The Great Cosmic Mother: Rediscovering the Religion of the Earth by Sjoo Monica & Mor Barbara

Author:Sjoo, Monica & Mor, Barbara [Sjoo, Monica]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2013-12-10T00:00:00+00:00

(This hostility to the living earth, to its deities and symbols, and to all free manifestations of its life, can sometimes be seen in the way some fundamentalist and especially Mormon churches are built, at least in the American West; every green tree, flower, or bush is stripped away from the stark stone anti-terrestrial arrogance of the buildings.)

The Old Testament texts record the Heroic Age of the Hebrew people, the War God epics of their priestly and warrior castes. The Bronze Age saw an explosion of such epics, throughout the Near East, Egypt, and India. Gilgamesh appeared as the ego of man, a new male being building a hostile identity vis-à-vis woman, mocking and dismissing the ancient Mother Goddess in acts ranging from ritual desecration and mythic rewriting to the sacrilegious rape, massacre, and plundering of whole settled peoples. In the Old Testament of the Bible, written circa 900 to 300 B.C., this ego of man is set up as the Hebrew’s new God. Yahweh, the pastoral god of cattle breeding, warfare, moralistic wrath, and misogyny, is the newly militant, self-aggrandizing and righteous male ego enthroned as God the Father, enemy of the Mother. Bronze Age raiding, mass slaughter, and secular conquest of settled matriarchal peoples by the mobilized patriarchal war machine were ubiquitous activities, not confined to the Hebrew tribes. The new element added by the Old Testament writers was the concept that became holy war: The Father God not only justified but commanded the slaughter of religious enemies, i.e., of people who believed differently. In particular, of people who believed in the Old Religion of the Neolithic Goddess. The Hebrew warriors then were not just seeking conquest and wealth for personal glory, like other Bronze Age Sun God warriors and epic heroes. No; their righteousness comes from the fact that they were also seeking to impose the right god—their new idea of the right god—on all their neighbors. Textually, the Old Testament becomes the first handbook of holy war, i.e., the first time such an ideology was written down, as the rules of the game—as the game itself—for a whole people. Both Christianity and Islam recognize the Old Testament as a sacred text. The historic fanaticism of both religions derives its holy war fervor and rationale from the words of the biblical prophets, presented as “the Word of God.” These words incite and justify religious war as the will of God.

Yahweh is called the jealous God. What was Yahweh jealous of? Of the Goddess, and her lover, of their sacred-sexual relation itself, and of its domination over the minds and hearts and bodies of generations of Neolithic people. This is why the God and religion of the Bible are identified so clearly from all other preceding gods and religions: The Bible God and his religion are based on a violently asexual, or antisexual morality never before seen on earth. Sex—the source of life and pleasure of love—becomes the enemy of God.

All the ancient people of the world embodied the fused birth- life-and death-giving powers of earth in a Mother Goddess.

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