Ramblings of the Village Idiot

The age of empires has arrived! Sumerian, Egyptian, Indus Valley, etc. Those with the most possessions and influence thought themselves fit to rule over others. As they assumed power, they found that they felt threatened and no one likes to lose power, right?

So what to do? Eureka! Let's establish taboos! Let's have the Creator be threatened! Can you smell “divine right” here? Sure you can. And so Man changed religion to suit his needs; and greed. The largest threat came from the Pagans; folks of the land. Lots more of them than the new rich and powerful. So the old Goddess beliefs were demonized. Slowly at first but over a few thousand years all mention of female deity ceased in much of the world. Goddess worshippers became witches. The old ways became evil, backward and dangerous. Leaders set the religious beliefs of their subjects. Polytheistic religions phased out the female gods, keeping a male god in charge. Monotheistic religions had gods that were very male indeed. And so women in general suffered the same fate, a fate they still suffer from to this day.

I could go on ad nauseam about so called religious war, senseless slaughter for the glory of God, the “chosen” people. Give me a break. It's all about greed with a jealous God being threatened by the actions of mere mortals. Pretty silly, isn't it? The great creator threatened by His/Her creations? Really now! The only cause of war is greed. It always comes down to the money. Follow the money.
Folks continue to justify evil by claiming their actions are OK per their holy book. These are folks that think one book is the only book they ever have to read. All the knowledge needed is contained therein. Christians slaughtered tens of thousands in the last 1500 years to save their souls. Muslims are currently involved in the same practice. Certainly not all Christians and Muslims engage in senseless carnage; just the greedy ones. There is no proof that Jews actually engaged in the battles mentioned in the Old Testament, maybe they created their own history. Slowly, over the last 5000 or so years, the world has become a very dangerous place. Now what?

Just heard on the news where today has been designated "Native American Recognition Day" or something like that by our government. So now we join the bandwagon of all the other groups that feel they must be recognized and have their culture celebrated.

Only difference here is that it's for this year only. Business as usual........

Word spreads fast. It did then and it does now. Widespread trade among our ancestors has been proven through archaeological research; products from an identifiable source appear thousands of miles away. With trade comes the sharing of knowledge and customs. And so the idea of religion spreads. As time goes by and localities continue discussion, subtle change inevitably occurs. Then these new aspects are spread by traders and travelers leading to complexity in belief and ceremony.

Humans love symbols and ceremony. It's part of our basic makeup and common planet wide. After many thousands of years religion has become an incredibly complex amalgam of gods, goddesses, rules and taboos. History is about to change and the effect is still here today. Greed becomes political policy and organized warfare and conquest emerge.

In neolithic times culture was based on kinship. The concept of kingship was formed and cooperation began to die a slow death. With conquest came the imposition of the religious beliefs of the conquerers and an end to tolerance. The theocracy was born and it was dominated by the male gender. Women lost their equality and were made subservient. They became property and the belief in the Earth as female provider faded. “Great” empires emerged with male gods ruling. Violence and conquest became the content of history and God  and/or the gods became angry, demanding and jealous. Religion became an excuse for war and greed. Abraham now takes his family from Ur to Palestine and the mayhem and carnage begin in earnest.

I've found that many otherwise well meaning folks here are scared off by the term "Pagan". "Heathen" seems to push some buttons too. The dictionary won't help here as the definitions therein do not refer directly to the ancient beliefs. So let's get started.

The first person to acknowledge an unearthly spiritual creating entity or force was a Pagan. He/she probably looked up at the night sky and thought "OOooo, what are those and where did they come from? Nice!!" The correlation between copulation and birth is a relatively modern connection. Animals and ancient folks knew it was fun, so it was done. Folks long, long ago witnessing a birth must have truly been amazed. Jeez, a little person came out of that lady! WOW!!!

So here are just 2 marvelous things begging to be understood. Imagine folks around the evening fire discussing these things and trying to come up with a logical explanation. Really, think about it and don't sell our ancestors short; we wouldn't be here if they were dullards. Here's the first group of people contemplating their creation. No reference material available, just a series of opinions and possibilities. That must have been a conversation that lasted well into the night.

Archaeology has shown us that they did, indeed,  come up with an answer. Since the aspects of creation they personally witnessed were made possible by the female sex, perhaps what ever created everything was female. Makes sense, right? And so it went: the Creator was a Creatrix. The earliest religious art is exclusively female. Let's remember that in ancient times survival demanded equality. Everyone pitched in for the common good. All did what had to be done to get by no matter what the task. Division of tasks came much later. Yes, the women hunted too. New findings, particularly in Europe, have disclosed a peaceful Goddess worshipping group of societies that thrived 20,000 years ago.

So is God female? I don't think so. I believe that which created genders need not have one. Genderizing God was done for convenience and it's still being done in our male dominated society today. Me? I'll go with that old time religion with a Goddess. It was good enough for our ancestors and it's good enough for me.

More to come.

Good heavens! God help anyone who dares post a contrasting view or questions the posts of some "christians" (small c on purpose) in the Central Florida blogs! It's bad enough being told I will burn in Hell forever ( I won't ) but now I'm a Satan worshiper! ( I'm not; I don't believe in Satan). Satan is merely a scapegoat created by men so they can blame their failures on someone besides their selves. Natural disasters are of course the will of God; somebody did something real bad so we all suffer. Reminds me of life in the Service, right?
Since I have no problem with Homosexuality, I must be one ( I'm not ) or an incorrigible pervert ( well, maybe ). These folks make associations  that make no sense. They mean to insult and belittle. They judge. Hey, wait! I remember now! Judge not lest you, yourself be judged.  Don't you bigots remember that one? How about the Golden Rule; you want others to treat you the way you treat me?  I hope not and I won't do it either.
So what do we have here? Bigots claiming to be Christians. Dictionary.com defines a bigot as " a person who is utterly intolerant of any differing creed, belief, or opinion." Got that? Read it again. And again. Now go back and read the New Testament and see which example you follow.
You can thump your Bibles till the hogs eat Pa but you sure as hell ain't Christians. You MUST live as Jesus did and follow His example to be a Christian. You must follow His teachings. So many of you arrogant bigots don't. So who's gonna burn?

OK folks, one thing right from the start. Baseball is not a sport, it's a game. Fishing is a sport.

Many years ago in a city far, far away, I and my compadres used to attend opening day every year for a certain baseball team. You know, the one with exciting games; the winningest team. It was a yearly celebration for us. Then one year we couldn't get tickets. Same for subsequent years.

What happened? The same thing that will happen to all y'all when you want to see the Rays on opening day or in the playoffs. I heard the Rays are looking for more corporate support. That's the beginning of the end. The corporations will get huge blocks of tickets forcing us commoners to watch "our" team on TV. We all know it's just not the same, no matter how drunk you get.

Sure, it's a business, but one that endured because of the REAL fans. Watch those ticket prices skyrocket too.

OK folks, I'm not kidding here and I don't know the answer. This is for adherants of all religions. What about the folks on other planets? Did Jesus, Jehova, Muhammad, Shiva, Buddha, etc make their presence known to them too? I can fine no references to this anywhere.