Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!orion.cf.uci.edu!uci-ics!tittle
From: turpin@cs.utexas.EDU (Russell Turpin)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: feminist spiritualty
Summary: Why do it at all?
Message-ID: <5725@cs.utexas.edu>
Date: 2 Jul 89 18:43:41 GMT
References: <8907011558.AA19050@cattell.psych.upenn.edu>
Sender: news@paris.ics.uci.edu
Organization: U. Texas CS Dept., Austin, Texas
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Approved: tittle@ics.uci.edu

In article <8907011558.AA19050@cattell.psych.upenn.edu>, gretchen@cattell.psych.upenn.EDU (Gretchen Chapman) writes:
> ... I will try to state what I see
> as the advantages of feminist spirituality (Sophia in particular) ...
> ... Therefore, a feminist spirituality needs to
> have a feminine divine figure ... 
> ... Why not have one gender-free God?  I think that a gender-free 
> God is not very well personified. ...

Frequently I read writers who, it seems to me, are blatantly involved
in the business of creating a new theology.  What surprises me is that
they, and so many of their readers, take their attempts seriously.

If gods or goddesses exists, perhaps the one thing that is certain
about them is that their characteristics are not determined by
people's imaginings.  Traditional religions understand at least this.
If you could convince the traditional Christian that the miracles of
the Bible are all just someone's fantasies [1], or an ancient Greek
that the gods were just men's imaginings, then they both would have
the good sense to realize that their religions are false.  So how can
one possibly take seriously a religion that one knows is pure fantasy
because one is making it up as one goes along?

Or does the writer, perhaps, claim to be a prophet, someone who speaks
for the god(desses)?  In this case, there is no need to rationalize
*why* one sees the gods and goddesses the way one does, since there is
no way to argue against someone who possesses Revealed Truth.
(However, good prophets do tell their followers how to distinguish
them from false prophets.)

I see no in-between here -- either the author is claiming to
possess Revealed Truth, or it's all cow dung.

> Why get into all this sloppy polytheism? 

Why get into theism at all?  What you make up may be more appealing,
more comforting, and less sexist than all the religions that have been
made up in the past, but there is no reason to think it will be any
more true.  Or does this matter?

Russell

[1] This is why traditional Christians reject what archaeologists and
historians teach about the origins of Judaism.  They know that
admitting to political and social origins for a religion belies its
claim to truth.