Time Frames and Taboo Data Blog

All organized religious sects of western cultures have their roots firmly entwined with sexual allusions. This, of course, is fervently denied by those who passionately seek association with the creative power that they imagine to be a humanlike being that is at once highly prejudicial yet blissfully indifferent.

But the sacred path has always tended to meander around in a labyrinth of camouflaged passageways. The alarming thing is that most of the time even the most devout of the “spiritual leaders” are oblivious as to the real message hidden under sacred words.

For a start, consider the word “sacred.” The words sacred, sacrament and sacrifice are all derived from the Hebrew word sacre, meaning “phallus” or “penis.” This should not be surprising, for the penis was regarded throughout all ancient cultures as symbolic of self-manifestation as activated through the creative source. This is why the three major religions of the west have a long history of denying women entrance into the ranks of priesthood.

And the holy testaments that are held out to us as divine pronouncements continue that sex association. We hold in high regard the such words as testament, testify, testimony, testification, testator, attest, etc. Guess what: the honored words are derived from the Latin testis, the testicles, the male reproductive organs situated in the external scrotum behind the penis. The respectful meaning accorded to these words today comes from the ancient custom prevelent through the ancient near-east in which the most solemn oaths were sworn by grasping their own testicles–or sometimes the testicles of the man sworn to–that what was declared was truth. It was regarded as asking for reproductive disaster to swear falsely upon the sac of life.

Of course it then becomes clear where the word seminary originated, although everyone today regards it as meaning a theological school for training priests, ministers or rabbis. But seminary is derived from the Latin seminarius, and referred to the seed carried in the seminal fluid. Again, women were thought to be  incapable of understanding this holy power carried by men and therefore women were barred from holy study.

And just to get the bottom of this, consider the words rector and rectory: Rector refers to a member of the clergy in charge of a parish (Protestant Episcopal and Anglican), or (Roman Catholic) a priest appointed to be administrative head of a church or institution such as a seminary: rectory can refer to either the house where the rector lives or the office of the rectore.  All these are derived from the Latin root rectus, meaning “straight.” It is telling that it is from this same root that we also get the word rectum.

This entry was posted on March 23, 2009 at 9:14 pm and is filed under Atheist, Bible, freethought, Pantheism with tags Bible, meaning of sacred, seminary, sex, testament. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.