Nolotheism�hmm�I like the sound of it!
9:20 a.m.
However, you�re all waiting patiently to hear about this discussion. It would seem that during that period of history and prehistory when people depended on the land for their subsistence, either as hunters and gatherers or as agrarians, goddess-worship was the norm. The earth was seen as the Great Mother from whom life sprang and to whom the dead were consigned. The creatures living in the wild were seen as living extensions of the Great Mother, and were revered for the jobs they did in her service, i.e. the vultures (or other carrion birds) who devoured the flesh from deceased individuals so that the bones could be buried beneath houses, keeping ancestors together (this practice is called excarnation, by the way, where the meat is removed from the corpse before burial) in the same space as the living; snakes and cats who controlled rodents and other pests which attacked grain; and of course the wild cattle which were hunted first and later domesticated.
All this changed at some point when invaders who worshipped a sky god imposed their religion on the conquered people. These were nomadic people living a life of no-fixed-address uncertainty, either following wild herds or driving their own livestock from place to place in search of good grazing. They did not have a relationship with the earth itself, since they were never in one place for very long, always on the move with the cattle. Hence it was easier for them to have a god who didn�t stick to one locale, as a certain cave or waterfall, for instance, but who was easily transportable, a god that dwelt in the sky. Interestingly, this sky-dwelling god was always male. Women did not play as important a r�le in these societies as they did in more earth-centred civilizations, especially not in the administration of religious rituals. It is from these nomadic, sky-god-worshipping tribes that we get our basic Judeo-Christian tenets, and yet so much of the ritual associated with these religions dates back to pagan goddess worship since the invaders had to convince the indigenous population somehow to convert to �the one true faith�, and what better way than by letting them simply continue worshipping as they had, but directing their prayers skyward instead of earthward.
Laurel brought up an idea put out by her liberal-arts professor that all pantheistic or polytheistic religions were �evolving� towards monotheism as though one was a preparation for the other. She also put forth the idea that, since we are finite beings having a beginning and an end, we are always in search of something �infinite� which would justify our own puny existence. Patsy and I did not agree with either of these ideas. We are such brain-washed products of the patriarchal society in which we find ourselves that monotheism seems like the ultimate culmination of religious worship. Hey, it�s convenient to have one deity to pin the blame on or to pray to in times of need. But Patsy reminded us that her Irish grandmother, who was a devout Catholic and went to church religiously (pun intended), paid scant heed to god the father and god the son. Her attentions were solely directed to Mary the Mother, the woman�s goddess. What I learned from the Celtic-goddess seminar (and what I�ve noticed from the other things I�ve picked up) is that there is a propensity towards triple manifestations in the goddess religions, and this continues in today�s modern male-centred religions. Therefore, monotheism is merely a label masking what is in reality a tri-partite deity.
The other argument that came up was my opposition to this idea that we need to be connected to the infinite. If religion was truly evolving, as Laurel said, then why should it stop here at the monotheistic stage? Perhaps the next step is nolotheism, and we will accept that we are truly alone in the cosmos, having realized that all things are finite, including the universe itself. I have no problem with this idea (as a matter of fact, I espouse it). Ancient people saw the earth as being an indisputable fact. It had always been there, and there was no reason to believe that it would not continue forever. Hence, they already had that reverence for things infinite. This would account for the importance of snakes; since they are constantly shedding their skins and appearing new and refreshed after each molting, they were believed to be immortal. The concept of the human soul continuing on after the death of the body is an attempt to deal with that same idea that things do not end, they just change. Reincarnation is a beautiful expression of the �recycling� of human consciousness.
Anyway, I glanced at my watch and realized that I had to go teach in five minutes, and the other class was waiting out in the hall, so we had to cut the discussion short. Our class is very lively that way. Patsy says that the class after ours is shy and retiring, rather �dead� in comparison. Poor her. It�s too bad that they aren�t reversed, since she always feels a lift after us and a let-down after them. We chatted about it on the drive to belly-dancing, whereat we again maneuvered our hips into impossible contortions. We�re learning a choreography which is proving very challenging. It incorporates all sorts of fun things that I can�t do. It will be interesting to see if I keep this up.
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