How does that title strike you? Sacrilegious? Un-Christian? Pagan? A while ago I had a conversation with a friend that left an idea idling in the back of my mind. It is the opinion of some people, she said, that life on this planet was whacked when mankind switched from belief in a female goddess to belief in a male god.
Of course it didn't happen in quite that way, really-- it wasn't that simple. I'm no expert, but I know that generally speaking people once believed in pantheons of gods and goddesses, or spirits--call them what you will--some male, some female. I believe it was Abraham, most notably, who decided that the god he worshipped was the only god: God. I suppose in Abraham's day it was impossible to conceive of a god being neither male nor female; every god was one or the other, and Abraham's seems to have been decidedly male.
I like to think that Christ, being enlightened, believed that God was neither male nor female. I don't have a Bible handy, but I remember Christ saying something about people not being married in heaven, but being "like the angels". I interpret this to mean that angels are neither male nor female, and it seems reasonable to infer that the God Christ spoke of was likewise not limited to one set of characteristics or the other.
Unfortunately, in the retelling and translating this tidbit has been drowned out by the writings of Paul, who was probably referring to his wife when he wrote of the "thorn in his side". It was Paul who wrote that women should keep their mouths shut in church, not adorn themselves, and be submissive to their husbands, men being the head of the family as "God the Father" is head of the church. And so the Christian God became most emphatically a male god.
And then there's Allah-- it's hard to imagine a more male god than Allah. Considering the restrictions placed on women in Islamic societies, it's laughable to entertain the notion that Allah could have a feminine side.
So the problem isn't that the major religions today all believe in male gods-- it's that they believe in only male gods. There is no balancing feminine diety; for a couple of thousand years there has been no feminine face of God. Something irreplacable has been lost by this lack of worship of any goddess. The belief in only male gods has denigrated all feminine qualities and wrought havoc on mankind.
I like the new theory that stonehenge was constructed to represent female genitalia. That's the idea-- celebrate birth, not death. Enough already with crusades and suicide bombings.
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