Random bits of ugh

[omorka]

Arrrrgh

Arrrgh again

No, seriously, Arrrrgh

"If there are other isolated, depressed women out there secretly asking themselves that particular question, let us be loud and clear about the answer: God does not order mothers to murder their children."

No, He appears to reserve that particular honor solely for fathers. Women aren't important enough to need their faith tested like that, ne?

Given how many times the pagan religions have been accused of child sacrifice and the like, it seems to be terribly easy to ignore that not only did the father-figure to all three major monotheistic religions have to lay his son on the altar at his god's command, but in the largest one of them, that same god in turn sacrifices his own son for reasons that are murky at best. At least Odin and Inanna sacrifice themselves. I wonder if a certain part of the reasoning behind fathers so glibly sending their sons off to war is this same father-sacrificing-the-son-for-a-greater-purpose meme.

"One day my daughter was crying from hunger and I ignored her because I was deep in prayer. My mother shook me by the shoulders and said, "Stop that. Go feed your daughter. That's your prayer right now."

Amen, Mama! That's my other big gripe - somehow, prayer and faith are supposed to be enough all by themselves. There's no need for a sheep to change the world; it would be presumptuous - they haven't the power to do that, only their god does. At least the Catholic church and some of the less fatalistic Protestant churches manage to not fall into this one. I'd rather manifest the Great Mother and do.

Here's a litmus test: If your god, no matter who they are or claim to be, ever tells you to kill your child/friend/neighbor/spouse/pretty much anybody who isn't currently hurting you or your loved ones, then that god is not worth serving. Period. If this is a test, it's a test of your moral courage to say "no," not a test of your faith to say "yes." Everybody got that now?



Happy Pesach. :/

Comments

[greeneyedpagan.livejournal.com]

I wish everyone got that now, but no, you can be sure, they do not.
And my prophecy here?
We will see more and more of this the more women's reproductive rights are eroded and criminalized.
Desperate people do desperate things.
I see these two women as desperate people, who, somewhere in their minds, knew they were unfit to parent their children. However, their religion did not offer them the option of *not* parenting howevermany children their god chose to "give" them. Divorce, apparently, was not an option. Letting their fathers raise them was not an option.
So what is a good girl to do? Whatever god tells her, apparently, and if you need something badly enough, your mind will give you the voices to believe you have it.
What a sad failure of their religion this is.
You and I know that their god, just like our gods and goddesses, can and will talk to them.
But, like you said, demand that they murder their own children?
No, not if they are worth serving.
I hope in pulpits all over this country, all over the world, that this message is being preached.
We can pray for that, as caring human beings, at least.

This is exactly...

[quantumduck.livejournal.com]

...what scares me about God ToC (Old Testament).

It's actuallt a deal breaker for me, and part of the reason I have left organised religion to the professionals.

I will respect no authority that claims to have made me as I am, but then asks me to act outside of my nature. What would be gained in doing that? Sounds more like Evil than God to me. Am I supposed to understand this sacrafice story as an example of God's sense of humor? I make it a point to give the voices in my head some oversight. They get half as much say as the voices OUTSIDE my head!

mrgrrrmph.

[perkyshai.livejournal.com]

Remember the yellow wallpaper?
Wonder how much of the 'Christian Ideal' is manifest there.
Just curious, no reason. -sigh-

[memeslayer.livejournal.com]

Fuck religions. Fuck em all. I wonder if the location has anything to do with it? I bet you'd find more people who would buy the "god told me to do it" argument in East Texas than you would in downtown Houston.

Some memes must die. This is one of them.

[omorka.livejournal.com]

I don't know about the location, but I do know that Yeats's prosecutors were going for the death penalty, and so they picked a jury that was not opposed to it. In this case, the prosecutors decided not to press for the death penalty, so they may have had a less hardassed jury just in general.

argh!!!!

[binaryathena.livejournal.com]

In the Yates case, I think Russell Yates and his mother are guilty of criminal neglect. And I really don't understand why the psychiatrists couldn't agree that Andrea Yates was insane.

But I can't think of Abraham and Isaac without thinking of all the different Iphigenia versions. (including, sadly, the PDQ Bach one) --- but even the greeks had the father doing the sacrifice, not the mother. When Medea killed the children, she wasn't acting for a god or goddess, but her own spite. sigh.

but I agree with your litmus test and don't know how the patriarchy gets so out of hand still...

this is rambling, but my blood sugar is crashing and my deepest incision is oozing out sutures and gunk again. yech