BEEP! BEEP! IT'S ME.

"Begin at the beginning,and go on till you come to the end: then stop." (Lewis Carroll, 1832-1896)

Alice came to a fork in the road. "Which road do I take?" she asked."Where do you want to go?" responded the Cheshire cat."I don't know," Alice answered."Then," said the cat, "it doesn't matter."

"So long as I get somewhere," Alice added as an explanation. "Oh, you're sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough."

"All right," said the Cat; and this time it vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone. "Well! I've often seen a cat without a grin," thought Alice; "but a grin without a cat! It's the most curious thing I ever saw in my life!"

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I am diagonally parked in a parallel universe. Like Arthur Dent from "Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy", if you do not have a Babel Fish in your ear this blog will be completely unintelligible to you and will read something like this: "boggle, google, snoggle, slurp, slurp, dingleberry to the power of 10". Fortunately, those who have had the Babel Fish inserted in their ear, will understood this blog perfectly. If you are familiar with this technology, you will know that the Babel Fish lives on brainwave radiation. It excretes energy in the form of exactly the correct brainwaves needed by its host to understand what was just said; or in this case, what was read. The Babel Fish, thanks to scientific research, reverses the problem defined by its namesake in the Tower of Babel, where a deity was supposedly inspired to confuse the human race by making them unable to understand each other.

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Wednesday, April 11, 2007

BIBLICAL CREATION OR "THE SEED AND POTTING MIX SAGA."


Having mentioned previously that many early religions were fertility cults, that is worship of gods, goddesses, natural processes, the stars moon and primarily the sun which were revered in order to enure the fertility of the soil, crops, livestock and humans; I am now going to discuss the origins of the Abrahamic religions in the context of this knowledge. I have also discussed previously, the origins of circumcision and how it was a ritual performed in Ancient Egypt for specifically the purposes mentioned above.

Ever wondered why god is male? Yes, I know there are the new agey types out there who carry on like a pork chop how god isn't male or female, but those of us who were or are a member of one of the Abrahamic religions, should be left in no doubt that the monotheistic god of these religions is male. The Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) are basically patriarchal religions. Anyone who knows a little of their history is aware of this. The word "patriarchy" derives from the word "patriarch" and the ancient books of the jews and consequently the christians are full of the deeds of the patriarchs. They were supposedly the male leaders of their clan or tribe. In other words, the head male honcho of each group.

So, there are patriarchs all over the Bible and the Hebrew Scriptures. The same story applies to the Islamic holy book the Quran, though I am not sure if they call their male leaders patriarchs, but the idea is the same. The guys supposedly get to rule, the guys are supposedly chosen by god, (who is inevitably male), to lead their people, the guys supposedly get the conversations with the male god which are then written into holy scriptures and women get to obey those words if they behave well enough so that they are not raped, sold into slavery or stoned to death. That's pretty well the gist of it. And I say fuck that shit. I don't think that the guys had a handle on what was going on at all. I think that they were basically ignorant, primitive tribesmen who concocted ideas as a means to explain the natural world. I mean, there were god stories all over the place, as the invention of a god was the common artifice used in order to explain anything they didn't understand. One more god didn't make much difference and probably seemed like the necessary thing to do if you wanted to galvanize the tribe into a common purpose.

The interesting thing to me is how and why religions became so obsessed with maleness. I have mentioned before the origins of circumcision and in this article I am going to discuss the mentality of these ancient people, why circumcision became a religious ritual and why the people of that time period created the concept of one male god who was the creator of all things and all life. As an interested observer of the bible I am struck by the language used to express concepts. One that is especially noticeable is the use of agricultural terms to express fertility and reproduction. If you do a search of the bible, you will see that the words "seed", "fruit" and "soil" are used in many occasions to describe human reproductive processes. This is understandable as these ancient people used words which were applicable to their time. There is no use of the words, sperm, ova, penis, uterus, foetus or embryo in the bible because those words were unknown. They were unknown to ancient people. The word "womb" is mentioned in the modern versions of the bible, but as the word originates from the old english word "wamb" (mid 5thC), one can assume that it wasn't the word used in the original text.

Need I add that in an agrarian mentality or culture that "tools that tilled the soil" were especially prized, and so fertility rituals were created which spoke of their importance. After all, if you have the belief that seed is produced exclusively by males and that women do not contribute genetic material in order to create new life, then you most probably create a ritual which symbolises the importance of this belief. If women and men were made from seed which man produced, then the male penis would take on special religious significance. I suggest that the ritual which was created to symbolize this male power was circumcision.

I am sure that ancient human beings understood the process of conception but nothing like the way we understand it now. So they probably twigged that they had to do the "wild thing" alright, but they didn't know that women produced half the biological material to create life. They had a common name for sperm which was "seed" and they had a common name for the finished product which was "fruit" but they had no common word for "ova". Why? Because the existence of ova wasn't considered until Reinier de Graaf. (1641-1673) That is approximately two thousand years after the creation of their penis cults. Reinier de Graaf was the first one to describe follicles, which he called "kleine bollekens", in the ovary which he called 'the female testicles' and he realized that a follicle contained an oocyte, which he called 'ovum'. Although he has never seen an oocyte; he deduced its presence from the observation of an ectopic pregnancy. Let that sink in for a moment. He considered the ovary to be "female testicles." This language explicitly demonstrates how little of the female reproductive system was known in the sixteen hundreds, let alone a couple of thousand years previously. But, as I am in the mood for being as matriarchal as the previous language was patriarchal, I shall henceforth refer to testicles as male ovaries.

Ova themselves were not EVIDENCED until 1827 by Prussian-Estonian embryologist Dr. Karl Ernst von Baer. See, I kind of go by what people DIDN'T know. I figure that people's beliefs are more than likely based on what they DON'T know, not so much on what they actually know. It's obvious that ancient man knew that his penis contained sperm which he called "seed". It is NOT obvious that they knew that women produced eggs which we now call ova. As it is NOT obvious that they knew these things it is extremely doubtful that they knew that women contributed 1/2 the biological material to create life. If they didn't know that women contributed half the biological material required to produce new life, then it is more than probable that they made some glaringly false assumptions. That they based their religions around these false assumptions is of no surprise to me either.

The bible uses the kind of "sexual language" that one would expect from an ancient agrarian society that associates male sperm with "seed", the woman's womb with "the soil" and the result as "fruit". I think that ancient men believed, because of a LACK of knowledge about human reproduction and a lack of knowledge about ova, that they were the instigators of life through their "seed" and that women were the "soil" which bore their "fruit." I am sure that men viewed themselves to be powerful because of this. Powerful men sired powerful sons. Weak men sired women, who were necessary, but not as important as males who exclusively produced seed. In an agrarian mentality, seed is the focus of life. No seed equals no crops. Even if you have no soil, you can always take your seed with you and fight for new soil. This works from an agricultural point of view and also a human reproductive point of view.


Now, this is where it gets even more interesting. From an agrarian point of view, if men were responsible for holding the seed to life in their penis, then a more powerful man must be responsible for the creation of all life. This is working from the agrarian mentality based on false assumptions. It had to be a male who was responsible for life because human males considered themselves to be the responsible for sowing seed to create new life. But how would this mysterious all-powerful male create all life? Well, if he was all-powerful, he wouldn't need a penis to transfer seed and he wouldn't need a woman's body to act as soil. (I suppose he might have had an invisible penis, but the ancients seem to have steered away from this concept, except for the offering of thousands of bits of penis skin to their male super deity. Perhaps it was a form of sympathetic magic whereby they hoped that by giving their male entity lots of bits of their "powerful organ" that he would bless them with fertile sperm and multitudinous fruit. Anyway, this all-powerful invisible dick in the sky didn't seem to need a woman's womb in order to create children, nor did he need visible sperm. He was all-powerful after all.)

But who created the first male? Seed is needed to create another male, or, a male is needed to create a male. So it must have been a superdooper male who created the first human male. This is where the agricultural mentality kicks in again. The powerful supernatural male creates life in the way that an ancient male would expect him to. He doesn't use his seed to impregnate a female; he uses his breath as an invisible being would use something invisible. Genesis 2:7- " the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being." He doesn't need a woman; he uses the soil of the earth in exactly the same way that women were considered to be soil in which seed could be planted. So, the soil, clay, dirt is the symbol of the female and the almighty male god only has to breathe into it to create a male. This is the explanation that ancient men came up with to explain not only why they believed that they were biologically more important, but also to explain how a male was produced without the need of a female. So what came first in the chicken and the egg story? In the case of ancient man and his knowledge, or lack of knowledge, the male and his seed came first, (pardon the double entendre) and the female or human potting mix was created secondly.

So it must have been a superdooper male who created the first human male. And amazingly, to match the ancient agrarian thinking, this superdooper male made a man out of dust, clay or soil. Seed goes into soil you see. But the superdooper male god didn't have to use "seed" like an ordinary human male. Oh no, he was SO powerful and so invisible that his invisible breath was enough to fertilize the soil. Then having created a man out of dirt, he went on to create a woman FROM man, because that is what the ancients believed, that women originated from men, from their seed. “For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman but woman for man.”1 Corinthians, 11:8 They believed that all humans came from a man's seed and where no visible seed was available that it was invisible seed in the form of a male's breath.. And that has been the fairytale for a few thousand years. Groan.


Thomas Acquinis (1225–1274CE) does not recognize the existence of any biological material suppled by the female. "As regards the individual nature, woman is defective and misbegotten, for the active power of the male seed tends to the production of a perfect likeness in the masculine sex; while the production of a woman comes from defect in the active power." - Thomas Aquinas, 'Summa Theological', Q92, art. 1, Reply Obj. 1 They didn't KNOW that women contributed half the biological material required to create life. They saw THEMSELVES as the ones who provided all the biological material that was necessary. They believed that they held the spark of creation. Little wonder that they went on to create religions which put them and their seed at the top of the pyramid and the soil or the potting mix at the bottom.

I consider these religions to be basically penis cults. They chop a bit off here and there and offer it up to their male god as a token of their esteem for him. Perhaps the supposed coat of many colours is actually made up of dried out old foreskins. Who knows? It wouldn't surprise me at all. They are just political organizations based on guys having an excuse to worship their own pee pees and the invisible pee pee who lives in the sky and who apparently watches them while they have sex with their pee pees. It appears to be basically a voyeuristic male entity who, at least from its inception, required foreskin sacrifice and who nodded approvingly at the snip of each organ..

Now, I know that men are basically fascinated with their penis from birth. Let's face it, it is a dangly toy a little like the mobiles which we dutifully hang above their cribs. They hold it when they sleep, unless they have been traumatized into thinking it is dirty, and they hold it when they are in danger and when they die. I don't have a major problem with the fact that they find their penis to be endlessly fascinating, except to say that I do not feel compelled to worship their penis with them, nor to worship their almighty invisible penis which has magic breath and lives in the sky. I am sure they find it absolutely enthralling but they really should move onto to other pursuits like being able to multi task or being able to count their golf scores honestly. After all, their penis isn't all-powerful no matter to which religious myth they ascribe. I intend to remind the more penis cult minded among them of that often.



Grease 2: 'Reproduction Song'



Link

57 Comments:

Blogger Krystalline Apostate said...

Well, I think my penis is incredibly fascinating, especially when it winks. & then it does the Funky Chicken. & then it parts the Red Sea.
You might even say, it's my magic wand. ;)
But I don't hold to it while I sleep. I usually put it out for the night.
Oh, wait, I'd better look up the definition...oops!
I don't think that the guys had a handle on what was going on at all.
Must...restrain...sophomoric...innuendo!

11/4/07 1:20 pm  
Blogger beepbeepitsme said...

LOL@ "I don't think that the guys had a handle on what was going on at all."

Maybe if ancient man cranked the handle more often than they did, they might have been able to think more clearly.

11/4/07 1:48 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

beep, In Geneis 1:27 ..."in the image of God He created them; male and female. God created them."

11/4/07 2:35 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The above creaton story presents them as being made at the same time and independently from one another.

11/4/07 2:38 pm  
Blogger beepbeepitsme said...

confused:

Which is contradicted in Genesis 2 where we get the contradictory but slightly more indepth version.

Oh, that's right, it can't be a contradiction even though it says different things, because it is the bible!. Pathetic. Truly pathetic.

Ask many christians and how god made them and they will inevitably refer to Genesis 2. (In fact, most of them would then go on to claim that in spite of there being 2 obviously contradictory statements, that both are right as both couldn't possibly be wrong and one couldn't only be right as that would serve to say that the bible was in error.

Their mind machinations in order to support their magic fairytales seem to know no irrational limits.

11/4/07 2:57 pm  
Blogger beepbeepitsme said...

Genesis 1:26

Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, [b] and over all the creatures that move along the ground."

It also seems to be referring to many gods. - Or at least more than one. ("Let us make man in our image, in our likeness,")

Maybe god was just employing the use of the royal "we", or perhaps he was feeling a tad schitzoid on that day. Hard to know.

11/4/07 3:01 pm  
Blogger Krystalline Apostate said...

Click here for the most disgusting creation story ever.

11/4/07 4:09 pm  
Blogger beepbeepitsme said...

KA

Seems like the ancient egyptians knew about seed. That he thought he could impregnate himself with his own seed, is as plausible as any other creation myth.

I could make further comment, but the small bounds of politeness I have set for myself, inhibit further comment. :)

11/4/07 4:19 pm  
Blogger concerned citizen said...

Interesting post...humorous but food for thought.

I have to confess I have occasionly(?sp) worshipped the penis. I've even gotten on my knees for one or two.

But, unlike the Penis God. My favorite penis's know how to get on their knees also.

11/4/07 4:22 pm  
Blogger beepbeepitsme said...

Hahahaha LT. :)

11/4/07 4:48 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

beepbeep,
I also almost ate rabbit on Easter. The market was selling fresh, organic rabbits. But I couldn't do it. I'm not a vegetarian, but I love rabbits and could imagine one as a pet, not to mention my beagle, sparky, was with me and the little unfurred rabbit somehow reminded me of sparky. oh, well. To the topic.

It's not a royal we, you're first insight is right. It shows traces of polytheism. Even in Exodus, God is one of many and the Israelites are commanded to worship a particular God. As the Bible evolves, one sees the transition from polytheism to monotheism.

11/4/07 11:44 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Many Christians interpret the plural reference to God as showing the Trinity, but historical evidence speaks against that.

11/4/07 11:46 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

beepbeep said:

"Seems like the ancient egyptians knew about seed. That he thought he could impregnate himself with his own seed, is as plausible as any other creation myth."

We also see this in the Hebrew Bible when one is commanded not to spill one's seed. The ancient Israelites believed that the seed was the life and the women was only needed to provide a house for the seed to grow. Science has not only shown this to be wrong, science is moving in a direction where we boys will one day be only for fun. With cloning, semen will soon no longer be needed.

11/4/07 11:50 pm  
Blogger Stew said...

I don't know why, but I can't make the jump from penis cult to circumcision being offerings to the penis god. I'm with you all the way on the links between agrarianism and male fertility etc, but foreskins and sympathetic magic just doesn't do it for me.

I'm speaking purely from having read your post and having done no research on the subject at all. I'm off to read you post on circumcision in Egypt.

11/4/07 11:57 pm  
Blogger concerned citizen said...

I prob. shouldn't of said that. ;]

Seriously, your post makes a lot of sense. I'll cut all those old guys some slack THEY didn't know any better.

See, I kind of go by what people DIDN'T know. I figure that people's beliefs are more than likely based on what they DON'T know, not so much on what they actually know.
Let's see, I'm guessing my Christian mother would argue, "It's spiritual, you can't judge spiritual things by scientific ignorance."
But, the way I see it, ignorance is ignorance no matter where it comes from. How can a person believe in a god that has promoted ignorance for thousands of years?

12/4/07 12:02 am  
Blogger concerned citizen said...

confused, maybe not said...

Many Christians interpret the plural reference to God as showing the Trinity, but historical evidence speaks against that.

If I've got my Early Christian history right, there were many different theroys on the divinity of Jesus & the interpretation of the message. The argument that won out was the one for the trinity.

Confused, is that how you understand it?

12/4/07 12:13 am  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

t,
yes. That's how I understand it. Many takes on Jesus were deemed heretical by the Council of Nicea.

12/4/07 2:55 am  
Blogger Unknown said...

If I've got my Early Christian history right, there were many different theroys on the divinity of Jesus & the interpretation of the message. The argument that won out was the one for the trinity.

It's not something confined to early Christianity. It's still going on, and in a big way.

Because the Bible makes no damn sense, and the theology based on that book is equally bizarre and tortured. Seriously about this, all the best Christian theology is Platonic or, especially, Aristotelian. Yeah, Christianity is so intellectually robust, when they wanted to develop a theology they had to go to . . . a bunch of dead Greek guys.

12/4/07 3:10 am  
Blogger Sadie Lou said...

t also seems to be referring to many gods. - Or at least more than one. ("Let us make man in our image, in our likeness,")

Maybe god was just employing the use of the royal "we", or perhaps he was feeling a tad schitzoid on that day. Hard to know.


Yes, it's one of the Scriptures used to support the trinity. The Father, The Holy Spirit and Jesus the Son--all fully God--one God.
Why does it have to make sense? There is so much in life that doesn't make sense to me but that doesn't mean it isn't so.
My dreams don't "make sense" and yet there are people out there that make a career out of trying to "make sense" out of people's dreams. That sounds just as effed up as people trying to "make sense" of the trinity.

12/4/07 4:42 am  
Blogger Unknown said...

Sadie,

I think most of us here will agree that dream interpretation is mostly crap. Some of us might think that it has a limited utility in psychoanalysis, but only a limited use.

The difference between dream interpretation and religion is that no one goes around trying to change the world on the basis of dream interpretation. There aren't people in courtrooms and school boards saying that they had a dream and in that dream it was revealed science is crap, so we should change the way biology is taught. It isn't a litmus test for virtually any high office in America to have your dreams interpreted. I could go on.

But my point is that religion has very concrete effects in the world. It is used to justify all manner of policies that effect the lives of literally millions. Given the vast social power that religion has, yeah, it'd be nice if it made sense.

12/4/07 4:59 am  
Blogger Sadie Lou said...

Given the vast social power that religion has, yeah, it'd be nice if it made sense.

Well first of all, I thought we were talking about the trinity not making sense. I didn't know you were going to say that Christianity doesn't make sense. It makes sense to me and quite frankly, *lots* of other people.
I understand your reasoning when you say that we don't use dream interpretation in courtrooms and such but nobody uses the concept of the trinity in courtrooms either.
But from a Christian perspective, when some one says "The Bible doesn't make sense" or "Christianity doesn't make sense" it smacks of Kindergarten to me. Some kid will look at another kid's drawing and say "that doesn't make sense!"--it's like, who the hell are you?
I don't care if it doesn't make sense to you and it's arrogant to say it as though just because it doesn't make sense to you then it doesn't make sense at all.

12/4/07 5:15 am  
Blogger Blueberry said...

I ran across a couple of interesting stories today that are more or less on topic. This one is a report that the number of male births has gone in the U.S. and Japan during the last 30 years. An odd trend! I wonder what repercussions something like that could have on culture in the distant future? Just food for thought.

The other one is kind of screwball but it's about a woman-ruled town in China. The source is "The Sun Online" so that has to be considered, and beware, there's a popup ad that shows a naked butt (female), so NSFW.

I think that old biblical advice about go forth and multiply and not spilling seed has outlived its usefulness. I mean, we certainly don't need to keep multiplying our population on this poor planet.

12/4/07 5:40 am  
Blogger Krystalline Apostate said...

sadie:
Why does it have to make sense? There is so much in life that doesn't make sense to me but that doesn't mean it isn't so.
Like Chris says, it has a wide ranging impact on millions of lives, so applying the yardstick of rationality is about the only thing that makes 'sense'.
I don't care if it doesn't make sense to you and it's arrogant to say it as though just because it doesn't make sense to you then it doesn't make sense at all.
We're not talking about art here.
If we reduce it to 'well, every thing's subjective anyways', then all we have is mob rule - the masses then decide to enforce their subjective opinions on the minority.

12/4/07 6:04 am  
Blogger Unknown said...

Sadie,

I'm Chris Bradley. That's who I am to say something doesn't make sense. And, sorry, Christianity doesn't make sense. That a lot of people agree with it doesn't make it make sense -- would you say that Islam or Hinduism make sense, ahem, are true because hundreds of millions of people believe in them? The truth is not democratic, I fear.

However, differing beliefs in the the Trinity has caused . . . uh, huge wars, actually, riots, death, the whole nine yards. It isn't some abstract issue. More significantly, these silly doctrinal differences continue to cause religious violence. For instance, one of the key differences between Christianity and Islam is the Trinity. Muslims consider it idolatry, because there is only one god, not a confusing "three but one" thing that the Christians have going on. The belief in the Holy Trinity is one of the dividing points between Islam and Christianity that has lead to literally centuries of violence between Christians and Muslims.

12/4/07 6:09 am  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Sadie,
You sound a bit defensive. Perhaps it's your recent history with Chris, but you have essentially called him, and anyone who agrees, that the Trinity, the Bible, and Chirstianity do not make sense, juvenile.

I must tell you that none of it makes any sense to me. In fact I find much of it offensive and dangerous.

You said:
"Why does it have to make sense."

Would you be happy if my response was, because?

12/4/07 6:23 am  
Blogger Sadie Lou said...

Hi Chris Bradley! Yeah, I know it's you that thinks
Because the Bible makes no damn sense, and the theology based on that book is equally bizarre and tortured.

But when I asked who the hell are you? I meant it like this:
Who the hell are you that I should actually care what you decide is worthy of praise?
~OR~
Do you have some profound insight on spirituality or who we are or what our purpose in life is?
Because if you do, I'd love to hear it.
:)
KA--
Like Chris says, it has a wide ranging impact on millions of lives, so applying the yardstick of rationality is about the only thing that makes 'sense'.

Okay--I'm having a hard time following you guys around the mulberry bush. First, we were talking about the trinity. I was trying to articulate that it's a little abstract and weighty and it shouldn't be dismissed simply because it's difficult to understand.
But then you guys want to broaden the horizons and talk about the impact Christianity has on everyone. I see it as little bit of talking past each other but I suppose I can join in.

We're not talking about art here.
If we reduce it to 'well, every thing's subjective anyways', then all we have is mob rule - the masses then decide to enforce their subjective opinions on the minority.


I wasn't reducing it to everything is subjective--I was merely saying that of course people aren't going to understand or be able to make sense of Christianity--but that doesn't mean other people are able to.
What's so hard to understand about that. When you and Chris say "Christianity is stupid and it's fairytale nonsense" am I supposed to knock my hand against my forehead and exclaim, "By golly, they're right! What was I thinking?!" No--I totally understand most of it and it completely makes sense to me (most of it).
This understanding, in no way, gives me permission to require you to fall in line, you know how I feel about that. By the way, where the heck are you on my current post?
Ted has been over--I thought you'd have something to add.

12/4/07 6:28 am  
Blogger Sadie Lou said...

Remy--
Sadie,
You sound a bit defensive. Perhaps it's your recent history with Chris, but you have essentially called him, and anyone who agrees, that the Trinity, the Bible, and Chirstianity do not make sense, juvenile.


Hi there. Chris and I have made our peace, actually. He's probably still suspicious of me and my motivations for posting here and on other atheist blogs but we've settled our score. I said that when people say "it doesn't make sense" it comes across as arrogant to me and yes, a little juvenile.

I must tell you that none of it makes any sense to me. In fact I find much of it offensive and dangerous.

I think "dangerous" and "offensive" are pretty valid--not making sense is totally subjective.

You said:
"Why does it have to make sense."

Would you be happy if my response was, because?


Sure.

12/4/07 6:34 am  
Blogger Unknown said...

Sadie,

Obviously you do care, because you're clearly upset, calling -- as has been noted -- pretty much everyone who comments to this blog juvenile because we don't agree with your interpretation of the Trinity.

For the record, too, it isn't that I don't understand the Trinity, I do! I submit that I could explain it far better than you, tho' I'd be relying on an argument made by King Milinda, hehe. I have studied a fair bit of religious history, furthermore, and am reasonably well informed of the development of the concept of the Holy Trinity and how acrimonious and bizarre it was -- and I still think it's silly. But not because it's "too difficult" for me to understand. A difficult argument doesn't make it a *true* argument, after all.

I mean, at this point, there's nothing I can say that can convince you the Trinity is silly. Sure, you can't prove it, but I can't disprove it, either, except through resort to arguments you have already either dismissed or ignored.

I do have some insight into "why we are here", tho'. This is my take on it:

Each of us decides why we're here. We're free to do this. We are free to define our own meaning, without interference from anyone else, including a supernatural god. And I think that's magnificent, to be so free, to be free to define why we are, and to be able to continue to redefine this as we grow in wisdom, knowledge and experience. I think it's terrible that Christians arrest their spiritual development by entirely cutting off all development that isn't approved by the authority of their church in conjunction with the interpretation of a confused, badly written book with scant applicability in the modern world. I think that Christianity denies the spiritual autonomy of humans, the wonderful ability for us to really choose our own path, by submission to a spiritual tyranny.

12/4/07 6:48 am  
Blogger Sadie Lou said...

Sadie,

Obviously you do care, because you're clearly upset, calling -- as has been noted -- pretty much everyone who comments to this blog juvenile because we don't agree with your interpretation of the Trinity.

I'm sorry if I'm coming across as upset. I'm just talking here. You're really reaching though--I said it's arrogant and juvenile to claim that something "doesn't make sense". I didn't say you were juvenile or arrogant because "you don't agree with my interpretation of the Trinity". When have I ever suggested you should agree with me? And when did I ever give my interpretation of the Trinity? 

For the record, too, it isn't that I don't understand the Trinity, I do! I submit that I could explain it far better than you, tho' I'd be relying on an argument made by King Milinda, hehe. I have studied a fair bit of religious history, furthermore, and am reasonably well informed of the development of the concept of the Holy Trinity and how acrimonious and bizarre it was -- and I still think it's silly. But not because it's "too difficult" for me to understand. A difficult argument doesn't make it a *true* argument, after all.
Chris, are we really going to get into a Dance Off here? "In this corner explaining the Trinity--Chris Bradley! In this corner with her interpretation of the Trinity--Sadie Lou!" Ding, ding ding!
Get over it--I'm not tempted in the least to get into a battle of wits with you on your turf.
I mean, at this point, there's nothing I can say that can convince you the Trinity is silly. Sure, you can't prove it, but I can't disprove it, either, except through resort to arguments you have already either dismissed or ignored.

Did I miss something? Did someone already try to disprove the Trinity on this post?

I do have some insight into "why we are here", tho'. This is my take on it:

Each of us decides why we're here. We're free to do this. We are free to define our own meaning, without interference from anyone else, including a supernatural god. And I think that's magnificent, to be so free, to be free to define why we are, and to be able to continue to redefine this as we grow in wisdom, knowledge and experience.
That's a pretty awesome go of it, Chris. Good take on things. I kind of agree with it.

12/4/07 7:02 am  
Blogger Unknown said...

Sadie,

It isn't juvenile to say something doesn't make sense . . . if it doesn't make sense. The Trinity doesn't make sense. It has made so little sense for so long that there's centuries of violence -- not metaphorical violence, but people killing each other -- over people trying to make sense of the Trinity. The differences between monoenergists and the Monophysites and the "dual nature" . . . it just goes on and on, people trying to make sense out of a logical contradiction: that three beings can be the same being and yet be individual beings. It makes no sense. It is not juvenile to point out that something that doesn't make sense, and hadn't made sense to a lot of very clever people for a very long time, still doesn't make sense. You might disagree, but the notion that the Trinity is nonsense has been around for a LOOOOOONG time, as well as being demonstrated in history.

And, that belief has profound implications. Differences between interpretations of the Trinity continue to divine religious people.

And, no, no one has tried to disprove the Trinity. However, the atheists here and on other blogs, including your own, have tried to demonstrate why belief in any god is intellectually without support. If you're going to dismiss the arguments against both god and religion, you're not gonna listen to 'em for the Trinity, I'm figuring.

12/4/07 7:13 am  
Blogger Sadie Lou said...

I understand that the Trinity doesn't make sense but what I find juvenile is the concept that because something doesn't make sense to us--it's nonsense. I'll go back to my original question, "Why does it have to make sense?" Does everything have to make sense? Is reality based on logic 100% of the time?
Is it safe to assume that if something doesn't make sense--it isn't true? I'm not willing to make that statement. I think there are plenty of concepts out there that have me scratching my head and thinkin' "that doesn't make sense" but I'm not going to dismiss it on those grounds alone and I think it's arrogant when people only subscribe to an idea because they can make sense of it and dismiss an idea when they can't. Do you get me? You don't have to agree, just let me know you get what I'm saying and we can move on.

12/4/07 7:27 am  
Blogger beepbeepitsme said...

RE:

Genesis 1:26

Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, [b] and over all the creatures that move along the ground."

For this to mean the trinity, it would need to have been written AFTER the concept of the trinity was expressed in church history. It wasn't. It is from the Hebrew Scriptures.

The concept of the trinity wasn't part of religious law until the Council of Nicea in 325CE.

Genesis, as part of the Hebrew Scriptures was written hundreds of years before that. (approximately 700BCE.

That makes the account in genesis about 1000 years before the concept of the trinity was mentioned.

12/4/07 7:48 am  
Blogger beepbeepitsme said...

confused:

RE: "I also almost ate rabbit on Easter. The market was selling fresh, organic rabbits. But I couldn't do it. I'm not a vegetarian, but I love rabbits and could imagine one as a pet,"

I confess to you, (don't tell everyone), that I didn't eat bunny at easter. In australia we eat bilbies at easter. The bilby is also sold in chocolate form instead of the more common easter treat of a chocolate bunny.

http://www.qccqld.org.au/resources/Bilby/choc_bilby.jpg

12/4/07 7:54 am  
Blogger beepbeepitsme said...

RE stew

Would this be considered a "vagina cult."

1. New born girl babies @ 2 weeks old have a religious ceremony where fragrant oils are drizzled over the vagina whilst reciting prayers to the female god who then promises abundance and fertility in return to all those of the tribe who perform this religious ritual on their girl babies.

2. God is considered female because all humans come from the female. “For woman was not made from man, but man from woman. Neither was woman created for man but man for woman.” (revised female edition)

3. All members of the religion at its foundation, must take their cue from the female leaders of the tribe. Males are not allowed positions of authority over women as they were created FOR women.

4. Only women can hold positions of religious power for at least thousands of years.

I would consider this a "vagina cult" or at least a religious cult that has the female in the position of power based on her obvious superiority over men.

(My point has never been to suggest that in retaliation, that women should have female gods or that religion should be matriarchial rather than patriachial; merely to indicate where I think that false assumptions about "the specialness of males" has lead to male gods.)

12/4/07 8:05 am  
Blogger Unknown said...

Sadie,

No, I don't think everything has to make 100% sense. But, well, religious matters are pretty important. Since people make life-or-death decisions over religious matters, yeah, I think that they should make a LOT of sense. I think 100% of the things that we base our economy, politics, morals, etc., should make sense.

Stuff like belief in the Trinity, which differences of belief have caused a lot of hassle in the world, and sorta continue to do so.

We're not talking about preferring spinach to romaine lettuce, here!

12/4/07 8:08 am  
Blogger beepbeepitsme said...

LT

RE: "Seriously, your post makes a lot of sense. I'll cut all those old guys some slack THEY didn't know any better."

I agree. But I also think there has been an unwillingness by males to broach these subjects because they have a vested interest in the status quo, or in preserving the concept of "male superiority" as a divine right.

I think they made some false assumptions about their "male specialness" which lead to the creation of religions and religious rituals which focussed on the male. That men have been able to claim that their "specialness" has been ordained by their male god, hasn't gone unnoticed by me.

Obviously as an atheist, I don't believe that any of the gods exist, but let's say for argument sake that a god does; there seems to be no logical reason as to why it would need to be male.

12/4/07 8:18 am  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I do apologize Sadie but you are in fact talking nonsense. The last few posts ( Beep excluded) sound like a comedy routine.

For you to say: "What I find juvenile is the concept that because something does not make sense to us-- it's nonsense." I have to confess that this made me LOL. I think what you are saying is the OLD, 'We Can't Possibly Understand The The workings of The Great Mind Of God arguement'. That's pretty lame Sadie.

12/4/07 8:19 am  
Blogger concerned citizen said...

But from a Christian perspective, when some one says "The Bible doesn't make sense" or "Christianity doesn't make sense" but that doesn't mean other people are able to. you mean Aren't able to? right?

Anyway I find that kinda funny because when I was a Christian, I don't remember that understanding the trinity was really a requirment. We were taught to believe it because it was in the BIBLE somewhere. In my denomination to join the church or be baptised believing the trinity was something you had to profess to do. I don't think you were even considered a Christian if you didn't "believe" it.
So, from a Christian perspective it doesn't matter wether a person Understands the trinity or not.
The rest of us aren't held to those standards though. & we get pissed off watching you religious people fight with each other over it. That seems pretty juvenile to me.

12/4/07 9:11 am  
Blogger concerned citizen said...

beepbeep, I understand. I think you are right.
when I was a Christian, I sure don't remember any penis talk.
God is looked at as a father figure. You know the good dad who loves his kids, & only kills them when they deserve it. I can understand this kind of reasoning for children. But, you'd think adults would have a lot more questions. It's not encouraged & you figure out quickly what you can question & what you can't.

Of course all the men agree with the parts that say the man is the head of the wife, etc... yeah, they hold on to that patriarchy, alright.

I'm not saying it's this way for all churchs or all christians, BTW. Just my experience.

12/4/07 9:43 am  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Beep: Just to be pedantic, Gaia was female, I think. Correct me if I'm wrong, but she came first didn't she?

12/4/07 10:41 am  
Blogger beepbeepitsme said...

Ted:

I agree that there have been many gods prior to judaism, christianity and islam. The female god gaia was one of them. Gaia, as the female god, symbolized the earth from which all life sprang. (Maybe the jews and the christians borrowed this concept of soil being equated with the female.)

My understanding is that Gaia was one of the pantheon of Greek gods and as a member of that pantheon, neither assumed female nor assumed male attributes had absolute superiority. At least not in the same sense that the strictly patriarchal religions of judaism, christianity and islam do.

12/4/07 11:44 am  
Blogger beepbeepitsme said...

ted:

I think that basically those responsible for the creation of judaism, christianity and islam, saw "malesness" and their seed as a "male attribute" and hence equated themselves with the primary cause of life. (The first cause if you will.)

If maleness as an attribute is the primary cause of all life, then the "all-powerful cause" must be male as well. (That is how I think they came to their conclusions.)

This religious conclusion, I might add, is in sharp contrast to biology where it is evidenced that we all start with female attributes. There is no biological explanation for the value of males to sport nipples except that the prototype is female.

12/4/07 11:58 am  
Blogger L said...

ha ha ha! laughing at this post. loved it (as usual)

12/4/07 12:33 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Beep: Don't get me wrong, I agree whole heartedly. Biology has managed to prove beyond a shadow of doubt that we all start out as girls. A fact which makes the ancients explanations of seed and "fertile ground" bearing fruit seem even more ridiculous.

Of course, it also makes male mutilation as advocated by the Abrahamic religions seem a tad pointless too. But I'll leave that to Penn & Teller (you may need to be logged in to view that - adult content). It's a brilliant episode...:)

That said however, and just to stir the pot a bit more, the phrase "Holy Mary, mother of God" would suggest that in some circles at least, christianity could be viewed as a "Mother Goddess" cult.

12/4/07 6:15 pm  
Blogger Unknown said...

That said however, and just to stir the pot a bit more, the phrase "Holy Mary, mother of God" would suggest that in some circles at least, christianity could be viewed as a "Mother Goddess" cult.

Almost certainly the cult of Mary was a sop to the women who left (or were forced to leave) Magna Mater. Christianity, of course, didn't develop in a vacuum -- it was a syncretic religion. I wouldn't even go so far as to say it was "based" on Judaism -- I think it was equally based on Mithraism and Platonic philosophy as Judaism -- but merely contains some Jewish trappings. One of the parentages of Christianity, however, is Magna Mater and the cult of Mary.

13/4/07 5:23 am  
Blogger beepbeepitsme said...

ted:

Yeah, the Penn and Teller vid is pretty funny, and pretty GRAPHIC. I say "ouch" in sympathy.

Regarding Mary in catholicism:

Catholicism is sometimes more attractive to women because they sense that it venerates the female. There are also all those female saints that one can pray to intercede on one's behalf.

But, they are not gods or goddesses. They are definitely on the lower on rung of the hierarchy. In fact, all the female icons in catholicism were mortal women. Mary became holy ONLY after an injection of "holy spirit semen" and the female saints basically had holiness attributed to them because they DIDN'T receive an injection of "mortal semen."

The trinity would appear to be at least 2/3 male. I haven't heard anyone ascribe a gender to "the holy spirit" or "the holy ghost" - but my guess is that for many christians or catholics it is not likely to be considered female.

13/4/07 9:04 am  
Blogger beepbeepitsme said...

chris

RE: "Almost certainly the cult of Mary was a sop to the women who left (or were forced to leave) Magna Mater."

The Magna Mater correlation is certainly very interesting.

The Cult of Magna Mater
http://hem.bredband.net/arenamontanus/Mage/magna.html

13/4/07 9:10 am  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Beep: Yeah, I thought they presented the argument real well. I wanted to post that on the one you did about circumcision a while back, but I couldn't find it at the time.

Ok, I admit it. It was a lame attempt at stirring the pot, but to be fair, I didn't have much to work with...:)

13/4/07 3:53 pm  
Blogger Unknown said...

Beep,

One of the things I've been trying to do when writing this book I'm writing is to keep in mind the real influences of the time and place. It's almost impossible to say with 100% certainty what was actually going on in the time. History and archeology of the 1st century in Roman Palestine is wickedly corrupt, heavily slanted towards religious interpretations of things. But what seems pretty obvious to me is that Judiasm at the time was in crisis, heavily Hellenized and Persianized. So, on one hand, you had the Roman/Persian Magna Mater cult, the various Sol Invictus-esque cults (such as Mithraism, which as it's Roman origins in St. Paul's hometown, pretty much) which have fairly obvious ties to Persian cults, as well as the influence of Persian Jews in Palestine (because three times every year there was a massive influx of Persian Jews into Jerusalem for the high holidays). And Galilee was smack in the middle of the Decapolis. All this without even mentioning Gnosticism.

So, yeah, it leaps to my mind that there are a lot of similarities between the cult of Mary and Magna Mater -- the Great Mother, fer cryin' out loud! -- seems fairly obvious, hehe, and culturally relevant at the time.

13/4/07 4:58 pm  
Blogger beepbeepitsme said...

chris:

I certainly don't have a problem with the concept of religions evolving from the ideas of previous ones. It mkes sense to me that this is what human beings do. We gather information and tease and change it slightly to fit better with our own cultures and political influences.

This makes more sesne to me than the idea that each religion occurred in an information vacuum.

14/4/07 8:38 am  
Blogger Unknown said...

Beep,

Oh, yeah, if you mean by information "accurate information". That's pretty much the accepted view that one of the reasons religion came to be was to explain, in the crudest of possible terms, the nature world given the extremely weak and local data people had.

But, from the POV of those people -- and this is common, I find, until the modern world -- is that they have all the data they need to make eternally correct statements. You don't find this with just religious folks, but also philosophers -- Plato thought that he was ABSOLUTELY and UNALTERABLY correct, deducing perfect, eternal truths.

One of the definitions of modern thought might be the time when humans came to the awareness that their epistemological systems were *not* eternal and in the fullness of time would be replaced with superior knowledge.

14/4/07 9:34 am  
Blogger beepbeepitsme said...

chris

And it is for those reasons that I am wary of those believers who claim to know absolute truth.

Also because those who claim to know the absolute truth believe absolutely, that they have the absolute right to rule over others absolutely.

If power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, then the belief that one has the absolute truth is the precursor to the belief in absolute rule.

15/4/07 12:24 am  
Blogger beepbeepitsme said...

Religious fundamentalism is a sign of a society in the grips of decay. The supposed solution, religious fundamentalism, inevitably becomes part of the problem and only hastens the decay.

(Big claim, I know - but it is how I see it.)

15/4/07 12:29 am  
Blogger shadowsoflove.blogspot.com said...

RE:

"They believed that all humans came from a man's seed and where no visible seed was available that it was invisible seed in the form of a male's breath.. And that has been the fairytale for a few thousand years. Groan."

Convenient forgetfullness of the next few verses, no?

1Co 11:11-12 Nevertheless, neither is the woman without the man, nor the man without the woman, in the Lord. For as the woman is of the man, so is the man also by the woman; but all things are of God.

21/4/07 4:14 am  
Blogger beepbeepitsme said...

under:

I don't see how those verses detract from my argument at all.

21/4/07 10:06 am  
Blogger shadowsoflove.blogspot.com said...

I really don't know how to simplify it any more, but let me try.

A.

1 Cor. 11:8 - woman is from man.

B.

People then believed all human's came from man as opposed to woman.

C. What a fairytale, Groan.

My point is that the bible does not teach the fairytale that you said it did.

23/4/07 6:32 am  
Blogger beepbeepitsme said...

Sure it does under.

The holy spirit is supposedly male who inseminates a virgin female with immaterial sperm.

Either that, or the holy spirit is female and a lesbian.

8/5/07 11:08 pm  

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