Religion and the dissapearence of the Goddess
I haven't found many good studies on this, but I was wondering if anyone has found any studies with archeological evidence towards what looks like the utter destruction of Goddess figures in human history. My personal theories towards who holds onto such concepts were those cultures with favorable conditions. For instance the Druids had Goddesses while the Jewish gave up their Goddesses. In the north 'nature' was favorable, and so they worshiped it, while in the desserts the earth was very harsh. I don't believe in any form of god myself, but I would like to know just how our theisim was shaped to be what it is to this day. Enough of the fables, I want the real history of religion, and this seems like a good place to start.
To go beyond your limits you must first find them.
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Here is a good article by William Dever in BAR concerning Asherah, the consort of El and, later, Yahweh.
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One of the first anthropologists to notice the hints of Goddess worship in ancient Greece was Jane Ellen Harrison. Her Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion (1903) was a groundbreaking work on the subject. If you want to start at the beginning, that's a good place.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
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Also, there's Pallas (Athena), and GreekGoddess if you need to speak to actual goddesses. Or their usernames could be lies, I'm not sure.
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
You have some brown-ish substance on the tip of your nose there...
I think maybe a "full of shit" jab would have been more appropriate, but fair enough.
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
Admit it, you just want to fuck one of 'em!
Yikes! Very suave. No, I prefer women closer to my age. As a heads up, I haven't been in high school for a long time. Long time.
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
I admit it .... But it's true, .... men couldn't be sharing power with women, and so god gave his only begotten son, not a lesser girl ..... girls in chains all the years .....
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I'm still here. Worship me, bitches!
You know, the proof that ancient man worshiped goddesses is right here in front of us. I guarantee that at least two thirds of the straight men who read this post thought something like, "Woah... that chick is cool. I could worship her..."
Somewhere along the line, a good looking woman figured out that all she had to do was tell men to worship her and they would. Who needs archaeology when you've got psychology?
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
Haha - that's the spirit! It's a good thing you showed up. Rook was worried.
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
Depending on what modern religion you're looking at, the goddess may still be hanging around in some form. Protestants from Luther till today have jumped all over the Catholics for their elevation of Mary to what they determine to be near equal status with Jesus himself, very often pointing out similarities to the Cult of Diana. And the Catholics don't have too much to say in their defense, given that the doctrine of the Assumption was only written into stone by a Pope in 1950--that is to say they aren't exactly running from the accusation. And of course the "Madonna with child" is an ancient trope of the art of the Pagan world, as is to a lesser extent the Pieta. And the Qu'ran, influenced in its view of Christianity by the Nestorian church, has similar feelings about the supernatural quality of Mary, replacing the Holy Spirit in their version of the Trinity with her (of course Muslims don't believe in the Trinity, but there was apparently the need to point out the foolishness and tendency to idolatry of the Christians).
It does seem that the old Pagan love/fertility Goddess (Diana, Astarte, etc) really struggled and eventually collapsed in the Common Era. I'm wondering if the rising popularity of the female-excluding Mithraist cult and male-centered but female-courting Christian cult weren't the nail in the coffin.
"The whole conception of God is a conception derived from ancient Oriental despotisms. It is a conception quite unworthy of free men."
--Bertrand Russell
A couple of people I met who are graduate students in classics are working on this but they tell me they're far from anything concrete. That's only because of the limited amount of archeological material in the first place. The written material from that time is dubious enough. You definitely have the goddesses disappearing, but as DamnDirtyApe says, the sentiment creeps back in the form of Mary. The point of disappearance would be really hard to pin down, especially with the idea of "worship" being considerably different in the ancient world than it is now.
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
How can you tell how old they are? I'm 34. Are you older than me?
"I am an atheist, thank God." -Oriana Fallaci
Project much? =P
Atheist Books, purchases on Amazon support the Rational Response Squad server, which houses Celebrity Atheists. Books by Rook Hawkins (Thomas Verenna)
Magical powers. I don't know, they look young.
No.
I'd like to apologize to Jan for this topic turning into an awkward locker-room. My joke was lame! I admit it! Both women had goddess usernames! I didn't realize at the time that my comment would read so creepy, so let's drop it. Apologies all around.
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
[MOD EDIT: Double Post]
Am I missing an in-joke here? Are you her girlfriend? You're acting like I claimed Jesus existed or something.
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
I don't think he's her boyfriend and I'm all but certain he isn't her girlfriend!
(ahem... back on topic...)
IIRC, Joseph Campbell named ~600BCE as the somewhat arbitrary turning point from female centered worship to male dominated patriarchal pantheons and monotheist religions. I say somewhat arbitrary because in music, we say that the Baroque era ended in 1750, but that's only because Bach didn't die before then. People had been writing classical style music for thirty years, but out of respect for J.S. musicologists didn't end his era before he died. I believe religion has to be viewed in the same way. As late as the early 1900s, there were primitive societies still practicing goddess worship in parts of Africa, and I believe South America.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
I'm guessing from the original post, though, that we're talking Western world. Otherwise, there are still a few popular modern polytheistic religions that have goddesses.
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
Right. Since all of the Western religions come from the occident, I think it's safe to go with Campbell for general conversation. Most of that area was characterized by male dominated pantheons or monotheist religions by around 600.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism