man creates his own image of that for which there is no reference.
J Krishnamurti
LikeLiked by 2 people
“No god was ever in advance of the nation that created him.”
Robert Green Ingersoll. The Gods / From ‘The Gods and Other Lectures’ (Kindle Locations 142-143).
Of course, all the gods that ever were are the product of the human imagination. I like to read Stephen King and James Paterson. Among others, but their work is the product of their wonderful imaginations. But, I have never thought their characters were real.
I learned that most of the OT was most likely written as poetry. I learned that the Judeo-Christian story of creation and the flood came from earlier such stories. Mesopotamian, Greek, and Roman gods preceded both Jewish and Christian gods. Religion is like the invention of the wheel; once men saw the wheel and its nomenclature, they all began building their own. Cha-ching!
LikeLiked by 1 person
…Stephen King and James Paterson, among others, …
Note to self: I should not smoke before I come here.
LikeLiked by 1 person
OK, so I’m all over the place here tonight. We came home from an awesome dinner out and we’ve been imbibing some great Cabs, and I’m inspired to write.
Consider the Bible and its’ part in the entire paradigm of civilization; the classes emerge just like it did in the Cradle of Civilization. Standard metamorphosis: The Rulers, the Priests, the Nobility, and the Peasants, it all falls into place. Each group dependent to the group before them. There’s nothing original, nothing even seemingly singular about it at all except for the meaning that people seem to want – or need – to imbue. Even the creations that god was supposed to have engineered don’t really seem that incredible or unusual for an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, supernatural entity. After all a group of men made them up, did’t they? Almost every single culture on this planet has a similar mythology, so what?
And some of the adherents are just so obtuse, stultifying so, really. It’s hard to conceive that so many people can be so disconnected from any semblance of reality. I guess it’s true; the bigger the lie, the more people will believe it. And do they ever. They’re absolutely sure the Big Lie is true, absolutely. What do you do with that? And they don’t seem to get that you can not have “free will” if you have an omniscient – ALL KNOWING – deity; can’t happen. If he already now’s EVERYTHING you’re ever going to DO, SAY, THINK, even DREAM, before it happens then where’s your free will? You simply can NOT do anything other then what he already knows you’re going to do.
Lately I’ve been in a discourse with another blogger about the nature of the Book of Isaiah and whether or not it is a credible prophecy of the arrival of Jesus as the Jewish Messiah. It is astonishing the way he can pick and choose various snippets of each portion in order to build his case. And when I point out other portions of the book that are, in fact, past tense from Isaiah’s lifetime, he doesn’t really seem to want to acknowledge the credibility of it. I have referred him the Rabbi Tovia Singer for a thorough schooling on Isaiah. Not sure if he will reach out, but I’m hoping.
LikeLiked by 2 people
They/we believe what they/we want to believe.
(Dinner out??? Oh how we miss that! But we just can’t quite bring ourselves to take the chance. *sad sigh*)
LikeLiked by 2 people
My big question is why do so many, in all religions, still, in the 21st century, believe all this nonsense. I know some are raised deep in it for generations, but even there, some get free of it. What aren’t the numbers higher of logical critical thinking people. Is it the educated or are the educated just smarter in general?
How can we still be so stuck as a species. I just don’t get it.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Take heart, Mary. The Nones are increasing!
LikeLiked by 2 people
It cannot be disputed that every word of God has only been reported by man. Every god that man has ever created is a product of all the best and the worst ideas, thoughts, and emotions of mankind. Nobody ever came to believe in a god except it was taught to them by another person. Everything we have ever read which is supposed to be proof of God was written by men in different times with different inclinations, which other men, hundreds of years after the fact, have tried to homogenize all these disparate ideas into an acceptable narrative. Poetry and prose wrestled into Holy Writ.
There is no cohesion of thought in Christianity, even in a single congregation. If that is not enough to make anyone doubt the validity of their particular sect, then let’s allow them to continue their journey. Their own scripture condemns the pastor and the priest, yet they choose to believe. What they believe does not make anything true, it only confirms the myth in their minds, where it is not only acceptable but it sustains their whole existence.
Religion is an illness that each one of us, as victims, has to free ourselves from it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Excellent comment! 👏👏👏
LikeLike
I would point out that how God is portrayed throughout Scripture varies widely, from the angry God to the compassionate and merciful God. In all these portrayals of God, God is still portrayed as male by-in-large so I’m a little hesitant to connect male-ness of God, violence, and the mindsets of many of us.
A bigger question I ask is this: Why do many of us (I’m speaking in the first-person plural because I am a Christian) gravitate towards the God who is angry and wrathful and punishing people in all sorts of ways, when there are much more loving and merciful portrayals of God that can also be found? My theory is that some want a strongman God, and you can find a strongman God in Scripture so Scripture can just as easily be used as justification for the strongman God.
P.S. In case you were wondering, my attitude on Scripture is that it is written by humans, so while you can find some wisdom in Scripture and a lot of wisdom in particular when it comes to Jesus’ teachings, there are also some significant limitations because those who wrote were human and did not have a perfect understanding of God.
LikeLiked by 1 person
… because those who wrote were human and did not have a perfect understanding of God.
Actually, I would say there are MANY in today’s world who don’t have that understanding. They think they do, but the number of denominations and pseudo preachers and myriad interpretations are a pretty strong indicator that the answer(s) (if they exist) are VERY well-hidden.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Count me among those who don’t have that perfect understanding. Once again, I don’t claim to, either. I do know some who claim to have that level of understanding, and I frankly find it a little terrifying. I’d much rather accept that we are limited human trying to better understand a God without limits, and that as such how we understand the God some of us believe in will have its limitations on how we view Him/Her/Them.
LikeLiked by 1 person
*that we are limited human beings trying to better understand a God without limits, and that as such there will be limitations on how we understand the God some of us believe in.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I sometimes wonder whether the general need by humans (including me) for retributive justice is intrinsically linked to the same terribly flawed aspect of humankind that enables the most horrible acts of violent cruelty to readily occur on this planet, perhaps not all of which we learn about. Also, I can see many institutional Christians even finding inconvenient, if not bothersome, trying to reconcile the conspicuous inconsistency in the fundamental nature of the New Testament’s Jesus with the wrathful, vengeful and even jealous nature of the Old Testament’s Creator. …
In the case of Christianity, I believe that Jesus was/is intended in large part to show humankind what Messiah ought to and needs to be; to prove to people that there really was/is hope for the many — especially for young people living in today’s physical, mental and spiritual turmoil — perceiving hopelessness in an otherwise fire-and-brimstone angry-God-condemnation creator.
LikeLiked by 1 person
If one believes the bible and then by association believes in Jesus, you’re probably correct that his core nature would be a model to follow. Unfortunately, generally speaking, Jesus-believers overlook his admonitions towards love and peace and prefer to focus on judgement … which then circles back to the desire for retribution.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Dinner out? What planet are you on? Whether we order two cheese pizza or lobster Thermador, we go somewhere and pick it up. I can’t even find a place to sit down in Walmart.
LikeLiked by 1 person
When are we going to give uo talking about gods when all we are succeeding at is getting true believers circle their wagons to form a stronger perimeter. We mostly got out not because of attacks on religion, we mostly got out be freedom of thought. The more we talk, the stronger they become. Let go of it.
LikeLiked by 2 people
See my reply to silverapplequeen. 🙂
LikeLike
Well, DUH. Of course god is created in man’s image, all gods are thus created, which is why the goddess in women’s religions is so powerful for so many women.
But I agree with rawgod … let go this already!
Or … is something heavier going on? Are you being evangelized? Jehovah Witnesses coming to the door & being persuasive? Or just your childhood religion calling to you? (I hear the church bells where I live, too).
LikeLike
Ha-Ha! No, SAQ, I’m not being evangelized. (Thankfully!)
But religion and its various and abundant peculiarities always seems to be a popular topic. In fact, I happen to know there are regular visitors to my blog that frequent and partake in several Christian blogs. So the interest is there.
My best suggestion? Anyone who is bored, tired, or simply uninterested in religious-oriented topics, simply skip over them and look for other posts that interest you. I think most of my followers know I write about a very wide range of topics. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Sounds like censorship to me, eh, what, saq. We should have to respond to only those posts we respond affirmatively to. Where would be the fun in that?
To Nan, I am not trying to stop you personally from writing about whatever you want. My comment was much more generalised, aimed at people all over the world. I am hoping there will come a time when we are not prosthelytising our own viewpoints, just happy being who we are, and talking amongst ourselves about our own forms of non-belief. There might be countless sects of religion being believed in this world, but by my understanding, every good atheist has their own individual understanding of what atheism means to their lives, even though many of those individuals are not always respected my people who call themselves “mainline atheists!
Nope, however many atheists there are in this world, that is how many “sects” we have. And that is the way I, for one, like it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Based on your second comment, it seems I may have misinterpreted your Let go of it remark. Sorry ’bout that.
BTW, I wouldn’t hold my breath related to your wish for people to stop proselytizing. Believers are commanded to “save/win the lost” — while non-believers are continuingly trying to help them “see the light.” 🙂
In any case, I agree it would be nice if we could follow Rodney King’s wish and “all just get along.”
LikeLiked by 1 person
No problemo, Nan. Life goes on…
LikeLike
Ler your democracy go. Let all your personal freedoms go. Let your hold on reality go. Ler your hopes for a free America for the coming generations go. The church brought the fight to us.
LikeLiked by 1 person
L Ron Hubbard and Joseph Smith proved you can pull a religion whole cloth out of your nether-quarters and people will buy it. Millions, around the world. Couple of con-artists, one of lynched for it.
Five, maybe ten thousand years ago the Cults of Male Domination usurped the woman’s rightful role in the proper ordering of the world and all else hence: War, politics, religion; drugs, alcohol, pornography; War, The Church, politics, religion, pornography … Serve naught but to enforce that domination.
Even the crotch-shots on Fox …
LikeLiked by 4 people
So we should acquiesce and let the radical Christians take over and ruin the idea of separation of church and state and change the constitution? I don’t think so.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Joseph Campbell does some great discussion on this very topic with Bill Moyers o. YouTube. It is specifically on the Goddess culture and how the Israelites were particularly hostile towards the Goddess figure even though Yahweh obviously had a female consort at one time, Asherah, that is mentioned over 50 times in the Hebrew Bible. they made a very deliberate and specific shift to take over the gender of their deity even though many of their followers rejected the idea of a male deity without a female as ludicrous. You can read in the Hebrew bible how many centuries it took, literally, before the forced the tradition into being.
Search on Campbell and Goddess on YouTube. It’s fascinating.
LikeLiked by 1 person
they made a very deliberate and specific shift to take over the gender of their deity
And boy did they succeed!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes, that they did indeed! And what awesome power and influence this gave them over the female population! It was often thought that the more agrarian cultures favored the feminine deities since they saw the Earth in more of a feminine paradigm and the hunter-gatherers, while they still recognized the goddesses they may have seen the male as dominant since these were the more war-oriented cultures.
Either way, once you get out in excess of 6,000 – 7,000 BCE almost the entirety of the pantheon is female. Just look at the various Venii found in the Near East going back as far as 30,000 & 40,000 years; virtually all female entities, even in Israel and Jerusalem.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I suppose it’s because men did most of the writing, transcribing, and translating of the Bible. Or maybe because the word “man” was shorter/easier to chip out of rock or write down using a quill and ink. Or maybe because saviors are portrayed as men. Or maybe because it takes humanity so darn long to recognize that Mother love is super powerful and lasting and meaningful. Either way, the nature of God as Spirit, Love, Life, Truth, Principle, Mind, and Soul makes most sense to me. Thanks for the conversation.
LikeLike
And thank you, Cheryl, for taking the time to visit and comment.
LikeLike
No, not really, Cheryl. The Israelites were particularly hostile to feminine worship and the Goddess. They “adopted” Yahweh from the Canaanites and purposely stripped him of is consort Asherah, although it took many hundreds of years to get her completely out of the pantheon for good. Many,many people continued to worship her as the “Queen of Heaven”. In fact, I invite to to seek her out in Jeremiah, when they come to regret ignoring her.
LikeLike