Archive for Adam and Eve

Hints on Sin Dodging

Posted in belief, Bible, culture, faith, random, religion, scriptures with tags , , , , , , , , , on March 1, 2015 by chouck017894

Sin, the alleged estrangement from God due to transgressing God’s “known will,” is the age-old whip of faith system chieftains. The notion that some god could be directly or inadvertently offended and thus bring about disastrous consequences seemed plausible in the hostile conditions of primal forests or in the depths of gloomy caves. That trait, born of fear of the unknown, is apparently cast into the DNA of animate life as a self-preserving attribute. That natural preservation trait, unfortunately, can be mined like a vein of gold by crafty schemers.

By chapter three of Genesis, after the compressed account of Creation is dispensed with, the plot jumps rapidly into the introduction of sin with Eve nibbling fruit from the do-not-touch Tree of Knowledge. For this alleged sinful incident not only was Eve, Adam and the serpent given a death sentence, but all life forms were condemned to experience God’s continuous indulgence in vengeance! Sin was then established as a vicious circle in Genesis 4:7 with God allegedly saying to Adam and Eve’s son Cain, “If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door.” Cain, not understanding this concept of sin–perhaps because mom, Eve, had already tainted all life with “original sin,–by the very next verse (8) Cain kills his brother Abel. Now that is divine speed-plotting. But God’s earlier condemning judgment upon sin is then shown with Cain to be impulsively amendable by God’s reluctant setting a protective mark upon Cain’s head. Thus did “sin” become incorporated as the meal ticket for the CEOs of any western faith system.

The great pivotal moment in sacred “history,” according to 8th century BCE priest-interpreted accounts, hinges upon the Lord’s alleged call for Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac as a burnt offering to receive special blessings. In Jewish recognition of this momentous happening of Abraham’s unquestioning obedience is celebrated with Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. Abraham’s devotion is held as representative of their faith system’s especial characteristic–even though in that distant timeframe Judaism was not yet an organized faith. Not fully answered; was Isaac to be a sin offering? It is never clearly said why God would have asked for such an unmotivated act. Some have suggested that it was simply a test, but if God is omniscient (all-knowing), what could he be uncertain about? As the story is depicted, neither God nor Abraham inspire any spiritual admiration. And why would Isaac be such a spineless wimp? For some, however, Isaac is held to be the first Jewish martyr (and again, ignore that Judaism was not then an organized faith system). Functionally there can be only one purpose for this tale: since God, the personification of the Life Principle, would never condone such child abuse, the story purpose in the priest-written tale is aimed to encourage submission and obedience of all seekers to the priest-manufactured faith system.

In the later priest-written book of Leviticus (18:6-7) this priestly lust for ugly showmanship is highlighted in the supposed shifting of personal sin–allegedly with God’s okay–from the guilty party to some hapless victim. The alleged God-approved instructions read: “And he shall take the two goats and set them before the Lord at the door of the tent of meeting. And Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats; one lot for the Lord, and the other for Azazel.” We should note that the word “tent” was an occult reference in pre-history Creation lessons for primordial energy involvement out of which Creation is made manifest. To retain their authority the self-important priests indulged themselves in the slaughter of one goat upon the Temple altar and sent the other hapless goat into the wilds to be torn apart by predators. Or, depending on their location, the other goat was hurled by priests from a cliff to be cruelly dashed upon the jagged rocks below. The alleged reason for hurling the goat from a cliff: Azazel was said to be imprisoned beneath the mount.

Nowhere is it ever explained in Hebrew or Jewish myths why the Lord–a self-admitted jealous god–would ever sanction such a custom of equal offerings, for by presenting identical offerings it is openly admitted that Azazel was indeed considered the equal to God. Consider also that the name Azazel is said to mean “God strengthens,” so the implication seems to be that one aspect of the creative Source, active as the Life Principle, cannot be honored without the other. What this tale inadvertently reveals is that the Source-power cannot create and bring anything into existence except through a process of positive/negative energy exchange and interaction.

Even in this twenty-first century of space flights and instantaneous communications around the planet there are still Orthodox Jews who practice the bloody ritual of slaughtering hapless life (such as chickens) in an appeal to God for personal forgiveness of sin. In Los Angeles, California, for example, there are Orthodox Jews who seek to sidestep responsibility and save themselves from sin by victimizing defenseless animal life.

The Roman “fathers” and “saints” of Christianity (such as Paul, Jerome, Augustine, etc.) enthusiastically took up the sin ensnaring tactic which carries with it the submit and obey features of the faith by relating how Jesus was sacrificed for the sins of the world. On that occasion, however, God did not see any reason to substitute a ram or goat for the spectacle. The reason for such spiritual indifference? It is the claim that God so loved the world that he should allow it to sidestep responsibility for its sins by letting his “only begotten son” be sacrificed. It seems a bizarre way to teach that everyone must stand responsible for their own acts if they are ever to evolve.

Why should this surrender and torture of God’s “beloved” and “only begotten” son inspire the world with any spiritual love and trust? Such a concept hinges upon pre-Christian societies in which no rite was seen to hold more august power with the people than the sacrifice of the king or the king’s son for the redemption of the king’s people. That superstition was impressed upon Roman awareness around 60 BCE when the Roman general Pompey captured Jerusalem, which was then weakened due to a power struggle between the two sons of King Aristobulus. Pompey installed one son, Hyreau, as high priest and took the other brother, Antigonus (along with his sons) to Rome as displays of triumph. Eventually, however, it was Antigonus who became priest-king, and in his short reign before being taken by Marc Antony in 37 BCE, he had slain his own two sons–presumably as sacrifice for the welfare of his people.

As noted, exploiting scapegoats, as promoted in Leviticus, was often subtly upheld in Hebrew Scriptures. Unfortunately, the only thing that such alleged godly allowance of using a substitute for the guilty sets up as standard practice is for the faithful to alway seek out ways to sidestep responsibility for themselves. However, passing the blame to another provides only the illusion that such “sacrifices” will free one to fly to Heaven on a comfortable mattress of lies. As for everyone else they supposedly go to Hell.

Pre-History: Abridged From Scripture

Posted in Atheist, Bible, faith, Hebrew scripture, history, prehistory, random, religion, scriptures with tags , , , , , , , on March 11, 2014 by chouck017894

Far back in planet Earth’s existence there were no reporters to address and chronicle the developmental events that would contribute to the rise of humankind. To answer that oversight the Creator eventually attempted to correct that situation by “revealing” to a few select men a brief crafted version of his productive activity. Strangely, this did not occur until He found a band of fixated men in a tiny outpost called Jerusalem in the timeframe we now list as c. 8th century BCE. Relying on mere mortal men to explain the complication of his “days” of Creation may not have been the Creator’s best decision.

As a result of relying upon man’s comprehension there is a great deal of hatred, both openly and by implication, expressed throughout the western worlds’ three “holy books.” For example, it is said that even God himself got all riled up and fumed with indignation and hatred very early in the account given in Genesis, a series of stories all of which pivot on the theme of Creation. Supposedly the Omniscient One (all-knowing) was so neurotic over the trespassing by two innocent naked persons upon an alluring tree he had placed in the center of his garden landscape that it caused him to rant curses at a serpent, a curious woman and a bewildered man. Barely controlling his indignation, God tossed the clueless couple out of his garden on their fig leaf covered butts and slammed the garden gate behind them.

The man and woman managed to survive in the unfamiliar, rough terrain, however, and since they were still pretty much innocent about how things worked, they wound up with two sons. By this time the Omniscient One had apparently invented some semblance of anger management, and giving into his own curiosity stepped out of his garden to observe the rejected family. That little episode did not exactly work out too well either because God expected the two offspring of the original pair to shower him with material offerings. When the two boys finally gathered from their meager supplies to offer them to God, God had the audacity to show favoritism to only one! When that favoritism resulted in jealousy and the favored boy was killed by his brother, the Omniscient One once again chose to expel the culprit rather than to patiently teach him the principles of moral responsibility. And oddly, God did not bother himself to restore the favored boy back to life, which is strange when all he had to do was say, “let there be life.” Anyway the killer, Cain, was deprived by God of the privilege to till the ground, so the dispossessed boy took off to establish a city in the land of Nod, and there he proceeded to build and populate the whole region in only two generations! Strangely, it is never explained where he found the necessary females. This population explosion is never adequately explained; perhaps because everyone was too interested in cohabitation.

Meanwhile, Adam and Eve also contributed to population statistics. Indeed, the “begetting” that followed seemed unstoppable. Apparently in dejection, God had gone back to his secluded landscaped garden and cogitated for a while, and when he eventually ventured outside again to see what was going on he was stunned. The world outside was inundated with so many people, and they all seemed so obnoxious. Again his anger erupted, and he determined he would drown the whole perverted mess—all the living creatures and vegetation, and men, women, children, all. He would flush them all down the drain.

But damned if a glitch didn’t screw up the Omniscient One’s deluge plan! Some guy named Noah got word of the Creator’s hateful scheme and the guy dared to build himself a cargo ship to preserve himself, his family and every animal, amphibian and insect species with the vital necessities for life. When the Deluge gushed in Noah dutifully recorded in the ship’s log on a daily basis, and this wound up being salvaged and is available in abbreviated for in Genesis. Planet Earth was inudated just as God had planned, soaked to at least fifteen cubits of water above the highest mountains, according to Noah’s log. Apparently Noah spent a lot of time leaning over the ship’s railing, ostensibly taking depth-soundings when he wasn’t busy feeding the parental stock of all life; at least the depth of the flood waters got recorded. Noah’s rescue accomplishments did not exactly result in personal glory, however. He wound up being castrated by one of his family members as he lay unconscious and naked after having imbibed too much green wine that he had made from the grapevines he had planted immediately after touching dry land. Strangely, that emasculation episode was not so painstakingly reported. All that is recorded is that “…Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him.” Actually he blamed the wrong kid, but the “seed” of Noah and his sons were grudgingly blessed by God and “…of them was the whole earth (to be) overspread.” (Genesis 9:24)

For awhile, evidently, God again just let things coast along, hoping perhaps that the devious people who had so vigorously reproduced might starve of do themselves in. But once again, possibly from nagging curiosity, God decided to step out of his garden and survey the damage. To his amazement he found that the whole earth was of a lone language, and of one speech, and the people had clustered in the land of Shinar (Sumer) [Genesis 11:6]. Even more exasperating to him, the people were constructing a tower with which they could peer over his garden wall and spy upon his privacy! Such impudence! In sudden hateful anger the Creator-God confounded the people’s language so they could not understand each other. That, he grumbled, should teach them to be more cooperative and improve their behavior. And to further emphasize his displeasure ‘…did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.” But scattering them hither and thither did nothing to stop all the begetting.

After taking another break from supervising the descendants of the original couple, God once again gathered nerve enough to look in upon the situation outside his garden. By this time you would think that he would have few high expectations. He found only agitation due to the incomplete obedience to his vaguely explained wishes. Throttling his hateful anger, God randomly selected a subject whom he could groom to act as his diplomatic go-between. To lure the selected subject into service, God even promised the man, named Abram, that he would “make thee a great nation,” and to even curse anyone who might curse his chosen spokesman. But the guy Abram was not wildly enthusiastic about much of the Lord’s plan except sowing his seed.

Anyway, mankind’s history is purportedly assessed from Abram who had been designated as the Omniscient One’s seed bearer. Being young and horny, Abram left home looking for a wife, and in the process wound up wasting at least fourteen years before marrying the woman Sari whom he had vowed to possess. But Abram had not been idle, exactly: he had a child or two on the sly. Because Sari was easy on the eye, Abram convinced her to play along in a scheme to swindle the Pharaoh of Egypt out of a fortune in domestic animals and servants. Understandably indignant, the Pharaoh, much like the Creator would do, then ordered them all to depart his land. So Abram and Sari and Abram’s nephew, Lot, and all the newly gained wealth journeyed back to Abram’s earlier location.

Along the way Abram’s nephew, Lot, took up residence in a strange little village named Sodom. Well, that choice didn’t pan out too well either. The Lord supposedly hated the selective intimacy of the residents and so, being omniscient but divinely prejudiced and dour, marked the place for destruction. Being a relative of God’s chosen spokesman, Abram’s nephew was ordered to flee the place, a command which wound up being the direct cause of an incest episode with Lot and his two daughters. All in all, the whole incident did not make the Lord joyful.

Everything from then on, we are divinely assured, is accurate history. Abram had his name changed by God who bestowed the alias Abraham upon him; and Sari, the Lord said, should go by the name Sarah. Thus, having followed God’s command, Abraham allegedly became the progenitor and founder of the Hebrew people. Glory was thus rescued from earlier chaotic circumstances and Abraham, having fulfilled his usefulness, expired at the age of 175. And to this day his descendant still attempt, as demanded in Genesis 22:17, “…to become as numerous as the sand upon the seashore.”

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Priest-Style History

Posted in agnoticism, Atheism, Atheist, belief, Bible, culture, faith, history, humanity, life, politics, random, religion, thoughts with tags , , , , , , , , , on June 25, 2010 by chouck017894

After the little kingdom of Israel fell to Assyria, c. 722 BCE, the more rugged central hill country of Judah south of Israel experienced an influx of refugees and the modest village of Jerusalem burst forth in sudden expansion c. 720-718 BCE.  Until this time Jerusalem had covered no more than ten-and-a-half acres, but it quickly expanded outward from its narrow ridge site to engulf the entire western hill and envelop one hundred and fifty acres with closely packed residences, workshops, businesses and public buildings.

In this timeframe Jerusalem was not yet regarded as a “holy city”—except, perhaps, by the priests of Yahweh who had long dreamed of making their temple in Jerusalem the center of political spirituality.  The common understanding has long been nourished that Jerusalem and the region around it was always devoted to belief in one god and one god only.  In truth there was a widespread diversity of worship practices throughout Judah, and there was a widespread mixing of other gods with that of Yahweh in the Jerusalem Temple.  Archaeology finds have shown conclusively that the claimed golden age of tribal and Davidic fidelity to Yahweh was not a historic reality.  Indeed, cults of various gods and goddesses were prevalent throughout Judah.  So diverse were the customs of the people that some of them regarded the Ugaritic mother-goddess Asherah as the consort of YHWH.  This, of course, was deemed blasphemous by the priests of Yahweh.

Scriptural accounts of coexisting kingdoms of Israel and Judah (as noted in the previous post Scriptures’ Contrived History, June 16) is priestly fabrication, for Judah developed extensively only after Israel’s fall to Assyria.  The priest account of defensive forts said to have been erected by Solomon’s son Rehoboam were actually erected 200 years later than the implied c. 931-914 BCE date as II Chronicles 11:5-12 would have us believe.  The same is true of the palaces and gates that Solomon is claimed to have commissioned.

The political minded priests in Jerusalem recognized that they had to blend the popular Creation myths known in Israel with their own myths if they were to lure the refugees into becoming part of the “chosen people” of Yahweh.  Thus chapters one and two of Genesis present noticeable differences in Creation sequences, as well as the different versions that Adam and Eve allegedly played in the Creator’s scheme of  things.  The two accounts are mismatched enough that Bible scholars refer to them as the “J” and “E” versions.  The “J” version was written by priests in Judah whose God was addressed as Yahweh: the version that was known in Israel is referred to as the “E” account because the authors of that tale referred to the Creator as Elohim.

It should be noted that the “J” version of Genesis does not exactly make it clear as to whether or not Yahweh was the sole creator of heaven and earth and Man.  In trying to bond the two accounts the authors of the revision suddenly have God muse aloud, “Let us create man in our image…” (Genesis 1:26).  But in the second chapter it says, “God (again singular) formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life…” (Genesis 2:7).  The political reason for this description of man being fashioned from dust was to block any idea that man might share some divine attributes of the Creator as other cultures believed.  The “J” authors were determined to bind the act of Creation to ordinary time, which allowed themselves the liberty to compose a “history” in which those who believed in Yahweh could be presented with the status of having been “chosen.”  And with the characters of Moses and Abram/Abraham there was set in place the means by which they could claim the special destiny of owning the land of Canaan. 

For the fundamentalists who assert that every word in scriptures is to be taken as God-sent, it might be wise to note that the uncertainty that is revealed in the two patched together Creation myths is reason to pause for reassessment.  That the scriptures were written with political intent, not spiritual enlightenment, is only faintly disguised somewhat later (in II Kings) with the priestly assessment of Manasseh who came to the throne of Judah at age 12, c. 692 BCE, after his father, Hezekiah, revolted against Assyria and was defeated (even though priests assured him that God approved his policy of religious purification).  It was up the Manasseh to pick up the pieces and try to restore Judah to an operational kingdom.  His subjects were primarily country folks and few of them had ever embraced Yahweh as the one-and-only God that the priests demanded.  As a result, religious pluralism returned.  The priest authors in Jerusalem were a spiteful group, and in their writings expressed only denunciatory outrage at Manasseh for letting this happen.  True to the revisionist style of history making, we find Manasseh being presented by the priest authors as the most sinful monarch that the kingdom Judah ever had (II Kings 21: 1-18).

Archaeological evidence reveals that Manasseh was nothing of the sort.  Under Manasseh the kingdom of Judah was revived and prospered.  For the sake of the kingdom and the people Manasseh became a vassal of Assyria—and went on to reign for fifty-five years—the longest, most prosperous and most peaceful reign of any Israelite or Judean king.  The population grew and the nation flourished under his policies.  But the priests continued to fume with jealousy over the blessings enjoyed under his rule—all of which occurred without the benefit of priestly intercession with Yahweh. 

Fundamentalists, take note:  The settlements and cities that were established during Manasseh’s reign survived and thrived after his death.  Indeed, it was only after the priests had again finagled themselves into political influence that Judah fell c. 587 BCE.

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Gnostic Wisdom in New Testament

Posted in agnoticism, Atheism, Atheist, belief, Bible, Christianity, ecology, faith, freethought, humanity, life, prehistory, random, religion, thoughts with tags , , , , , , , , , on April 16, 2010 by chouck017894

Over two thousand years ago the symbolism and mythology of several Pagan mystery sects were beginning to fragment while a multifaceted group was developing diverse interpretations which became lumped under the identity as “Gnostic”—from Greek gnostikos, “man of knowledge.”  The movement spread largely through men of culture who sought the secret of higher life.  Unfortunately, lofty thought became entangled with crude mythology and then floundered in mysticism.

Gnosticism was, for the most part, centered on the highest ethics.  To understand Gnostic thought, their concept of ethics was perceived from an amoral perspective.  Remember, amoral does not mean immoral: it is non-judgmental acceptance.  This is difficult for modern religionists to comprehend since standard religious instruction is to uncompromisingly classify things as good/sinful and black/white—with no shades of gray being allowed for consideration.  Unlike rigid religionism, Gnostics recognized that diverse energies found throughout the universe serve as the generative action responsible for all things in Creation.  For this reason the Gnostics regarded what we know as the Old Testament to be the shameful account of Jehovah’s crimes against humanity.  Yahweh/Jehovah was not accepted by them as the true God or the active Source, but as the identity of a demiurge—an energy involvement that fashioned the material world.  Such Pentateuch/Old Testament characters as Abraham, Moses and the like were consequently regarded as the henchmen of Jehovah who had been dedicated to misdirecting the souls of humans into matter and ignorance.

Since the original purpose of the early Christian literature was composed in Rome in the attempt to soften Jewish spiritual arrogance, the new cultists played down the Gnostic attitude to prevent a too strong direct offence to Jews.  Nonetheless, Gnostic influence was cautiously scattered throughout the New Testament.  Although Christianity owes  many planks of its formation and doctrines to Gnosticism, pure Gnosticism itself also represented one of the most challenging threats to the new Christian movement.  Specifically, it denied the keystone upon which the aspiring priestly hierarchy sought to establish itself.  If, as the Gnostics claimed, evil had existed in Creation from the beginning then Adam, meaning mankind, could not possibly have fallen and neither he nor Eve had chosen to disobey God in Eden.  It then followed that Jesus could not possibly be presented by the priesthood as God’s token of forgiveness for humankind’s entanglement with that inescapable condition.

There is a remarkable verse in the New Testament (Matthew 16:23, revised c. 75 CE) that pretty much states what is wrong with all hard-line and fundamentalist organized religions.  Jesus is portrayed as speaking to Simon Peter, saying, “…thou art an offence unto me: for you savor not the things that be of  God, but those that be  of men.”  The real kicker in this scene is that this reproach of Peter comes after verse 19, or immediately after Peter had been given the keys of the kingdom of heaven!  The implication is that the church that he is to establish is intended to be the challenger of the infinite creative powers that are personified as “God.”  There is profound Gnostic wisdom hidden here.

The reason for this rebuke of Peter by Jesus is that Peter stands as the representative of the continuity in matter-existence that resists the necessity of its own transformation.  Thus Jesus utters the accusation that Peter savours those thing that be of men.  What is illustrated with this peculiar scene is that the confinement of consciousness in our physical-matter forms is what traumatizes the human ego, for it is ego that is obsessed with material identity and wishes to dam the natural flow that we interpret as life/death.

Mankind has lost sight of the soul-saving truth that religion is made for man: man is not made for any particular religion.

Knowing this, we are justified in saying to hard-line and hierarchical style religions, just as Jesus is alleged to have said to Peter, “Get the behind me Satan: you are an offence to me.”

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Making Holy Myths

Posted in Atheist, belief, Bible, Christianity, culture, faith, humanity, life, prehistory, random, religion, thoughts with tags , , , , , on March 16, 2010 by chouck017894

Of all the creation myths of ancient peoples, the opening chapter of the book of Genesis stands in a class by itself.  Unlike all cultures Before our Common Era the priests of Yahweh in Jerusalem were busily indulging themselves in setting up the premise of divine discrimination.  The Creator they presented in Genesis, who walked in his garden and talked to himself, is thus depicted as either not omniscient (all-knowing) or as a heartless schemer.  For example, where is the wisdom of placing two tempting trees as the focal point of the garden and then forbidding two uncomprehending creatures the freedom to eat of them?  It is weak story plotting.  But it didn’t much matter, for the underlying purpose was to channel the Hebrew  people away from belief in numerous gods and goddesses to slowly, and with some difficulty, indoctrinate them with the premise of one being that created limited identities without the necessity of energy intercourse.

In this prehistory period the civilizations such as Sumer, Babylon, Egypt, Assyria, Greece, etc., recognized and respected the interactions of incalculable universal energies, and it was these unseen interrelated and interacting primal creative forces that the ancient cultures personified as a pantisocracy of “gods.”  The energies that interact throughout nature and the observable universe do often appear to be in opposition, hence the “gods” were often depicted in Pagan cultures as in competition or in a state of lust.  There was never any doubt among those Pagan cultures, however, that such creative energies originated out of a singular cause.

What the Yahweh priests contrived was the claim that the indifferent source-power of Creation had singled out one group of people (them, of course) as the sole recipients of his blessings.  To accomplish this pretext of divine discrimination the wily priest-editors referred to the same  primal and diverse energies responsible for all manifested life as their historical ancestors and dubbed those primal creative energies as Israelites.  The “gods” that were recognized by the surrounding cultures and which symbolized the same diverse creative energies were then purposely ridiculed as too lacking to have been chosen by the source power which the author-priests referred to as Yahweh.  But this counter assault on Pagan wisdom necessitated finding a means to explain the diverse energy-attributes that were presented and personified with the Pagan gods.

The priest-editors of reworked Hebrew myths certainly knew what the Pagan gods symbolized: they knew that there are energy interactions all through the universe that, although unseen for the most part, do have an effect on life forces.  The way out for demoting the Pagan gods was simply to give those forces a different designation, so the diverse forces were reassigned by the priests of Yahweh from acknowledgment as Pagan “gods” to Yahweh’s servants which were hailed as “angels.”  For all extent and purpose, the attributes and special duties of the Pagan gods were simply transferred to a regiment of “angels.”  The angels, of course, were envisioned as acting under the direction of an amoral source-power personified as Yahweh-God.  We must note that amoral does not mean immoral: it means that any judgmental inclination or personality features are not present. 

The Demotion of Eve.      In the earliest part of Genesis the character of Eve is referred to as “Mother of all living” (Genesis 3:20), which suggests the rank of a near-sacred being.  This title that Adam allegedly bestowed upon Eve, “Mother of all living,” is identical to what the Sumerians had bestowed upon the love goddess Aruru, for she was regarded in their culture as the creatrix of life.  Eve’s implied eminence in Genesis, even after making a fruit-picking mistake, reflects the Pagan understanding that creation of all life can take place only through a process of polar energy interaction.  This is why various neighboring cultures that the Yahweh priests so envied, such as Sumerian, Phoenician, Hittie, Ugaritic, etc., gave homage to goddesses as being equal in divine power with the gods.  But Eve, according to the Yahweh priests, was demoted and declared to have been designed by Yahweh-Jehovah simply to serve as Adam’s helpmeet.  This was the deliberate capsizing of Pagan understanding, and it had no parallel in any other early Mediterranean or Middle Eastern myths.  The advantage of this slight-of-hand was that it placed man (especially the political minded priests) in the authoritative position.  Unfortunately, by demoting the feminine polar aspect necessary for life production, the Genesis myth of Creation insanely rejects the fundamental polar energy principle necessary for Creation.  And western religious understanding of the basic principle of creation and the fruition (evolution) of life manifestation has been plagued with controversy and  misunderstanding ever since.

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Hiding the Family Jewels

Posted in Atheist, belief, Bible, culture, faith, life, naturalism, nature, random, sex, thoughts with tags , , , on November 13, 2009 by chouck017894

 He walked with a determined stride out onto the football field and the packed crowd in the stadium suddenly erupted with all kinds of reactions.  Security personnel and various staffers were rushing out to apprehend the man, but it was obvious that he had no means for destructive action.  Nonetheless, the clamor was intense, the TV cameras had all swung around to catch the scuffle on the  field, and half the crowd was on its feet.  The reason for the alarm?   He was naked.

The great hoopla over someone appearing au naturel in public brings many questions to ponder for viewers.  What were his intentions?  Was it in protest?  Was he high?  Was he overly proud?  What’s the big deal, a person is either male or female: so what!  Etc.  But there is a seldom asked question.  Why is it considered indecent exposure to be comfortable in your own skin?  Nudity is subliminally accepted as a religious prohibition, and yet scripture is not exactly clear on the motivation for hiding what you are.

One of the more peculiar perceptions in religious posturing is the assertion that the human physical body is, for some reason, offensive to the power that is credited with having designed and engineered the human physical form.  That assertion of god’s displeasure seems to be a contradiction to the opening of scriptural myth, for there it is fully accepted in Genesis that the power called god saw nothing wrong or indecent with Adam and Eve meandering naked around the Garden of Eden.  Chapter two, verse 25 clearly reports, “And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.”

Adam, with Eve’s help, is said to have acquired knowingness, which caused Adam to decide that it might be wise to cover up, so “…they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.” (Genesis 3:7)   The Lord, when he saw their sorry attire, was not exactly pleased and said, “Who told thee that thou was naked?” (3:11)  Being naked obviously was not deemed as shameful by the Lord.  If anything, the act of donning superfluous attributes was what disturbed the Lord most.   Miffed at their awkward self-awareness, the Lord then compounded their perplexity by covering the with “coats of skin” and hustling them out the exit gate. 

There is deep irony in this scriptural portrayal of blameless nakedness.  The nakedness of the Eden inhabitants represents pure innocence and complete truth, for nothing was meant to be kept hidden from view.  Apparently not even sexual inquisitiveness was held to be offensive in Paradise.  The “sin” that troubled god, therefore, rested in the attempt to deceive by concealing what is true.  It is for this reason that the naked human form has, from time out of mind, been held symbolic of absolute truth.

Western rank-and-file religions, however, have habitually regarded anyone seen when naked as being in a state of disgrace!  Noah’s son accidently seeing their father naked, for example.  Despite the fact that every life form enters life in innocent nakedness, the natural splendor of the unadorned body has been liberally painted with great dollops of false guilt.  Thus the self-proclaimed representatives of god—the preachers, priests, pastors, ministers, etc.–dress themselves in layered costumes with only their head and hands exposed in a pretense that they are the ambassadors of the Lord’s truth.  Such showy, distracting and often ostentatious paraphernalia of religious pretension would seem to be more the uniform donned for spreading aggressive deceit rather than accessories approved for the genuine messengers of god’s liberating truth.

The general understanding that there is some god-required priestly dress code is presented only in the priest-written book of Leviticus where the garments to be worn by the high priest Aaron for divine intercourse are lovingly, almost lasciviously defined.  The clue to the true meaning behind the descriptions of the god-approved dress code for his pulpit generals rest in what Aaron’s name means: the name is derived from the word harah and means to conceive.  It is from the Leviticus myth, therefore, that when filled with an arousal to perform for god, the Catholic bishops and other ecclesiastics often sport those tall, pointy, phallic-looking miters.  It’s all showmanship though.  Even so those old men do not act particularly enlightened, let alone sexy. 

  • Related posts: Dressed for Sex, Bible Style, Sept. 8, 2009; Breastplate, Sexy Biblical Garb, Sept. 09, 2009.

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