She’s Got the Whole World in Her Hands

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Magiamma

Where is god the mother? She existed in the religions of Greece, Rome, Egypt, Africa, India, North America, and Babylonia. But she does not exist in Islam, Judaism, nor Christianity, three of the major religions of today.

Religions are used to subjugate women. They are manipulated by men to strengthen male supremacy. Women have been instrumental in the founding of all patriarchal religions but have again and again been ousted from power and delegated the role of homemaker, with the religious patriarchs regulating a woman’s dress, her sexual and reproductive activities, her social life, and her ownership of property.

Early Christian Gnostic doctrines from Nag Hammidi, Egypt of the first to the fourth centuries AD describe god as both feminine and masculine, intelligence and mind, producer of all things and manifester of all things. The Gnostic poem “Thunder, Perfect Mind” says,

I am the first and the last. I am the whore and the holy one.

I am the wife and the virgin and the mother and the daughter.

I am she whose wedding is great and I have not taken a husband.

Christians began removing female references from the Bible in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD. Christianity has continued to subjugate women by means of religious edicts and manipulation. As women had fewer and fewer children, they were accused of revolting against motherhood. As divorce rates rose, women were accused of revolting against marriage. But women are happier after divorce. According to a recent San Francisco Chronicle article over 60% of women are happier after divorce, while to only 24% of men are happier.

Religions today are continuing to limit women’s power all over the world.

Fundamentalist Christians today cry for a return to Victorian values as exampled by their radical opposition to abortion, divorce, and feminism. The Coalition on Revival (COR), backed by the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC, led by Senator Jesse Helms), is moving to take over city councils, school boards, and other electoral positions. COR wants to execute adulterers, homosexuals, blasphemers, and incorrigible children, preferably by stoning.

The Canadian Catholic church helped fund a campaign to draw up laws punishing women and physicians who participated in abortion after the Canadian Supreme Court decriminalized abortion in 1988.

Hinduism in India until recently required the wife to burn alive on the funeral pyre of her husband. Hinduism passes all money and land down to the sons in the family and considers daughters a liability. The Hindustan TImes says “In the Trans-Yamuana area of the Capital … a hapless woman is often traded for Rs 5,000 ($250.00); the rock bottom price of a buffalo is Rs 7,000 ($350.00).”

Judaism in Israel today decrees that a wife who refuses conjugal rights or fails to provide domestic service can be divorced against her will and deprived of both property and custody of children.

Islam in Iran under the Ayatollah abolished all laws granting women rights. Women were killed if they broke the laws. 20,000 women — young, old, and pregnant — were executed. Islam in Algeria in 1978 segregated women and forbid them to work or travel without escorts. Women who wore western clothing had acid thrown on them by militants. Islam in Egypt in 1985 repealed the law giving women the right to divorce husbands who took a second wife. Islam in Afghanistan in 1990 ruled that women must cover their bodies at all times and could not wear decorative or masculine clothing.