Imagining God
Mary, on the hand, has gone through a variety of revisions. She was so widely and fervently revered in the early days of the Christian era that by the Middle Ages she had become a major headache for the hierarchy. Mary was becoming too popular by far and that would never do in a Patriarchal Religion. Worse, some of her epithets echoed those of Goddesses of pre-Christian times. Remember, according to the "Fathers" of the Church, although Mary had been "chosen" by God to bear his Son, she herself was not divine. But was she an ordinary human woman? Well, not quite. The Church declared that Mary was conceived "without stain". She was the only human exception to the rule that proclaimed all humans are born in a state of "Original Sin". What was Original Sin? The "sin" of Eve who defied "Yahweh" by seeking knowledge that was supposedly available only to Yahweh. So ultimately Woman was responsible for introducing "sin" to the world and since all human females were her "daughters" we necessitated the "sacrifice" of Yeshua. Neat, huh?
Where did that leave Mary? Hmmm. Those clever "Fathers" concocted a solution: she was impregnated by the Holy Spirit, the third wheel of the "Holy Trinity". Pregnant by an invisible power. But how could she still be a Virgin at the time of the birth? A miracle, of course. Best of all, the language of Yeshua, Aramaic contained the perfect explanation. The Aramaic word for Virgin did not mean an intact Hymen; it meant an unmarried or independent woman, not attached to any man. According to the myth, Mary was affianced to Joseph but since she was pregnant and they had not yet married, she was still technically a Virgin. Ingenius! By the way, when did they get married? The New Testament is silent on this issue…
Imagining God
To complete this "Holy Family", we have the "Son" of "God". According to some accounts, this "Son" was descended from the House of King David which was used as a flimsy argument in favour of his right to Kingship should the need ever arise...Hmm...another question occurs to me: If the "Son" was already "God" why would he also need to be "King"? Surely Yeshua could "pull rank" any time he wanted to!
Further along in the Gospels we're told that Yeshua grew up working in Joseph's modest carpentry shop. Not exactly Kingly material if you get my drift. But that, too, was turned into a virtue by making it possible for us non-royal nobodies to identify with him. He was flesh and blood just like us and grew up in modest circumstances. But what of his character? To be fair there were a few pluses: he won a debate with some old fuddy-duddies called Pharisees whose speciality was splitting semantic hairs. So far, so good. But he did disappear for 17 years between the ages of 13 and 30, surely a crucial period of development for any man. So where was he for those 17 years? He could have been enmeshed in a life of debauchery for all we know and then suddenly 'saw the light' and turned into a holy man. That would make him the prototype for today's rehabilitated celebs and TV evangelical ministers which would earn him a mention in People, at least. But Yeshua was supposed to be a man who was all man and at the same time a 'God' who was all 'God'. Wrap your head around that one if you can! I, personally, cannot. All in all, Jesus/Yeshua might be tolerable as a potential deity but something more was needed to win him followers on Facebook: he had to perform miracles and then be persecuted for them and finally, in the ultimate act of love, become a blood sacrifice for the sins of men. That I could live with if it applied only to men who like blood sports anyway. But what did Yeshua know of women?
We're supposed to believe that this divinely conceived man was always 'chaste' yet he showed "mercy" to women accused of adultery and even included in his closest circle of followers. I guess we women are supposed to feel grateful for that. By the way, did you notice that in this scenario only women are associated with sins relating to sex? And "He" died for our "sins", right? So what specific sins was he atoning for in men? Their disbelief even in the face of his unparalleled miracles? Not believing the evidence of their eyes - could that be the sin of men? (Just watch an episode of "Haunting" and you'll see how little that has changed!) Most of all, we were supposed to love Yeshua for forgiving his executioners who the Church claims were acting on our behalf! Hey, I never asked anybody to do that for me. That sacrifice thing was entirely the idea of "God The Father" who, instead of dying himself, had his 'only begotten Son' do it for him. Looks to me like Jehovah strikes again - eliminates the competition before he can get more popular. My, how paganly Zeus-like.
Further along in the Gospels we're told that Yeshua grew up working in Joseph's modest carpentry shop. Not exactly Kingly material if you get my drift. But that, too, was turned into a virtue by making it possible for us non-royal nobodies to identify with him. He was flesh and blood just like us and grew up in modest circumstances. But what of his character? To be fair there were a few pluses: he won a debate with some old fuddy-duddies called Pharisees whose speciality was splitting semantic hairs. So far, so good. But he did disappear for 17 years between the ages of 13 and 30, surely a crucial period of development for any man. So where was he for those 17 years? He could have been enmeshed in a life of debauchery for all we know and then suddenly 'saw the light' and turned into a holy man. That would make him the prototype for today's rehabilitated celebs and TV evangelical ministers which would earn him a mention in People, at least. But Yeshua was supposed to be a man who was all man and at the same time a 'God' who was all 'God'. Wrap your head around that one if you can! I, personally, cannot. All in all, Jesus/Yeshua might be tolerable as a potential deity but something more was needed to win him followers on Facebook: he had to perform miracles and then be persecuted for them and finally, in the ultimate act of love, become a blood sacrifice for the sins of men. That I could live with if it applied only to men who like blood sports anyway. But what did Yeshua know of women?
We're supposed to believe that this divinely conceived man was always 'chaste' yet he showed "mercy" to women accused of adultery and even included in his closest circle of followers. I guess we women are supposed to feel grateful for that. By the way, did you notice that in this scenario only women are associated with sins relating to sex? And "He" died for our "sins", right? So what specific sins was he atoning for in men? Their disbelief even in the face of his unparalleled miracles? Not believing the evidence of their eyes - could that be the sin of men? (Just watch an episode of "Haunting" and you'll see how little that has changed!) Most of all, we were supposed to love Yeshua for forgiving his executioners who the Church claims were acting on our behalf! Hey, I never asked anybody to do that for me. That sacrifice thing was entirely the idea of "God The Father" who, instead of dying himself, had his 'only begotten Son' do it for him. Looks to me like Jehovah strikes again - eliminates the competition before he can get more popular. My, how paganly Zeus-like.
Whose "God" is this?
So what is my point? It is simply this: that our images of God are made in our own human likeness and not the other way around. There is no 'one size fits all' image of "God" because there cannot be. If we are all unique in our genetic make-up and if we are made of the same "stuff" as the Universe - what Carl Sagan called "Star Stuff" and what Deepak Chora calls "Cosmic Soup" - we must conclude that if there is any "God" in the sense of a creator of all that is, it would either have to contain all of the "Star Stuff" (which would put us in the awkward position of worshipping ourselves) or it would have to be entirely separate from its creations and therefore unknowable by us.
Either way we have no idea what such a Being would look like. But I'm willing to bet, it won't be anything humans can imagine. Perhaps, rather than trying to create images of God, we should love and care for our planet and its life-forms and learn as much as we can about the existence of all life-forms in the Universe so that we may appreciate what "God hath wrought" before we try destroying any part of it.
Either way we have no idea what such a Being would look like. But I'm willing to bet, it won't be anything humans can imagine. Perhaps, rather than trying to create images of God, we should love and care for our planet and its life-forms and learn as much as we can about the existence of all life-forms in the Universe so that we may appreciate what "God hath wrought" before we try destroying any part of it.
© Delia O' Riordan 2014 www.psychic-delia.com
