Looks like the CBC wants to talk faith. Let's make sure the atheist voice is heard loud an clear.

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Adam and Eve…and Lilith

A Contradiction in Terms.

Genesis 1:27- "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." You will notice that god creates man and woman AT THE SAME TIME and this woman’s name in never mentioned.

Let us now examine and consider the second verse, which is the contradictory and yet most well known story of the creation of man and woman.

Genesis 2:21-23-“21 So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. 23 The man said, "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman’, for she was taken out of man."

This is the story most are familiar with known as “the rib story”. This woman is then named Eve, however she is NOT the FIRST woman and not the first wife of Adam.

Midrash Explained.

To find this out the name, Jewish scholars engaged in something called Midrash. Midrash, according to the Online Encarta Dictionary/Encyclopedia, is “commentary on Hebrew Bible: a body of Rabbinic literature consisting of commentary on and clarification of biblical texts, first compiled before 500 ad”. If that is not “authoritative” enough for you, according to the Oxford English Dictionary Midrash is, “A Rabbinic homiletic commentary on a text from the Hebrew Scriptures, characterized by non-literal \nterpretation and legendary illustration.”

Why did they use Midrash?

Jewish Rabbis were not stupid. They understood that these two stories contradict each other. Since, Genesis is contained in the first five books of the bible known as “The Torah” and “The Five Books of Moses” and considered the most direct revelation from god to humans; the Rabbis decided this contradiction had an explanation that could get rid of the apparent contradiction. They did this by looking through the Bible (Old Testament) and looking for clues as to name of the first unnamed woman of creation. The reason, ironically enough, why the name of the woman is missing is because earlier Rabbis, those responsible for putting the Torah together didn’t like the story of the first woman, so they left the minimal amount of the story there, namely Gen 1:27. Why didn’t they like this first woman of creation? That will be explained later. First, let us look at what the Rabbis looked at during this Midrash.

Midrash Evidence

Isaiah 34:15 "…The night-demon Lilith, evil and rapacious, will establish permanent quarters. Scavenging carrion birds will breed and brood, infestations of ominous evil." Here is mentioned Lilith, a woman-demon. They link this name up with a woman in Jewish lore known to them at the time but coming down to us through a medieval text known as The Alphabet of Ben Sira, in full text and explained later.

Why is this important?

According to ancient Jewish lore, known from a medieval text, based on lost texts of the same stories, known as The Alphabet of Ben Sira, Lilith is the unnamed wife in Gen 1:27. The story explains why the book was left out of the Pentateuch/Torah, how and why Lilith goes away, and is supposed to explain why babies die early, why men have wet dreams and as a way to demonize women.

The Alphabet of Ben Sira

The Story of Lilith

"The angels who are in charge of medicine: Snvi, Snsvi, and Smnglof. After God created Adam, who was alone, He said, 'It is not good for man to be alone' (Gen. 2:18). He then created a woman for Adam, from the earth, as He had created Adam himself, and called her Lilith. Adam and Lilith began to fight. She said, 'I will not lie below,' and he said, 'I will not lie beneath you, but only on top. For you are fit only to be in the bottom position, while am to be in the superior one.' Lilith responded, 'We are equal to each other inasmuch as we were both created from the earth.' But they would not listen to one another. When Lilith saw this, she pronounced the Ineffable Name and flew away into the air. Adam stood in prayer before his Creator: 'Sovereign of the universe!' he said, 'the woman you gave me has run away.' At once, the Holy One, blessed be He, sent these three angels to bring her back.

"Said the Holy One to Adam, 'If she agrees to come back, fine. If not she must permit one hundred of her children to die every day.' The angels left God and pursued Lilith, whom they overtook in the midst of the sea, in the mighty waters wherein the Egyptians were destined to drown. They told her God's word, but she did not wish to return. The angels said, 'We shall drown you in the sea.'

"'Leave me!' she said. 'I was created only to cause sickness to infants. If the infant is male, I have dominion over him for eight days after his birth, and if female, for twenty days.'

"When the angels heard Lilith's words, they insisted she go back. But she swore to them by the name of the living and eternal God: 'Whenever I see you or your names or your forms in an amulet, I will have no power over that infant.' She also agreed to have one hundred of her children die every day. Accordingly, every day one hundred demons perish, and for the same reason, we write the angels' names on the amulets of young children. When Lilith sees their names, she remembers her oath, and the child recovers."

Explanation for why Lilith is left out of the Torah

Lilith wanted to be equal with Adam, and gives good reason, according to the story. Adam did not want this and would not allow it, so she left him. This is quite feministic. She says, “I will not lie below”, during sex presumably and “We are equal to each other inasmuch as we were both created from the earth.” She is actually correct, in the sense that they are equals. This is disturbing to the early Rabbis of the Judaism. In the culture of the day, men we seen as superior to women and so having this idea in the bible was unacceptable, so it was discarded. She then leaves him by uttering the name of god (in Hebrew) and then she magically flies away and never seen again. Oddly, neither god nor his angels can bring her back to Earth. She then becomes a demon of night and roams the Earth causing havoc.

The Aftermath and Conclusion

Then we have the rib story, only after Lilith leaves, and Eve is purposely made out of something less than what Adam and was done so to insure that she would be subservient to Adam, and men in general. Eve is then the second wife of Adam and Lilith the first. Lilith’s story brings up one additional problem, one that may actually be worse than having two contradictory stories of creation that is; god- the omnipotent, omnipresent, and all-perfect, creator of the universe- is NOT perfect because he made a mistake. Not only did god make a mistake, he also did not see it coming (therefore not all knowing) and could not stop Lilith or control her (therefore not all-powerful). This is what one would expect from a “quick fix” explanation of a man-made myth touted by believers as the perfect word of the creator of the universe.

By Joel

RRS @ MSCD

View full post on The Rational Response Squad

Why Christians can’t disregard The Gospel of Thomas

In a recent debate with a Christian, he told me that The Gospel of Thomas is “simply a heretical forgery, much the same as the Gospel of Judas, the Gospel of Mary, and the Gospel of Philip.” After an extensive amount of research, I have found that his statement has some profound ramifications. I went through all 114 sayings in The Gospel of Thomas and found that approx. 84%* of the sayings are contained within the Canonical Gospels, either verbatim or slightly changed in wording. Some of these sayings are the “important” ones. (Examples of this are below¹) Ones that most Christians themselves point to about how compassionate Jesus was, such as “turn the other cheek” and “love thy neighbor as thyself”, are in the Gospel of Thomas. (Sources and characters are at the bottom)

When was the Gospel of Thomas written?

Experts, through radiometric dating, have dated the Gospel of Thomas found at Nag Hammadi to being written between 50-140CE. This is startling, considering the Gospel of Mark, at its earliest, was written between 65-80CE. At the earliest, that is at least 15 years after the Gospel of Thomas was written. One then should be able to conclude then, that writer of The Gospel of Mark simply took the sayings from The Gospel of Thomas and inserted them into stories. He plagiarized the Gospel of Thomas, to use today’s legalistic terms.

What does this all mean?

This means that one cannot make the statement “[The Gospel of Thomas] is simply a heretical forgery, much the same as the Gospel of Judas, the Gospel of Mary, and the Gospel of Philip.” and yet continuously quote scripture derived directly from it. If the Gospel of Thomas is nothing more than a “heretical forgery” than you (Christians) will have to rid the New Testament of “the great moral precepts and great sayings”, Jesus is said to have taught, such as “turn the other cheek” and “give to those who can’t repay you”. Likewise, you would also get rid of some questionable teachings, such as “hating your father, mother, brother, sister and yourself in order to follow Jesus” and “I have not come to bring peace to the world, but a sword”. Bottom line is, if you write off the Gospel of Thomas as heretical you are getting rid of almost all the sayings, good and bad, that your demi-god Jesus is supposed to have said, and having read the New Testament, you would not be left with much.

Examples

Gospel of Thomas Saying 55- "Jesus said: He who does not hate his father and his mother cannot be a disciple to me. And (he who does not) hate his brothers and sisters and take up his cross like me, will not be worthy of me."

Luke 14:25-27- "Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said:"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple. And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple."

Gospel of Thomas Saying 44- "Jesus said: He who blasphemes against the Father will be forgiven, and he who blasphemes against the Son will be forgiven; but he who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either on earth or in heaven."

Mark 3:28-30 "Verily I say unto you, All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme: But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation. Because they said, He hath an unclean spirit."

Matt 12:31-32- "Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come."

Gospel of Thomas Saying 34- "Jesus said: If a blind man leads a blind man, they both fall into a pit."

Luke 6:39- "And he spake a parable unto them, Can the blind lead the blind? shall they not both fall into the ditch?"

Gospel of Thomas Saying 11- "Jesus said: This heaven will pass away, and the one above it will pass away; and those who are dead are not alive, and those who are living will not die. In the days when you ate of what is dead, you made of it what is living. When you come to be light, what will you do? On the day when you were one, you became two. But when you have become two, what will you do?"

Mark 13:30-31- "Verily I say unto you, that this generation shall not pass, till all these things be done. Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away."

Gospel of Thomas Saying 2- "Jesus said: He who seeks, let him not cease seeking until he finds; and when he finds he will be troubled, and when he is troubled he will be amazed, and he will reign over the All."

Luke 11:9-13-"And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?"

and

Matt 7:7-11-"Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?"

Gospel of Thomas Saying 10- "Jesus said: I have cast a fire upon the world, and see, I watch over it until it is ablaze."

Luke 12:49-53- "I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled? But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished! Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division: For from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother in law against her daughter in law, and the daughter in law against her mother in law."

and

Matt 10:34-39- "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a mans foes shall be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me. He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it."

Gospel of Thomas 16- "Jesus said: Perhaps men think that I am come to cast peace upon the world; and they do not know that I am come to cast dissensions upon the earth, fire, sword, war. For there will be five who are in a house; three shall be against two and two against three, the father against the son and the son against the father, and they shall stand as solitaries."

Matt 10:34-39- "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a mans foes shall be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me. He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it."

Gospel of Thomas Saying 62- "Jesus said: I speak my mysteries to those [who are worthy of my] mysteries. What your right hand does, let not your left hand know what it does."

Mark 4:10-12- "And when he was alone, they that were about him with the twelve asked of him the parable. And he said unto them, Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables: That seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them."

Gospel of Thomas Saying 68- "Jesus said: Blessed are you when you are hated and persecuted, and they will find no place where you have been persecuted."

Luke 6:22-23- "Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of mans sake. Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy: for, behold, your reward is great in heaven: for in the like manner did their fathers unto the prophets."

Gospel of Thomas Saying 77- "Jesus said: I am the light that is above them all. I am the all; the all came forth from me, and the all attained to me. Cleave a (piece of) wood; I am there. Raise up a stone, and you will find me there."

John 8:12-20- "Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. The Pharisees therefore said unto him, Thou bearest record of thyself; thy record is not true. Jesus answered and said unto them, Though I bear record of myself, yet my record is true: for I know whence I came, and whither I go; but ye cannot tell whence I come, and whither I go. Ye judge after the flesh; I judge no man. And yet if I judge, my judgment is true: for I am not alone, but I and the Father that sent me. It is also written in your law, that the testimony of two men is true. I am one that bear witness of myself, and the Father that sent me beareth witness of me. Then said they unto him, Where is thy Father? Jesus answered, Ye neither know me, nor my Father: if ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also. These words spake Jesus in the treasury, as he taught in the temple: and no man laid hands on him; for his hour was not yet come."

Gospel of Thomas Saying 38- "Jesus said: Many times have you desired to hear these words which I speak to you, and you have no other from whom to hear them. Days will come when you will seek me (and) you will not find me."

Luke 17:22- "And he said unto the disciples, The days will come, when ye shall desire to see one of the days of the Son of man, and ye shall not see it."

Sources

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/thomas/

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/

http://www.biblegateway.com/

*-The exact percentage is 84.2105% for those who thought I approximated by rounded up.

¹ – For the full list of findings please email me at metroatheists@hotmail.com

By Joel

RRS @ MSCD

View full post on The Rational Response Squad

Found on youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZwC-VH8OnI

Islam, the religion you least want to have as your next door neighbour. 

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Welcome to Bertrand Russell.com.

From World Can't Wait – Drive Out the Bush Regime!

God created the earth in six days and all forms of life, including human beings, were created in the forms that now exist; the Bible says so.  It's called Creationism, but has been morphed to appear scientific and now most often goes by the name of Intelligent Design, claiming that many things in nature, such as an eye, are far too complex to exist without a designer.  Enter God.

Texas Governor Rick Perry believes it should be taught in public school science classes and so does the Don McLeroy, appointed by Perry last July to be chair of the state's elected board of education. According to the watchdog group Texas Freedom Network "McLeroy will now be in charge of the board's scheduled revision of the state's science curriculum standards, an area where he has already cast his lot with extremists who want to censor what our schoolchildren learn."

Then in December, Christine Castillo Comer was fired as the science education director of the Texas Education Agency (TEA) allegedly because she forwarded an e-mail announcing a speech by a critic of teaching Creationism/Intelligent Design. Comer's only message was "FYI."  Some not-so-intelligent Intelligent Design types claimed she was bashing people's faith. Her real "crime" was that she is dedicated to having actual science, not religion masquerading as science, taught in science classes.

People in the Texas science community believe the TEA wanted her out before the upcoming struggle over revision of science education standards.  Since the Texas school system is statewide and is so huge, its textbook standards affect what publishers put out. And this affects what is purchased by school districts nationwide.

Some scientists have compared the teaching of Intelligent Design with teaching that the earth is flat.  After all, there are people out there who really do believe the earth is flat. According to the editor of the journal of the Federation of American Societies for 
Experimental Biology, Dr. Gerald Weissmann: "The bottom line is that the world is round, humans evolved from an extinct species, and Elvis is dead."

The American Association for the Advancement of Science recently took on the threat of false science and stated, among other things, "Whereas, to date, the ID movement has failed to offer credible scientific evidence to support their claim that ID undermines the 
current scientifically accepted theory of evolution…Therefore be it resolved, that the lack of scientific warrant for so-called  'intelligent design theory' makes it improper to include as a part of science education.

"Understanding evolution is essential to identifying and treating disease," said Harvey Fineberg, president of Institute Of Medicine. "For example, the SARS virus evolved from an ancestor virus that was discovered by DNA sequencing. Learning about SARS' genetic 
similarities and mutations has helped scientists understand how the virus evolved. This kind of knowledge can help us anticipate and contain infections that emerge in the future."  Modern medicine would be impossible without a scientific understanding of evolution.  One wonders if the backers of Intelligent Design/Creationism have stopped 
going to medical doctors.

However, these pseudo-scientists also want to do their misdeeds at the college level.  The Institute for Creation Research in Dallas wants to train future science teachers in Texas as they have done in California, using an online curriculum and granting a master's degree 
in science education.  The ICR has the know-nothing audacity to claim that their approach to education is needed because of "the harmful consequences of evolutionary thinking on families and society (abortion, promiscuity, drug abuse, homosexuality, and many others) are evident all around us even infiltrating our churches and seminaries." 

Just imagine how many of us who accept the validity of evolution must have become homosexuals and started using dangerous drugs!!!  "They teach distorted science," said Eugenie Scott, executive director of the California-based National Center for Science 
Education, which opposes teaching creationism in public schools. "Any student coming out from the ICR with a degree in science would not be competent to teach in Texas public schools."

The U.S. Department of Education claims "America's schools are not producing the science excellence required for global economic leadership and homeland security in the 21st century."  So even to meet the government's misguided goal of controlling the world economy and spying on its own citizens in the name of homeland security, it will fail if, a la Bush, it continues to push non-scientific Intelligent Design.

TEACH THE CONTROVERSY

The campaign to promote the anti-evolutionary agenda is headed by the Discovery Institute in Seattle.  Their strategy is one of deception and outright dishonesty.  They have developed what they call "The Wedge Strategy" which they admit is designed to defeat Darwinism and propagate a notion of science "consonant with Christian and theistic convictions."  They try to get around the First Amendment and Supreme 
Court decisions prohibiting the promotion of religion in public schools.

One of the reasons the creationist movement has morphed itself several times is found in the 1987 Supreme Court ruling that teaching "creation science" in the science classroom is unconstitutional.  Then in 2004 the Dover, Penn. School board ruled that Intelligent Design be discussed in public school science classes.  When parents and others sued, Judge John E. Jones III ruled in 2005 that Intelligent Design is not science, but religion.

The founder of the Discovery Institute, Phillip E. Johnson, has stated to his colleagues that "The objective (of the Wedge strategy) is to convince people that Darwinism is inherently atheistic, thus shifting the debate from creationism vs. evolution to the existence of God vs. the non-existence of God.  From there people are introduced to 'the 
truth' of the Bible and then 'the question of sin' and finally 'introduced to Jesus.'"

Johnson has also stated that "Our strategy has been to change the subject a bit so that we can get the issue of intelligent design, which really means the reality of God, before the academic world and into the schools."

In the furtherance of that approach, those promoting this dishonesty have developed the "Teach the Controversy" tactic.  An article will be written viciously attacking a scientific proponent of evolution and then when the scientist reacts angrily over the fallacies of the 
article, the supporters of Intelligent Design say, "See, there's a controversy here.  And we all agree that a good science education involves studying controversies in the scientific arena.  We aren't about teaching religion; we just want scientific controversies to be 
studied.  That's only fair."

This devious approach of talking about a non-existent controversy among scientists has gotten over on students who quite honestly want to look at both sides of any real controversy.  But as Bill Maher has said about the "Teach the Controversy" ruse, "You don't have to teach both sides of a debate if one side is a load of crap."

THE ROLE OF GEORGE BUSH

George W. Bush, the former Governor of Texas, pushed that "load of crap" as President in August 2005 when he said that schools should discuss Intelligent Design alongside evolution as two different schools of thought.

World Can't Wait believes that people have a right to their own religious views, but we have continually fought the Bush regime's attempts to attack and alter legitimate science, whether it be by rewriting government reports on global warming, teaching "abstinence 
only" which has led to an increase of unwanted pregnancies, or trying to get nonscientific views opposing evolution taught in the public schools.

It is important that we keep our eyes on Texas as the actual controversy develops.  It's a tough battle.  Christine Comer, the fired Texas Education Agency science advisor, says that teachers from all over Texas tell her that they have been forced to teach creationism in their science classes.  When she asks them why they don't do anything, they tell her, "Come on.  What can I do?  It's Texas."

So, informed and progressive people in Texas and elsewhere must not 
only be on guard against the current regime's attempts to destroy good 
science, but must make our voices known in large numbers.  We cannot 
let a generation of children grow up without scientifically 
understanding the world, both the biological world and the socio/ 
political world.  The more we understand the way the world actually 
works and develops, the more armed we will be to change it for the 
betterment of all humanity. 
_________________________

You can keep abreast of this struggle for real science by logging on 
to the Texas Freedom Network. 
http://www.tfn.org/standupforscience/index.php

View full post on The Rational Response Squad

Lately, I’ve been realizing that, despite what I had come to believe, religion is not the biggest danger to society. Poor thinking is. Adherence to mindless dogmatism is. The self-serving desire to fit everybody into a mold, likely similar to your own, is. These traits are unfortunately not limited to theists.

 

Obviously, being a member of the Rational Response Squad puts me in a position to be critiqued and vilified by the people who possess the aforementioned character flaws, and recently I’ve been seeing it almost constantly. It literally pains me to see that so many who have managed to escape religion still cling to so many other similarly irrational ideas and use such blatantly poor logic-particularly if it involves us. Have we done some controversial things? Sure. Are we brash, loud-mouthed, occasionally immature, and possibly arrogant? Sometimes, yes. Have we made mistakes? Of course-show me one person who hasn’t, and I’ll show you a liar. Do we have conversations about sex, have ads all over the place containing visible cleavage (OMGZ!), and in general like to have some "old-fashioned" fun? Most definitely. Do you know why? Because atheists don’t have to be stodgy intellectuals!

 

This might be news to you, so I’ll try to take you through it easily. Atheism means one thing-not having a belief in a god. That’s it. It doesn’t mean that for the rest of my life I can only wear a certain type of clothing, can never swear, can’t be overtly sexual or too attractive, can’t have fun, can’t drink, and can only read/watch/listen that which has been deemed appropriate by the Council for the Protection of the Public-Image of All Atheists Everywhere. That is called religion!

 

It is absolutely bewildering that so many have freed themselves of the shackles of religion only to put on new ones. Forgive my candor, but I’ve seen some atheists lately who appear to have a stick shoved so far up their asses that it is interfering with their neuronal circuitry. Listen guys-you’ll be a lot more comfortable if you just yank it out, plus you’ll have the added benefit of being able to sit comfortably. Eventually, you’ll even be able to maneuver your neck enough so as not to be looking down your nose at everybody else.

 

Seriously, though, this is a problem. The number one reason why atheists have not become a force with which to be reckoned is because we’re all too busy fighting with each other over inane nonsense-instead of uniting and actually accomplishing something. Division in the atheist community is nothing new. Most of the major atheist organizations have at least one thorn in their side, if not more, and if we break it down to individuals, it turns into a bona fide mudslinging competition worthy of a sorority house during rush week.

 

What is it that compels people to act in this manner? Every day, I look around and see people claiming to be intellectually superior to me or others fall prey to simple ad hominem attacks. I see groups that should be banding together to attain the influence that our numbers warrant squabbling over minutiae that have nothing to do with our common goals. We are divided into sects no different from those of religious groups and it is because these supposedly logical atheists are adhering to some unwritten dogma. How can we possibly criticize the religious groups when we are engaging in the same irrational behaviors?

 

Instead of harping continually on the use of the word "fuck", why don’t we examine the truly offensive words like "should" and "ought"?  The expectation that to hold an opinion on a matter, one must have a degree in said area is ludicrous. I don’t recall Pythagoras holding a degree from an accredited institution in geometry. The fact that one does not comply with the mores that are, in essence, mere remnants of religion does not invalidate an argument. No matter what kind of lifestyle one leads, people can be right or wrong; in fact, everybody has been both at some point. How is it that this is not clearly apparent to rational thinkers?

 

All this time spent bickering over what people do in their private lives or what content they have on their websites is time wasted–time that could be better spent by putting aside our differences and accepting the multiplicity of personalities and methods and seeing it as an advantage. If anything, what we should be offering to a populace ensnared by religion is freedom and acceptance. My experience in this community of "freethinkers" has me convinced that freethinker is a moniker undeserved by most who claim it.

 

I can understand that people have personal tastes and proclivities when it comes to with whom they choose to involve themselves, and I think that it’s fantastic that there are groups out there for everybody to find their niche. The problem is that others aren’t nearly as forgiving. Many of you probably recall the HNN podcast from the AAI conference in which Brian and I made the "chicken-shit atheist" comment. We knew we would take heat for it, although it seems that happens no matter what we do, but the point that was, perhaps poorly, intended was that we will support anybody in their struggle to attain equality in a society that continually marginalizes and disparages atheism. Even if you don’t agree with us. Even if your tactics are the inverse of ours. Even if you are a chicken-shit atheist. And we have stuck by that. There is currently only one atheist against whom we have come out publicly and with whom we are not interested in mending fences, and that is because of the sheer duplicity with which this person made their entrance. We publicly boycotted his conference because of it, and from what I’ve heard of it, I’m glad we did.

 

My point here is not that I expect everybody to be close personal friends with everybody else or to even form close alliances with every group out there; I realize that people will be drawn to particular methods or styles. The point is that for every time that somebody accuses us of somehow "harming atheism", whatever that means, that person needs to take a look in the mirror and evaluate his or her own opinions. What is the origin of such a visceral reaction and why are you having it? BE rational-don’t just talk about being rational. And, just FYI, it’s okay to occasionally cut some of us imperfect people some slack for not meeting your criteria. Maybe instead of being rude and hurling insults, the more enlightened among us could actually do something constructive instead of destructive.

View full post on The Rational Response Squad

Version 3.0. This version has been heavily edited and substantial additions have been made. I think it’s worth reading again.

 

Concerning Myth, Sexuality, and Culture

Myth is common to all cultures. In fact, it seems that if there is anything inherently human, it is the formation and propagation of myths. The very fabric of how we view ourselves, our society, and reality itself, is governed largely by myths. Most of us are familiar with many of them. For instance, we all know about black cats and walking under ladders, and we’ve all heard the story of Adam and Eve, and most of us grew up expectantly waiting for Santa Claus and his reindeer to bring us presents on Christmas – a celebration of the birth of a god-figure which was adapted (or stolen, depending on your point of view) from earlier pagan celebrations of the winter solstice.

These are not the only myths, though. There are more subtle beliefs that permeate any society, and most people don’t even know they exist. We take many things as factual based entirely on the degree to which they infiltrate our lives. In the pages that follow, I will attempt to identify many of the myths concerning sexuality, family, and reproduction. My aim is not to convince you that there is necessarily something wrong with your views, but rather to broaden your understanding of what is locally accepted (and acceptable) and what is objectively true in a broader sense.

Sexual mythology is rooted in our sense of self. Indeed, our sexual myths are reflections of our attitudes towards society, and even towards humanity itself, for there can be no separation between sexuality and society. Contrary to the common Western paradigm, in which sexuality is seen as something private and sacrosanct, the very core of culture is dependent on, and entirely derived from, our sense of self. As evolved organisms, we are driven to reproduce, for without sex – without reproduction – society, culture, art, literature, and everything that we hold dear, would not exist.

First, let’s look at some of the myths that have created our own society. In the Talmudic lore, the first woman was not Eve. Lilith was the first wife of Adam. She, unlike Eve, was created with Adam from the dust of the earth. She had been one of the wives of Sammael (or Satan), but because of her wild disposition, she left her husband to join Adam in Eden. This union was also doomed, for Lilith insisted on equality with Adam. After all, both of them had come from the same ground. They fought, and Lilith left Eden to live in the realm of air. Adam prayed to God to return Lilith to him, and so three angels were sent in pursuit. The Lord instructed the angels to tell Lilith that if she did not return to Adam, one hundred of her offspring would die each day. Lilith refused, and vowed vengeance against children for the destruction of her own offspring. In later lore, Lilith is a vengeful spirit who roams at night, seducing men and killing babies.

You’re probably not familiar with that myth, but when you pair it with the current reading of the Christian creation myth, it begins to make more sense. Have you ever wondered why Adam and Eve had two boys, and still managed to populate the earth? Uneducated apologists often postulate that Eve had children with Cain and Abel, or that perhaps there were daughters who weren’t mentioned in the bible. However, when we recognize that the Lilith story was originally attached to the myth, it begins to make more sense. There were quite a large number of people on earth before Adam and Eve were even wed!

As we look at the more familiar creation myth, we see Eve as a second wife. This time, the woman was created from man’s flesh, giving man authority over her. Nevertheless, Eve’s inherently naïve and gullible nature became the downfall of the entire human species.

Many pundits speak of the Christian creation myth as a cause of male domination and repression of women through the centuries, but I suggest to you that this is a narrow way of thinking. Cultural views reinforce myths which in turn reinforce cultural views. In the complex landscape that is human culture, we sometimes forget that culture and myths are mutually dependent. As a society changes, its myths also change, but it is overly simplistic to suggest that there is a strictly causal relationship between the two.

Our concepts of sexuality are not derived solely from Christianity. As many scholars have demonstrated, there was hardly anything new in Christianity. It’s uniqueness was in its virulent reproduction, not in the content of its message or beliefs. Nevertheless, it is illustrative to mention some of the prominent opinions of pre-Christian Judaism and later Christian theologians. Philo, an Alexandrian Jew born in the first century BCE, believed that Eve’s original sin was the result of sexual desire. For the sake of sex, he argued, humankind gave up immortality and bliss. Males were rational, while females represented the senses of the world, or more precisely, the very temptations that had caused man to fall. This view, while not representative of traditional Judaism, had a great impact on Christians in later centuries.

The Christian view of sexuality, and indeed human nature itself, derives largely from three traditions: Persian, Greek, and Jewish. The Persian creation myth, while similar in many ways to the Christian Genesis, differs philosophically in one particular way with regard to human nature. In the beginning, there was good and evil, existing as unique philosophical categories. Humankind was created within this framework, and as such, cannot avoid the eternal struggle which is carried on in the universe around them. Ahura Mazda, the one true god, and ultimate source of all that is good, is in an eternal battle with Angra Mainyu, the Demon of Darkness. As in the Christian myth, this struggle directly influences humanity, but unlike the Jewish/Christian interpretation, humanity itself was not responsible for all the evil in the world.

The image of Adam and Eve covered by fig leaves was popularized by Augustine, who believed that Eve, embarrassed by her genitals, had woven covers for herself and her husband. He also believed that lust was one of the curses bestowed upon humanity after their expulsion from paradise. Within pre-Christian mystery cults in the first century CE, celibacy was being taught as at least a virtue, and at most a necessity. Paul admonished people not to marry if they could avoid it. The very image of Mary as a holy virgin, sexually pure and chaste, is evidence that sexuality was looked upon as something to be avoided. Indeed, the appearance of Christ as the only human born of a sexually pure woman is a reinforcement of this concept of sexuality as a corrupting force.

This sex-negative view is not intrinsic to religion or myth, however. In relatively recent history, there are myths that involve women as independent and powerful creatures. A Vedic myth involves a sage named Agastya who formed a sublime woman from various parts of different creatures. He caused her to be born to a king who was childless. Lopamudra, as the child was called, grew in stature and beauty, and when she was old enough, Agastya took her as a wife. After her first menstruation, he took her into his bed. Before intercourse, Lopamudra spoke in no uncertain terms. She instructed Agastya to give her as much pleasure as he could. She demanded royal bedding, jewels, flowers, and finery.

This story is particularly significant when we consider the place of women in India today. Such a myth does not belong to a male dominated society in which women are little more than property. This is a story of a proud, powerful, and free woman. Though she was wed to her husband, she had a high degree of control within the marital bed, and presumably elsewhere.

Recent history is not without examples of more egalitarian cultures. When the artist Gauguin visited Tahiti, he was astonished at the boldness of the young women of the island. Unlike European women, these seemed not to care at all about saving themselves for marriage. On the contrary, they offered themselves freely, and felt no obligation or sense of attachment afterwards. What Gauguin did not realize is that, like many more primitive societies, the Tahitians viewed a virgin simply as an unwed woman, not as sexually unspoiled. The women were their own until marriage, which included the choice of offering or refusing sexual congress.

In the early 20th century, a European living in the Niger delta reported that the highest god of the residents was a mother with many breasts. They wear medals with depictions of the goddess at public ceremonies and official functions. The particular town, Ibadan, is no longer primitive. They have paved roads, multi-story buildings, and budding external commerce. Still, their religion centers around a goddess.

In a neighboring area, Dahomey (which is now called Benin), the chief god for many years has been an androgynous deity. Specifically, it is two gods in the form of one, male and female together. Even in the Bible, we find references to the Israelites turning away from their male god, to Ishtar, or Ashtoreth. Josiah destroyed a temple to Ishtar that had been in Jerusalem for three centuries. Clearly, the dominance of male deities has not been as historically ubiquitous as the myths would have us believe.

In virtually all creation myths, the god or gods perform some act of reproduction to bring forth the universe. For instance, in the Aranda genesis of Australia, the great ancestor sweated the original people out of his armpits. Though this may not at first seem sexual in nature, we should keep in mind that recent science has proven that sexual pheromones are released through the armpits in sweat. What the ancients may not have known scientifically, they seemed to know intuitively, or empirically. For some societies, vomit, excrement, and sweat have been the bodily fluids used to create the universe. For others, it has been semen. The Egyptian god Neb-er-tcher contained all opposites within himself. These aspects, somewhat similar to the eastern concepts of Yin and Yang, interacted within the god while he masturbated into his clenched hand. After ejaculating, Neb-er-tcher places his semen into his mouth and spits forth creation.

If this myth makes you cringe, or if the idea of sweat becoming humans seems completely foreign, you are beginning to understand just how wide and varied the concept of sexuality can be. We must be careful not to make the mistake of judging these myths as inferior to our own. While it is a natural inclination to hold our own myths as sacred, we must remember that so, too, does every other culture. Our disinclination to discuss masturbation, oral sex, and other sexual acts is a result of our inculcation into our societal myths. It is not an indicator of the objective nature of these acts, or of the relative value of the societies who view them differently.

It has become increasingly clear that many of the most ancient myths have been altered by a shift in gender domination. The highly esteemed mythologist, Joseph Campbell, calls it “The Great Reversal. He places it at approximately 600 BCE. From this point on, we see the earlier notions of humans and human nature as integral parts of a natural system gradually disappear, to be replaced by a negative interpretation, where human nature is a thing to be defeated. As a clear example, the term “virgin” is widely agreed to have changed meaning. In the earliest myths, a virgin was an unwed woman, not a sexually chaste one. The hierodules, sacred prostitutes in the temples of Ishtar, were known as “the holy virgins.” An archaic term for children born out of wedlock was “parthenioi,” literally “virgin-born.”

As we survey the religions of the world, we find many examples of ancient goddesses being overthrown by younger gods. This is indicative of a major shift in the perceptions of the cultures that spawned the myths. Ishtar, Gaia, Ataentsic, Awonawilona, Ilamatecuhtli, Astarte, Cybele, Isis, Anahita, Annis, Rhea, Demeter, Themis, Artemis – all of these are representative of the reverence and respect held by ancient civilizations for the power of goddesses. I do not wish to belabor the point, for it is not my intention to espouse a return to female worship. It is sufficient to show that we are not as we have always been. This is a point that must not be overlooked: Many civilizations have thrived while maintaining vastly different sexual myths than the ones we hold today.

One of the persistent western sexual myths concerns the unity of sexuality and gender. Not only have we created a mythology by which heterosexuality is normal and anything else is deviant, we have also believed that gender is the same thing as sexuality. Even though research has proven that among humans, as well as many other animal species, homosexual individuals are born at an essentially constant rate, regardless of cultural beliefs, we persist in the notion that homosexuality is an “alternate choice.”

There is an ancient Greek myth that illustrates the difference in myths. The earliest mention of it is by Plato, but he attributes it to Aristophanes. In the beginning, people did not look the same as they do today. They were not short or tall, but round. Everyone had two sides – four legs, four arms, two faces, and two sets of genitalia. There were three genders. Some people had male genitalia on both sides. Others had female on both sides. Still others were half female and half male. Sexual practice was much different than it is today, as you might imagine. Unfortunately, we do not have records of exactly what kinds of things these people engaged in, but the Greeks clearly thought very highly of their abilities.

In fact, it was pride that was the downfall of early mankind. The almost limitless potential for sexual experience made people overly proud. Zeus, the mighty and jealous god, was offended by their presumptuous arrogance. As punishment, he split each of them in half. Now, they were clumsy and gangly. They could no longer see behind themselves. Worst, they were no longer sexually complete. They were literally only half of what people were originally intended to be. This caused them to have a great internal aching and longing which had been unknown before. They were possessed of a constant desire to return to the unity they had once known.

Apollo was charged with the task of giving them relief so that the punishment would be bearable. He stretched and wrapped their skin so that their back halves were no longer exposed, and tied a knot in the middle of their abdomens – their navels. He relocated the sexual organs to where they are today. (The original positions permitted much more adventurous sex, but it was simply impossible now, so Apollo made the best of what he had to work with.)

Since then, people have been forced to search the world, looking for the half of themselves from which they were split. Males who were part of a full male search for their male counterpart, as do females who were all female. Those who were part male and part female searched for the opposite gender. It is uncommon to find the other half of ourselves. Sometimes, we find someone who is similar to our missing half, and we are happy for a time, but it is only rarely that we find our true self and are united into something that is close to the perfection that we once knew.

As you can see from this myth, sexuality was not thought of in black and white terms. Gender preference was explained in a much less judgmental way. People were not seen as acting immorally if they practiced “alternate sexuality.” In fact, they were seen as being exactly who they were designed to be!

Greek gender relationships were not perfect, though. One of the primary features of early Greek mythology is the consistency with which we observe older, female centered myths being turned around and reformed into male centered myths. For instance, the legend of the Oracle of Delphi and the ancient shrine were originally part of a goddess hierarchy, where the women were the keepers of mystery and secret knowledge. In the Greek myths, we now see Apollo reigning over the temple. We have seen many of the old goddesses relegated to positions relative to men – wives, daughters, concubines. No longer do we see a universe dominated by the mysterious power of the female creator. We see Zeus, the powerful male, dominating and subjugating the wild and dangerous females.

While the Greeks accepted the joy of sex with women, they were highly distrustful of them in any other sense. Greek morality centered around male concepts. Apollo was the embodiment of virtue and masculinity, while Dionysus, the once proud and powerfully androgynous male god, was transformed into an irrational and dangerously feminine symbol of weakness.

Young men were taught to aspire towards a concept known as areté. There is no equivalent word in English, but it conveyed a sense of perfection of both body and mind. Boxers had areté of the body. Philosophers had areté of the mind. The most revered males had a unity of areté, and consequently, a physical and temperamental realization of the male ideal. Sexuality, virility, physical prowess, and mental acuity were all part of the concept, and the phallus was the outward symbol of it. Apollo, in one myth, transfers the full power of his areté through his semen to the son of Bathycles, illustrating the Greek idealization of the power of manhood and sexuality.

Christian culture was heavily influenced by the legacy of the Greeks. Though they did not retain the same acceptance of sexual conduct, they most certainly retained the concept of feminine weakness and irrationality. As Jungian theorist James Hillman explains, “This structure of consciousness has never known what to do with the dark, material, and passionate part of itself, except to cast it off and call it Eve.” (Highwater, 86) It is incredibly telling that such a well educated scholar chose to regard these aspects of sexuality as “dark.” Even as we become aware of the way myth affects us, we are still dominated by it. We are still under the heavy influence of the shift in perception.

The 2004 Olympic Games, held in Athens, Greece, were broadcast all over the world. Before and after each commercial break, the cameras panned across many of the ancient Greek statues still standing around the city. They are a testament to the fascination with the male form that was dominant, and represented one of the integral aspects of areté. They also prominently feature anatomically correct penises. The United States was uniquely prudish in their observance of the events. The FCC received thousands of complaints from viewers who were certain that they or their children would be traumatized by this exposure to the human form.

There has obviously been a distinct change in the way sexuality and virtue are perceived. To the Greeks, and to substantial parts of the world today, sexuality and nudity are not synonymous. The body is regarded as a pinnacle of beauty, and a thing to be admired. The sex act itself was regarded as part of the human experience, with a wide variety of possible variations. Virtue included physical beauty, and the human body was proudly displayed, both in art and by the people themselves.

The United States has received some parts of the Greek philosophy and completely rejected others. While it is common for us to engage in mildly homoerotic customs such as stag parties, “guys’ night out” and the dichotomy of language (We don’t speak that way in front of ladies!), we have disregarded and demonized the more open expressions of such feelings. We have kept the distrust for females, as well as the concept of femininity as less virtuous than masculinity. We have discarded the notion of sexuality as an expression of completion between any of the three combinations of pairs, and we have kept the mythology of jealous male gods.

For Greeks, androgyny was an ideal from which man had separated. Male and female were imperfect halves of a whole, and longed to be complete and reunited. We see twisted echoes of this in the Christian creation myth. We see now the creation of a singular man. Eve is an afterthought – a solution to the imperfection of manhood. Unlike God, who is perfect in his non-sexuality, Adam needed a counterpart to be happy. Androgyny is superior, as in many of the oldest myths, but now, the joy of androgyny is completely missing. After centuries, the links to the goddess myths have all but disappeared, and man now dominates the mythology of creation. Woman is evil. She is the cause of all mischief and evil, and it could not have been otherwise, for she is by nature willful and defiant of the “natural” male authority under which she has been placed.

Jamake Highwater states the connection between myth and sexuality very succinctly. “The way the body has been envisioned and evaluated by various eras and cultures is a history of the sexual messages transmitted by social myths and the customs based upon such myths. The act of sex flows into the mythic imagination and, consequently, the mythology of a people largely determines its attitudes about sexuality.” Some myths involve self sacrifice. Some involve sexual intercourse. Some are female based, others male, and still others revolve around a couple, or a harem. When we examine the societies which propagate these myths, we discover that sexual “norms,” as well as sexual conventions, and what is considered moral and immoral, are reflections of the myths.

Consider America’s sense of gender identity. A person is male or female, and they are straight, gay, or bisexual. As with many things, we consider sexuality to be a dichotomy. Gays cannot be straight, and bisexuals choose between males and females. This kind of black and white thinking would have been incomprehensible to the Greeks, who viewed sexuality as the desire for pleasure and beauty, inherent in both the male and female forms. As adolescent boys gradually moved from infatuation with other young boys to young women, they were not regarded as “sexually experimental,” nor were they seen as an aberration. They were simply following the course of life as they moved from the joys of childhood to the responsibilities of adulthood – most notably reproduction.

In Mombasa, the concepts of gender and identity are similar to those of the Greeks. Lesbians remain women and dress as women. However, in Oman, the view is exactly opposite. A gay male is viewed as a woman, and effectively becomes one in society, dressing as one, and even affecting the mannerisms. In America, we would refer to them as transsexual, but in Oman, no such concept exists. Sexuality and gender are quite separate.

I have previously alluded to Americans’ propensity for black and white conceptualizations. Largely because of our cultural myths, we believe that there is a “normal” sexuality, and that anything else is abnormal. Heterosexuality is normal. Marital sex is normal. Monogamy is normal. All else is abnormal. The jump from normal and abnormal to right and wrong, or good and evil, is very short indeed, and we will see later that there was hardly ever a need to make the leap, for we have always had our feet firmly straddling the gap.

As a final comparison, I’d like to make a brief mention of the concepts of Yin and Yang. Eastern culture has come to dominate much of American society in recent years, with anime cartoons, video games, interior décor, and international cuisine gravitating strongly towards the east. Even so, it would be hard for us to get Yin and Yang more wrong. Most Americans view Yin and Yang as opposites – black and white, night and day, male and female. While this might be true semantically, it’s quite mistaken philosophically. Each side of the apparent dichotomy is dependent on the other for its very existence. It is not a struggle for dominance, or an arm wrestling match. Rather, it is an almost symbiotic relationship. Night is not only dependent on day, but benefits from it. Likewise, male and female, though different, are two sides of the same coin, relying on the other for completeness. In fact, using the words “male” and “female” is not entirely doing justice to the concept, for it is not the gender identity, or the genitalia, that define the concepts, but the concepts themselves that define the cultural ideas about gender and sexual identity.

It is not my purpose to survey the whole of human sexual experience, only to provide examples that are perhaps shocking enough to shake us loose of the idea that our concepts are objectively correct. Remember that in each of these cultures that I’ve mentioned, people felt as strongly about their sense of sexual self as you do today. They were as entrenched in their own myths as we are in ours. The only way to begin to look at sexuality objectively is to recognize the myths for what they are, and to attempt to judge ourselves and others based only on what we can demonstrate – not on what we instinctively feel to be true. Alas, our instincts are not nearly strong enough to overcome our socialization. To this end, we will now examine some of the historical foundations of our current sexual mythology.

 

The Influence of The Church

I’m going to begin my survey more or less at the same time that the first Christian cults appeared, or around 55 CE. However, we need to make some observations about the state of the Mediterranean world before the coming of Christianity, for the sake of comparison, and also so that we can recognize the remnants of previous mythologies in those we still carry with us.

It is often said that we don’t know much about the personal habits of ancient civilizations. This is actually not true. In addition to fictional letters by rhetoricists, personal journals, and random correspondence, we also have a plethora of official records. What all pre-Christian Mediterranean cultures had in common was an almost fetishist obsession with marital and family records. In addition to the relatively reliable personal accounts, we can learn a great deal from studying official records and extrapolating what kinds of behaviors and practices must have been common. Consequently, much of what we know is derived directly from our knowledge of inheritance.

At the risk of over-generalizing, I’m going to point out a few relevant characteristics of the pre-Christian Orient, and contrast them against pre-Christian Europe. In North Africa and the Mediterranean, most areas were predominately patrilineal. That is to say, inheritance was passed down based on the father’s bloodline. However, there was little of what we would recognize as a “traditional family unit.” Though there were husbands, wives, and children, there was also polygamy, and what we would consider adoption was regarded casually in many places. Children belonged not to individual parents, but to the family, or tribe. Our modern sense of parental ownership and obligation to children would have been quite hard for most early Middle-Easterners to understand. Due to a higher rate of mortality, widowhood was not uncommon. In keeping with the tradition of family lands being passed on exclusively within the male lines, it was quite common for widows to marry the brothers or cousins of their dead husbands. The most common, and most culturally favored marriage was with the father’s brother’s daughter. To give a wife to another family bloodline was considered dishonorable. In short, the primary goal of a familial group was the continuance of tribal or family land within the family. Widows, orphans, and the unmarried were not thought of as outcasts, rather they were entitled to the fruits of the tribal land in the same way as those who were married and had children. Widows and the elderly were often guardians – what we might consider surrogates today.*

Lest you think I am painting a rosy picture of pre-Christian western Asia, it should be noted that the strongly patrilineal tradition meant the strict separation of the sexes and the exclusion of women from the public sphere. We can see the same tradition being carried on today in Iran, Saudi Arabia, and other Middle Eastern theocracies.

In pre-Christian Europe, inheritance was clearly more bilineal, with great importance given to the maternal family and to alliances (arranged marriages). In the Germanic tradition, women clearly played a part in public life, and had limited political authority. Societal honor was tied to the ownership of a title. Whereas Oriental structure was closely linked to familial land and wealth, European structure was derived much more from the concept of rank and honor. Inheritance was still immensely important, but because of the less unilateral approach, there were not the same kinds of strict social rules for in-marriage or against out-marriage. Though we in the Christianized west would feel slightly more comfortable in Europe, we would still not recognize or empathize with many of the concepts of parental obligation or marital bonds.

As we move on to the coming of Christianity, we must recognize two distinct periods. First, Christianity between 55CE and 313CE, when the Edict of Milan was issued. During this time, there are two very important things to remember: Christianity was not a unified religion – it was more properly described as an unrelated group of mystery cults, each having their own savior myth, and each subscribing loosely to a doctrine involving liberation from the Romans. Also, Christianity, regardless of which particular version, was persecuted very harshly by the Romans – hence the desire to be liberated.**

During this first period, we don’t see much in the way of Christian influenced legislation regarding sexual or marital practice. How could we? With no governmental authority, and nothing approaching a unified council of leaders, the individual sects were left to eek out their own existence. Apart from the books that would become the bible, and those that were left out but detailed currently defunct cults’ history or beliefs, there is little recorded material. All indications are that marriage and sexuality were largely unaffected by the budding religion. It is interesting to note that what records we do have seem to indicate a penchant for celibacy, but without any way to enforce such a doctrine, it is unlikely that the sects had much luck changing the behavior of those outside their own order.

After the Roman Empire officially converted to Chrisianity, we see an almost immediate flurry of legislation dealing with marriage, inheritance, and sexual practice. In fact, much of what we know of pre-Christian Europe is largely extrapolated from the writings of church officials after Rome’s conversion. As Bede and many other monks complained to Rome of the obstacles they were encountering in their attempts to convert Pagans, we discover much about the way life was before Christianity. Clearly, the most stubborn resistance was offered in defense of that which the pagans held most sacred.

One of the earliest existing replies to such complaints is reputedly from Pope Gregory. In it, he denounces marriage to kin inside the 4^th degree of separation. Beyond that, marriage to the stepmother and sister-in-law are also condemned. He encourages marriage between church members, and highly discourages divorce. In the Synod of Hertford in 673 CE, these attitudes become law: "That wedlock alone is permissible; incest is forbidden; and no man may leave his lawful wife except, as the gospel provides, for fornication. And if a man puts away his own wife who is joined to him in lawful marriage, he may not take another if he wishes to be a good Christian. He must either remain as he is, or else be reconciled to his wife." In addition to prohibitions on divorce and inmarriage, Gregory also condemns wet-nursing.***

The prohibition on inmarriage is curious. Most modern day apologists seem to be of the opinion that the ban on inmarriage stemmed from the growing realization that close biological mating tended to produce sickly or mentally weak offspring. While it is true that this phenomenon was known, it does not explain the extent of the prohibitions. Later laws prohibited marriage as far as the seventh cousin. For perspective, without consulting a family tree, see how many of your seventh cousins you can name. More than that, though, the prohibitions included both sides of the family. In other words, once you were tied by marriage, your in-laws were also prohibited to the fourth, and later the seventh cousin. Though there is some validity to the biological argument, there is obviously another dynamic at work.

To those of us who were raised as Christians, there should already be a certain cognitive dissonance becoming apparent. In the Old Testament, these practices are mentioned numerous times, and often condoned or even commanded by God. Moses, Abraham, David, Solomon, and many other figures engaged in marital and sexual practices that the Church now condemned. The prohibitions on marriage are original features of the Roman Christian church, and indeed run contrary to the Occidental tradition on which Christianity was ostensibly based.

In addition to prohibitions on wet-nursing, in-marriage and divorce, there was another interesting set of legal precedents which at first seem rather progressive. Rome officially sanctioned, and later enforced consent between both marital parties. While this sounds perfectly normal to us today, we must remember that the concept of marriage for love and happiness that we hold so dear did not exist at this time. The requirement of consent had very little to do with romantic love, and virtually everything to do with confining marriages to church members. Over the centuries, many legal precedents were set defining who could and could not give consent. If non-Christians couldn’t consent to a "mixed marriage," then such marriages would be greatly reduced. It should also be noted that consent was only required in the marriage itself – once a couple was married, affection became completely extraneous, (if indeed it was ever important) as it was impossible to divorce except in very rare circumstances.

Adoption was also banned. Though this may come as quite a surprise, adoption was rarely practiced in Europe during the Middle Ages, and only became relatively common in the 19^th and 20^th centuries. Again, there are many examples in the bible of adoption, including the story of Moses, one of the most central figures in Jewish lore.

Continuing in its break from tradition, the church also strictly outlawed polygamy, both in marriage and in the practice of concubinage. Only one wife was permitted. If you recall your bible school lessons, you will note that there are quite a few figures, including Solomon, reputedly the wisest man in all of Israel, who had numerous wives, and many concubines. This is representative of the culture, for wealth entitled a man to as many wives as he could afford. In this way, a man’s legacy was ensured, and nothing short of total annihilation would prevent his land and wealth from remaining in the family.

In summary, the most notable, and most influential legislative actions taken by the Roman Church in the first few centuries after its rise to power were:

1. Requirement of consent; prohibition of divorce

2. Outlawed concubinage

3. Outlawed polygamy

4. Outlawed wet-nursing

5. Outlawed marriage inside of the 4^th degree of separation

6. Outlawed non-related inmarriage to the same degree

There is one last piece of the puzzle that will bring all of these laws into focus, but I must digress briefly before revealing it. As we look at this list of laws, we must ask ourselves why such drastic changes were made. In order to answer this question correctly, we must remember where Christians had been. For two hundred odd years, they had been persecuted, disenfranchised, and even killed for their beliefs. Before that, the Jews had been captive for many years, and before that, they had been enslaved by the Babylonians and the Egyptians. If we put ourselves in the shoes of the early clergy, it is easy to recognize the fervor with which they exercised their newfound legislative authority. One could hardly blame them for doing everything in their power to make sure that Christians never again would have to suffer the same kinds of indignation. Keep this in the front of your mind as I reveal the last piece of the puzzle – the piece that will explain why the church was so intensely interested in the laity’s marriage and personal habits.

Here it is. The last piece of legislation was this: The church made extensive legal provisions, and then embarked on an intense propaganda campaign encouraging good Christians to leave land to the church in perpetuity. This encouragement took two forms. First, and most important, the Church sanctioned, and later mandated that Christians not leave land to anyone but their blood heirs. If you think about this in context with the other laws, you will see design. Concubinage combined with adoption allows almost certain production of a male heir. With readily available divorce, a man could leave a barren wife to find another. With polygamy and enough wealth, a man could be virtually assured of producing an heir. Taking the high rate of mortality into account, in-marriage provided the same kind of insurance. If a man died before producing an heir, his wife would remain in the family, and the legacy could continue.

Look at this another way. Assuming two births and Medieval mortality rates, an average couple is roughly 20% likely to have two girls, and roughly 20% likely to have no surviving children. With the new Christian emphasis (and later, insistence) on patrilineal descent, this means that many couples would have no heir on which to bestow an inheritance. Combine this with the prohibition on passing land to non-blood heirs, and there’s nobody left. This, of course, is where the church came in. Due primarily to large "donations" and bequests, within four hundred years, the Roman Church owned nearly 40% of all the land in predominately Christian areas of Europe.

As an interesting (and disturbing) side note, this set of legislation was also responsible for the creation of what we know as indigence and poverty in the modern Western world. As family and tribal groups were legally separated by the new laws, family plots grew smaller and smaller. I have not yet mentioned the second way in which the Church encouraged families to donate land to God. Even those families who had heirs were encouraged to donate a tithe, most often ten percent, of their land, in exchange for a special place in heaven when they died. There are many accounts in the contemporary histories of families who left their own children destitute in favor of donating their land to the church. So, the attack on family holdings was two-fold. First, the church systematically created barren families, and then essentially mandated the transfer of their lands into church holdings. Second, the lands of non-barren families were whittled down by tithes and personal bequests as pious church members sought to improve their own standing in the afterlife. The net result was that widows, orphans, and the elderly often found themselves without any family to support themselves.

I find that in discussing the virtue of the church with Christians, an argument is often made that the Church does great good in the world by providing orphanages, monasteries, and charitable organizations for those who cannot fend for themselves. It is sometimes hard for me to contain myself, for I know that it is their ignorance that prevents them from understanding the ironic circumstances which led to the creation of the very problems the church claims to be solving. In no uncertain terms, the church, though not wholly responsible, was to a large degree the cause of the very problems they were solving.

 

Current Mythology

Lest this chapter digress too far from its course, let us now return to the discussion of myths and sexuality. Please forgive my somewhat long and perhaps tedious recounting of events from so long ago, but an understanding of them is crucial to recognizing the fact that many of our concepts of love, sexuality, and marriage are not derived from some “universal man” concept. Indeed, the universal man – one set of “normal” ideals for manhood, and one for womanhood, was a 17^th century invention.

We must now make a jump forward in time and examine our current conceptions of love, sex, and family. There is a common misconception among many, even those who clearly understand the origins of our cultural sexual identity. It is based in our love for dichotomy, or rather, for clear-cut, right and wrong, good and evil answers. There are many who believe that despite the somewhat spurious origins of our myths, they are still inherently superior. After all, they will opine, it’s patently obvious that families are better off with a man, a woman, and children. This arrangement encourages close familial bonds, and is the foundation of everything American! It allows freedom of the individual. We are no longer tied to our tribes or extended families. We can marry whomever we wish, regardless of social status, finances, or family obligation.

Alas, it simply isn’t so. Stephanie Coontz, the preeminent social scientist, has written an intensely researched and meticulously documented account of America’s obsession with the nostalgia of yesteryear and the myth of the American family. (The Way We Never Were, 1992, Basic Books) For anyone wishing to rid themselves of the baggage of American Christian ideology, it is an indispensable tool. I cannot hope to do justice to the work in such a short space, but I will point out the most applicable misconceptions, and hopefully, we can start to see a pattern emerge – one that will stretch back to the original land grab, and the drastic break from previous tradition.

The first thing that we must do is identify what I have called the Nostalgia Trap. There are several beliefs inherent in this. The first, and most pervasive, is the idea that America has at some point in history been made up of mostly “traditional families.” By traditional family, I mean a rather Rockwellian image of mother, father, son and daughter sitting around the Christmas tree with Grandma and Grandpa and even some aunts, uncles, and cousins. In this family, the father worked, the mother tended the house and the children, and the elders were available for counsel and help with babysitting. Each member of the family was an individual, but held firmly to their family bonds, forging their way forward, working during the day, and then leaving the cold, hard world for the warmth and security of their family at night.

As an extension of this image of the perfect family, we have quite a few cultural attitudes that can rightly be called myths themselves. For instance, men who have reached successful business age are often looked at as overly immature for not having married. Single mothers are viewed as a plague to be eradicated by the renewal of “old fashioned family values.” Women who put off marriage, or “play the field” are considered sexually immoral. Women who decided not to have children were until very recently considered by the mainstream medical profession to suffer from a form of insanity.

In examining the roles of husbands and wives in American history, we must remember that through the majority of colonial history, women and children had virtually no rights, and were treated (if not legally designated) as property of their husband. The patriarchal traditions from two thousand years before were still strong. Even so, the family was far from stable. The average length of marriage was less than a dozen years, due mainly to high mortality rates. One third to one half of all children lost at least one parent. Particularly in the south, orphans were common. Over one half of all southern children under the age of thirteen had lost at least one parent.

Contrary to popular belief, colonial America was remarkably open about sexuality, even in front of children. “Fornication” was a common four syllable word in grammar classes, and preachers went on in surprisingly frank detail about various sexual indiscretions and the consequences of engaging in them. In households where large families lived in very small houses, breast-feeding was hardly noticed, and it would be foolish to presume that children were unaware of their parents’ sexual activity. The current American obsession with protecting children from any exposure to sexuality would, ironically, seem rather puritanical to the Puritans.

The common image of a man working the fields while his wife tended the children and the chores is also not founded in reality. Single family income was reserved for the middle class and up, as poor families often had to put even their very young children to work in household businesses, or worse, in service to more wealthy families. This practice was not too unlike child slavery, but it was the only option available to most poor families. In the mid 1800s, entire families worked in factories, usually eighteen hours a day. When you consider that food preparation and household cleaning were still highly labor intensive, it’s easy to see that most families hardly had time to wish each other goodnight before going to sleep.

We must also remember that divorce was not the only option for leaving a spouse or family. Before the social security system made it easy to identify people, the most common form of divorce was abandonment. When a man found that he could no longer support his family, he simply left to find work in another city, perhaps under a different name, although that was hardly necessary if the distance was great enough. Looking at divorce statistics is hardly helpful when we consider that the real solidarity of the family depended very little on such legal distinctions.

In reading the journals and letters from this period, it becomes obvious that colonial Americans, like their modern day descendants, lamented the days when parents raised their children to be good citizens, and when families held together like they used to. Sermons are rife with references to the untamed youth running wild in the streets and causing mayhem. Wealthy citizens complained of the profusion of the poor and lawless masses, untempered by moral instruction or restraint.

At the turn of the century, things were no better. Child labor was rampant as industrialization took over. In major cities in 1904, children made up 23 percent of the textile workers. Even children as young as five or six were regularly put to work for fourteen to sixteen hours a day, sometimes more. By the 1920s, reports of the breakdown of the “traditional family” were rampant, and the primary source of blame was Irish immigrants. During the depression, even those who had been sheltered from the normal “work week” were forced to enlist their whole families in the effort to keep food on the table. The two World Wars disrupted families even further, leaving many widows and many more orphans. In short, from colonial times to the Second World War, there simply was not a time when even a significant portion of American society was characterized by the “traditional nuclear family.”

 

The 1950s

From political pundits to parents to grandparents to Hollywood, everyone seems to be in agreement that the fifties were a swell time to be an American. Proponents of the Traditional Nuclear Family myth are particularly enamored of the decade, and at first glance, it appears that there’s very good reason for this. For the first time in the 20^th Century, divorce and illegitimate births dropped sharply. For comparison, both were less than half that of the 1990s. Gang violence, drugs, and teenage rebellion were not yet considered to be social problems. School discipline was strict, and students were getting good educations, going to college, getting married, and starting families. From 1945 to 1960, the Gross National Product rose 250%. There were record numbers of housing starts. In 1954, the words “Under God” were added to the Pledge of Allegiance. For the first time in the collective memory, upward mobility was a real possibility for almost everybody. On all counts, the 50’s seemed to be a utopia of family values and morals.

Unfortunately, all of these statistics are grossly misleading. Though they are all essentially true, they mask a much less pristine reality. The fifties were a time of great social upheaval, widespread discontent, and the beginnings of heavy handed government intrusion into private lives. The prominence of the nuclear family was not so much due to the collective desire of individuals to form such bonds, but on the social, political, and legislative lack of other viable options.

Much like the nostalgic memories of colonial American life, our memories of the 50s are colored by our collective amnesia. During the 50s, twenty five percent of Americans – between 40 and 50 million people – were living below the poverty line. There were no food stamps, and very few options for low cost housing. Compared with the poverty in later decades, the fifties were intensely difficult for those below the line. Sixty percent of the elderly were poor. A staggering number of blacks and hispanics lived in squalor. Like every generation before, the poor had to work very long hours at the most undesirable jobs, and there was virtually no such thing as a nuclear minority family.

Things were not all rosy for the middle class whites, either. After World War II, a great many women lost the jobs they had entered while all the men were away. If they were not outright fired, they were forced into menial jobs with terrible pay. The reality for women was that they could either get married or starve. While television celebrated core families like the Cleavers, and Ozzie and Harriett, the real middle class women were being herded into marriage, motherhood, and domestic duty, whether they wanted it or not. Popular medical wisdom said that any woman who did not desire motherhood and family domesticity was neurotic, unstable, or worse, morally loose. There was a very common cure espoused by the medical community: Shock treatment. (If it sounds to you like women were tortured if they failed to conform to social expectations, you’re not alone in that assessment.)

The general consensus among psychologists of the day was that women were essentially untrustworthy, and capable of little more than housework. While previous generations of middle class women were at least able to hire out their housework to lower class servants, the 50s generation was ridiculed, shunned, and often medicated if they didn’t love to stay home and do the housework themselves. Consequently, even with the availability of modern appliances, the amount of housework for the average wife increased drastically.

Not surprisingly, women were not always as happy as the media portrayed them. Though there were shockingly few divorces in the fifties, approximately 1/3 of the marriages begun in that decade were dissolved by the seventies. In what is considered the definitive social survey of the decade, less than 33% of women indicated that they were either “happily married” or “very happily married.” Over 20% indicated that they were “unhappily married.”

Sexual battery, though largely unreported, appears to have been rampant. The medical community generally regarded sexual assault within the marriage as a female problem. If only the woman would be more sexually responsive, they said, things like that wouldn’t happen. The problem of “female frigidity” was discussed much more than female repression or unhappiness. (It’s worth noting that the cure for sexual frigidity, i.e. males sexually abusing their wives, was also shock treatment.) Similarly, battered children were quite common, and though it’s difficult to get exact percentages, the evidence clearly shows that incest and sexual abuse of minors was at the least not uncommon.

Predictably, drug and alcohol abuse by women skyrocketed. Although much of it was hidden (specifically, in a flask underneath the unmentionables), there is clear evidence that alcohol abuse was at record highs. Also, a little known fact about the pharmaceutical industry is that tranquilizers were developed and marketed specifically as a solution to “the female problems.” Millions upon millions of prescriptions were filled for women unable to cope with the happiness gained from their traditional family.

By 1960, the problem was clear. Redbook magazine ran an ad soliciting stories explaining “Why Young Mothers Feel Trapped.” The editors received over twenty four thousand entries. Even in 1949, Life Magazine had reported that young wives “suddenly and for no plain reason [have been] seized with an eerie restlessness.” Obviously, there was a lot more going on in this decade, and the emergence of the core family did not solve any problems, at least not without creating significantly more problems.

Although things were significantly better for men, they were not great. The same pressure that women were put under, to marry and reproduce, were felt by men as well. There are volumes of anecdotes about men who were passed over for promotions because they were not married. Bachelors in the fifties were regarded as reckless, deviant, and morally depraved. Men were expected to get married, buy a house, and start a family as soon as they finished school. If they didn’t, there were sometimes very severe social repercussions.

Perhaps worse than the social consequences of bachelorhood were the potential political repercussions. Most of us are familiar with the Red Scare and McCarthyism, but what is not as well known was that sexual deviance was also considered potentially seditious. Gay bashing was almost as common as Commie bashing, though it was not flaunted publicly. Particularly in larger cities, an unmarried man was open to suspicion of sexual sedition. Whether the speculation was that he was gay, or that he was simply too undisciplined and deviant to have a respectable family life, the consequences were very real. Thousands of men lost their jobs and families due to the intrusive Big Brother tactics of overzealous communist hunters.

Lastly, one of the most commonly flaunted statistics from the 50s is the dramatic drop in teen pregnancy and illegitimate births. Again, however, these statistics, while technically accurate, are not reflective of reality. The most obvious reason is that with the emphasis on early marriage, women were simply getting married earlier, and thus reducing the number of unwed mothers. With more careful scrutiny, it becomes obvious that more teenage girls were having babies in the fifties, but because they were married, the statistics for teen pregnancy went down. Married women, after all, were not teens anymore, regardless of their age.

Another major contributor to this deceptive statistic is the way illegitimate births were reported. Due to an archaic quirk in the census data, no matter what age a girl conceived, if she was living with her parents, it was not reported as a single mother. In addition, babies that were born in wedlock were not counted, regardless of when they had been conceived. There was intense social pressure to marry if a girl was found to be pregnant. Specifically, the number of pregnant brides doubled!

Yet another factor must be considered. The sexual rules for women were changing drastically. Whereas in previous generations, men had been responsible for respecting the purity of women, teenage girls in the fifties found themselves on the other end of the stick, so to speak. Men were seen as actively pursuing women, and it was entirely up to the woman to protect her own virtue. In the interest of finding the right man, girls were constantly encouraged by their peers to engage in heavy petting, but they were considered loose if they allowed any penetration. (The question of how many teen pregnancies were the result of heavy petting gone too far – with or without the girl’s consent – is another matter, but you can probably make an educated guess.)

The cold, hard facts belie the apparent bliss of the fifties. The “traditional core family” has never existed on its own, and for the one decade that it was forced, and enforced, the results were not nearly as wonderful as they were popularly portrayed. The Cleavers are a product of wishful thinking. The fifties were a failed experiment in social engineering. They were a last ditch effort by those who believed they could enforce happiness through conformation.

 

Modern Myths

One of the myths that permeates human society in almost all cultures is the belief that humans are special or different in kind from other animals. We believe that our intelligence (or worse, our “soul&rdquo makes us separate from – and higher than – the animals. In fact, the very language we use betrays our belief that we are better than them. We say that someone is acting like an animal, and we don’t mean it in a good way. We urge our fellow humans to give up the base animal instincts and pursue something higher. In so many religions, we hear admonitions against giving in to our “base instincts.” By this, most religions mean lust, sex, and desire.

In reality, if we are to have a chance of truly understanding ourselves, we must dispense with this belief. From early childhood, we are told that we are special. We are told that god, or the universe, or karma has some “special plan” for us. When we become adults, we build immense monuments and fight wars and bulldoze forests in the name of human supremacy. Despite all this, we are not different from animals. We are animals.

Unfortunately, this is where a lot of non-critical thinkers stop. Often, they are stopped by their own conscience, but if they are not, it’s almost certain that a friend or immediate family member will do their best to talk them out of such nonsense. After all, they will argue, it’s obvious that humans are different than animals. Why, we build hospitals and make music and art! We love, and are loved in return. We tell our grandchildren about how our grandfathers fought in the War to End All Wars, and how they knew that there was something bigger than themselves, so they did what they had to do.

This response, and the seemingly inevitable defeat of anyone who tries to argue against it, is clear evidence of just how strongly our myths can take hold, and how much of an impediment to critical thinking they can be. Once we examine what it is to be an animal, and how animals differ from each other, we will see that it’s not only possible to be an animal and experience love, honor, duty, and beauty, it’s actually impossible to think of it any other way. We must be animals if we are to experience the intricate and noble culture we have created.

Before I continue, I must caution against all-or-nothing thinking. Though we are animals, and are not different in kind from other animals, it does not follow that we are not different in degree. Only a fool would argue such a thing, though it is amazing how many theists and bad critical thinkers will argue vehemently against this position, as if defeating such a pitiful argument makes them right. This, by the way, is called a strawman argument. Whenever someone portrays their opponent as making a ridiculous argument, only to argue against it (even though the opponent never actually made the argument in the first place), we say that they have created a strawman.

One of the most essential differences between humans and other animals is our brains. We are among only a handful of creatures on earth who are capable of language, and our capacity for abstract thought is unrivaled. Nevertheless, this difference is a difference of degree. Our ape-like ancestor was smart enough to use tools, and may have possessed some rudimentary language skills, as do modern day chimps and apes. Dolphins and whales communicate through clicks and songs, respectively. Our intellect and capacity for language have allowed us to make incredible leaps in the last hundred millenia, much greater leaps than any other creatures, but we are not the only intelligent creatures on earth.

Another difference between humans and other mammals is female sexuality. Unlike most animals, human females do not experience estrous. In most animals, female sexual response is governed by the four phases of estrous. During Proestrus, one or more follicles in the ovary begin to grow. This can last for one day, or as long as three weeks or more. The lining of the uterus starts to develop. (Incidentally, there is sometimes vaginal discharge that is mistaken for menstruation.) During proestrus, females are not sexually receptive.

Estrus, often called, “in heat,” is when the female becomes sexually receptive, and is often accompanied by outward physical changes and involuntary or reflexive sexual behaviors, most notably the lordosis behavior, in which the hindquarters are elevated and the spine undergoes ventral arching.¹ In some animals, there is an intermediate phase, known as inerestrus, after which estrus resumes again if copulation has not occurred.

During Metestrus, the signs of estrogen stimulation subside, and the uterine lining begins to break down. Finally, during Diestrus, the lining of the uterus is absorbed into the body and reorganized for the next estrus phase. After the entire estrous cycle is complete, there is usually a period of inactivity known as Anestrus. There is no sexual receptivity in females during this period. The duration varies greatly, but is usually based on seasons. Some animals go into heat several times a year, while others only get one or two chances.

Contrast this with humans, who undergo menstrual cycles. Instead of reabsorbing the uterine lining, humans experience eumenorrhea, which is the regular discharge of the uterine lining, sometimes with the endometrium lining. You know this as the menstrual cycle. There is not a clear answer to the question of why humans evolved differently than almost every other mammal. It has been suggested that the energy cost of absorbing and then reforming the uterine lining is more than that of simply creating a new one. Also, it is possible that the discharge of the uterine lining also cleanses the body of sperm-borne pathogens. Finally, it has been theorized that menstrual synchrony, or the tendency of cohabiting females’ periods to align, was beneficial to societies in which the hunters went out on long expeditions, leaving the women alone and sexually unresponsive, only to have the best chance of receptivity and ovulation when the entire group returned.

Human females have varying degrees of sexual receptivity during all stages of menstrual cycle. Though many women are most receptive to sexual intercourse while they are most fertile, some level of sexual interest is maintained for virtually the entire cycle. However this evolved, it was clearly one of the catalysts for the development of human culture as we know it. Human sexuality is not simply reproductive. In fact, considering the fact that women are fertile only a few days a month, but can have sexual intercourse multiple times per day virtually every day of the year (Yes. I know. Make your own joke here.), it would be incredibly surprising if non-reproductive sex wasn’t a big part of our culture.

As we developed language and began to form complex relationships, we naturally began to make long term predictions which were impossible for other, less intelligent animals. Men recognized that repeated sexual advance was more successful with females who had already consented once. They learned the value of impressing women. Women learned that men had learned the value of impressing them. The snowball was rolling downhill. More intelligent men found clever ways to impress women. The women liked it, and the resulting children tended to be more intelligent. Men and women recognized the fact that sexual intercourse felt good. Those whose brains released more endorphins found that it was beneficial to return to the same mate often. Other people noticed. Jealousy was born. The snowball was getting huge. Culture was inevitable.

In any case, this is one very important way in which humans are quite different from other animals. Whether we learn the exact evolutionary path we took to get here, we must look at this difference critically if we are to understand our own sexuality. In fact, it is this very thing – our ability and desire to have sexual intercourse outside of procreation – which makes us different from animals. Contrary to the common conception, our sex drive is not similar to those of the lower animals. It is substantially different, and might just be the catalyst for our entire culture! When we describe sexuality as a base, animalistic drive, we don’t recognize the irony, for we misunderstand the simple truth: Our sexuality is what makes us human!

If you will forgive me a bit of wild speculation, it is not difficult to imagine an early religion forming around the mystery of the female. They regularly bled, and always with the tides and the moon. They did not suffer as men when they bled. Before man had discovered the link between sexual intercourse and babies, it must have been even more miraculous! Women had the power to make life, and they pulled from their bodies both men and women. It would not have been lost on them that all these abilities seemed to coincide with the passing of the moon and the movement of the water. Any wonder that they made idols of women, and that many of the most ancient relics of long forgotten civilizations indicate female worship?

By now, you should be seeing a disturbing trend with regard to the idea of Western sexual and familial values. At each turn, the social norms were not the result of a “natural state” of human sexuality. Rather, they were the product of an intricate web of social, political, and religious circumstances that seldom had very much to do with creating human happiness in marriage. In fact, it would not be difficult to argue for the opposite: The institutions and conventions surrounding human sexuality have been designed to work towards political and socio-economic ends, regardless of the consequences for individuals or families, and without regard for personal happiness.

I have tried to focus on the periods in Western History that have been, in my opinion, most relevant to the topic. Rest assured that for any period, from the Middle Ages to Victorian to Post-modern, there are always pointed examples of social engineering of sexual and family arrangements. This chapter is not intended to be comprehensive. It is only meant to demonstrate that our beliefs about human sexuality are not based on some overarching concept of right and wrong. Rather, they are based on the myths that we live by, and the history that created the myths, whether purposefully or through blind chance. We will now examine some of the notions we still hold today, and examine them in the harsh light of evidence.

One particularly odd notion we hold in the west is that of independence as a virtue. Americans regard dependency as a weakness. We are encouraged to owe nothing to anyone, to settle our debts, and to always get what we pay for. When we watch movies about the Old West, the heroes are inevitably loners. They are men who are rugged, hardened, and emotionally unattached. They survive on their own in the wilderness, only occasionally dropping their guard long enough to have a passing romance with a ravishing young woman.

In most cultures, this kind of attitude is considered immature, and even antisocial. Most social bonds involve mutual inequality – a kind of permanent state of indebtedness to all those on whom one depends for his or her life and livelihood. In fact, if you think back through history, you will find that America is rather singular in its insistence upon self reliance. What, exactly, do we expect of ourselves? Is it realistic? For that matter, is it even possible?

For one thing, we must disabuse ourselves of one prevalent notion about independence. Throughout all but the last several decades of American history, when we have spoken of self reliance, we were speaking exclusively of men. Women have always been relied upon by men, because the meals have always needed cooking, and the clothes washing, and the socks darning. Our particular brand of independence, then, relied on a separation of societal and marital expectations. When men went out into the workplace, they were the masters of their own destinies. While they were out winning the bread, the women were at home tending to the chores.

It is very telling that modern pundits, especially those on the right, continually call for a return to family values. What, exactly, are they calling for? Men have always worked. The amount of time men have spent with their children has remained remarkably stable, and remarkably small, throughout American history. Indeed, men have seldom been with their wives for their entire lives. As I mentioned earlier, though divorce rates may have been very low in the past, abandonment was not, and death during childbirth was not at all uncommon. Single parent families have always existed, and at relatively stable rates throughout the generations. The reality of the situation is disturbing, but it’s all too clear. The only thing that has changed significantly in the past century has been the level of personal and political rights enjoyed by women. Let us ask again, then: What exactly is this “return to family values” that the right desires so strongly?

The truth about independence is that it’s virtually impossible. However, the notion has been kept alive by the subtle manipulation of gender roles. Individualism was not possible until the coming of industrialization, but as any cursory reading of that period will reveal, industrialization practically enslaved those who could not afford to live above it. As always, independence was reserved for the very rich.

There is a more insidious result of the drive for individualism, particularly with regard to love and gender roles. Marriage presented unique problems for those who advocated strict independence, for if every man is an island, what is there for marriage but reproduction? The obvious answer is that love and business are separate ideals. What men lack in emotional and nurturing instincts, women have in abundance. Women and men were seen as fulfilling the needs of the other in the perfect union – the core family. The problems with this were immediate, however. Since men were socialized into the belief that they are expected to be unemotional, business savvy, and independent, and women were raised to be nurturing, docile, and dependent on their husbands for their livelihood, the result was that men and women soon had very little in common. While the interdependency of marriage (while remaining strictly individual, of course) looks good on paper, in the real world, our modern concept of love is dependent on shared interests.

As romance and love became separated from business, a new cultural myth evolved. Love was a sanctuary away from the impartial, detached world of business. Only in the home could a man experience the joy of a gift that required no repayment. Only in marriage could a woman receive all she needed to live, and owe nothing in return. Marriage was sacrosanct. It was a harbor in the cruel world of business and politics and economics. Of course, the flaw in this rationale seems obvious to us today. Marriage is not the free exchange of gifts. A woman is not free to deny her husband the satisfaction of the marital bed, nor is the husband free to abandon work, leaving his wife without support. In a thousand ways, marriage is a constant give and take, and either spouse will feel resentful and slighted if they do not receive the “gifts” to which they are entitled.

Again, I feel compelled to remind the reader that all of these facts must be understood within the context of myth. There are many cultural norms for familial and marital obligations, and all of them come with their own baggage. In Japan, it has not been uncommon, even in the recent past, for a woman to pack her husband’s travel bags, knowing full well that during the upcoming business trip, he will avail himself of the services at the local brothel. While this is unconscionable in America, it is important to remember that culture creates the myths, and people’s beliefs in the myths form the foundations for what is proper. While it is easy to sit in our armchairs and judge deviant behaviors to be morally reprehensible, we must remember that things we hold dear are considered equally repulsive by other cultures, many of them quite a bit older and more historically stable than our own.

In the West, we have created a cycle in which the myth of the core family competes against the myth of the self reliant individual. As we saw earlier, the Church itself created the cult of the individual, albeit inadvertently, by legislatively ending the precapitalist extended family/tribal model. If we look at history with that in mind, we can see that in fact, widespread calls for return to family values have usually been symptoms of socioeconomic fragmentation, rather than a cure for it. During the fifties, the enemies of family values were perceived to be sexual liberation, delayed marriage, unwed pregnancy, and lack of proper subjugation of women to men. Ironically, industrialization was more to blame for the social ills than any nebulous lack of morality. With the ready availability of consumer goods at low prices, the birth of the mass media, and the discovery of targeted advertisement of luxury goods and services, individuals were pushed out of their homes by the lowering of individual wages combined with the increased pressure to become upwardly mobile. The supposed moral shortcomings of citizens were simply reactions to the new societal conditions. As women became less dependent on men because of their ability to enter the workforce, their need to get married decreased, and their ability to delay marriage, waiting for the best possible option, increased. The availability of easy transit made it possible for couples to be alone more easily. In every case, the new morality was not the result of a change in values. It was a reaction to the availability and desirability of previously unknown options.

How, then, should we view ourselves? How shall we judge our own sexual morality? If there is not a single role to be played by either men or women, what measure do we have left? Surely society cannot be asked to tolerate any sexual or familial arrangement that one deems appropriate, can it? These questions are complex, and do not have easy answers. Like all societal questions, careful study of the facts leads us to the clear conclusion that there are not completely right, or completely wrong answers. My hope is that in reading this chapter, the reader will have a broader understanding of how societal roles and moral values are created and shaped by cultural forces, not the other way around. Whenever you hear a pundit talking about how individual morals shape the culture, you must fight the urge to unthinkingly agree. As in all areas of morality, individuals react to their society. If revolution occurs, it is because the factors necessary for revolution were present. If moral standards change, it is not because people changed, but because circumstances changed.

The most prevalent myth shared by most Americans is that individuals create societies, and that some constant sense of internal morality is responsible for both the decay and the advancement of civilization. The reverse is true, however. Sexuality, like all other human interactions, is judged not by an arbitrary standard, but by practical standards. This is not a sign of weakness in humans. On the contrary, it is one of our most beautiful adaptive traits. Unlike many animals, who can only mate once or twice a year, and only in certain spawning grounds, human mating rituals are incredibly adaptable. We must learn to separate the myths from the realities if we are to make personal decisions with the best possible chance of attaining our personal goals. For that matter, our best chance of discovering what, exactly, our personal goals happen to be depends on our ability and willingness to look at our deepest beliefs while recognizing the power, but not the ultimate rightness, of our own cultural myths.

 

*It’s important to remember that this paragraph is a broad generalization, and certainly doesn’t speak to the wide variety of practice. It does, however, give the reader a respectable understanding of the predominant trends.

**To be perfectly clear, calling the entire group of mystery cults Christianity is somewhat disingenuous, as there was not such a sense of unity in the minds of the adherents. Indeed, some of the doctrines were quite incompatible.

***The prohibition on wet nursing is not as directly relevant to the topic at hand, but I have included it for both completeness, and to provide a sense of how thoroughly the church disrupted common practice.

 

Sources:

A Short History of Marriage, Westermarck, The Macmillan Company, 1930

The Rise of Christianity, Stark, Harper Collins, 1997

United States History from 1865, 20th Edition, Krout, HarperResource, 1991

Since Yesterday, The 1930s in America, Allen, Harper and Row, 1940

Myth and Sexuality, Highwater, Meridian, 1990

The Way We Never Were, Coontz, 2000

Wayward Puritans, Erikson, Macmillan, 1966

Occidental Mythology: The Masks of God, Campbell, Penguin, 1964

 

1Males of some species experience lordosis, especially when they are receptive to homosexual advances.
 

 

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Wow. A whole barrage of nonsense came at us in the past two weeks or so. First off…a man cuts off his own hand after seeing the Mark of the Beast on it. With a circular saw. And then microwaves it. And then calls the authorities. A quote from one of the sherriff's deputies states, "That kind of mental illness is just sad." I couldn't agree more.

Now, I know what you guys are going to say–"It's not BECAUSE of religion." Actually, I don't think that a case could be made either way. Was he likely vulnerable to delusional behavior? Yeah, I'll concede that one. The fact that religion is unique in its ability to seep into the crevices of your mind so pervasively that this theme plays out in our society over and over again isn't addressed by that statement, though. How do the appeasers and framers answer that? Maybe it only manifests itself in those already prone to mental illness, but isn't that akin to excusing and perpetuating a belief system that preys on the weak? What exactly is it that causes atheists to feel this compulsion to cover for a malevolent, archaic belief that has caused mothers to kill their children, countless cases of child abuse, seemingly endless wars and violence, and self-mutilation and flagellation that can be traced back to the very foundation of the religion?

One doesn't need to delve too deeply to uncover the singular thread that has persisted throughout religious history–violence. Violence against others and oneself. Internally or externally expressed; it's there from day one. Ignatius of Loyola makes an interesting case study demonstrating the way in which religion exploits this predisposition to self-loathing and delusional disorders. The esteemed founder of the Jesuit's autobiography details graphically the man's obsession with self-harm, his hallucinations, and his severe depression which would at times lead him to drastic measures such as digging a hole in his room at college deep enough that he hoped to end his life by jumping into it. All that to escape the demons that he felt were tempting him with indecent, ungodly thoughts. Sometimes that would lead to an insatiable desire to harm himself in order to purge this evil from his body, simultaneously punishing himself for not having the strength to resist thoughts that were likely normal human doubts and concerns. His life as a beggar on the streets, living only off of the good-will (and pity) of others, as well as an extremely hazardous trek from his home in Italy to Jerusalem soon after his conversion on which he embarked with nothing more than the clothes on his back all coalesce to form an image of a man haunted by the great spectre in the sky and his impending wrath.

Augustine also suffered from some degree of guilt after his drastic conversion; either from his previously debacherous lifestyle, the fact that his father was never "saved", or the fact that he stole fruit from a tree as a young teen, the almighty, supposedly omnibenevolent, god has stricken people with fear, guilt, shame, and remorse severe enough to permanently alter their lives–and often those of the innocent people around them.

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Next up in "Nutter News from the RRS", we have the pope (yeah – Ratzi again) urging people to pray for clergy members who sexually abuse children. I assume he doesn't think that removing them from their posts is the most pragmatic solution and would rather leave it in the hands of god–or in other words, do nothing. He's actually ordered every parish and diocese to set up prayer teams for round-the-clock vigils to help support the pedophiles in their midst. The most disturbing quote, one that I'm hoping was merely a nuance of translation, was, "The pope asked Roman Catholics to pray for the 'mercy of God for the victims of the grave situations caused by the moral and sexual conduct' of clergy members in daily prayers of penance and purification, The Times of London said Monday." Hold on…could you run that by me one more time? He wants them to pray that god has mercy…on the victims?! I don't think we're in Kansas anymore, Toto–we've been transported straight to bizarro world.

Let me give the church some advice since I still possess the faculty of reason: Stop covering up for these people!! Either they are mentally ill or just sociopathic and have no business in a congregation, school, or possibly even in public. The church's willingness to cover for them (note the use of the words "sexual conduct" instead of "misconduct" from the pope) obviously persists to this day and likely will never stop. Any person who willingly leaves their child in the care of these men of god is as delinquent and delusional as the pope apparently is. (On a side note, I find it especially ironic that the first empire in search of global domination was in fact the catholic church, and now Ratzinger issues an encyclical highlighting the dangers of globalization. Flip-flop much? When are you going to outlaw mass in the vernacular and start burning bibles in any language other than Latin? We all know how much more powerful the church was when nobody could understand that nonsense.)

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The third, and final, course of irrationality that I'm going to serve will be the petition floating around the interwebs demanding the removal of drawings depicting Mohammed from Wikipedia. The text states that, "In Islam pictures or Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and other holly figures are not allowed, but on wikipedia they has published some pictures that are showing not only a body with white face but an image that has a complete face.. that is even not allowed by SHITAT fact of Islam.
i request all my brothers and sisters to sign this petition so we can tell wikipedia to remove them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad specially this image http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Maome.jpg ."

First of all, work on your spelling. It's hard enough to read this without having to cringe internally with every other word just from the grammatical errors. Secondly, Wikipedia is not run by Muslims, and therefore has no obligation to adhere to your silly laws. The rest of us are free to depict him however we choose. Just for good measure, I've included some pictures of Mohammed. Feel free to start a petition to have my blog removed from the internet, barbarians.

 

 

Anybody who would like to donate to help us increase security due to the likelihood of psychopathic idiots coming to chop off our heads with rusty machetes may do so here. If they can get 34,000 signatures on their petition, we should be able to get a grand for some guard dogs, right?

 

 

 

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