Talk:Goddess

Here's a question, given the mention of the Vatican. Pope John Paul II was pretty well known as believing in the divinity of Mary. Well, if Mary is divine, is this a Christian example of a Goddess?
Now to my mind, it seems reasonable to assume that the first divinities worshipped were probably female. Certainly the oldest sacred figures that we know of were (Willendorf Goddess, etc.), and given that the earliest requirements of organized civilization, namely agriculture and domestication of animals, were largely the responsibility of females, so it makes sense that they'd be behind the common idea of worship as well. That's just gut feeling though, and not based on any deep study of the material. --Kels 20:39, 2 September 2007 (CDT)

See the Murcans have started allowing Pagans (Wiccans?) to mourn dead servicemen - was it @ Arlington? Susan Jayne Garlick^talk 20:50, 2 September 2007 (CDT)

I think they let Pagans in the military up here, but they let in queers too, so who's surprised? XD --Kels 20:51, 2 September 2007 (CDT)

There was a news report on BBC about graves @ Arlington with pentathings on & crowd of (mainly) women calling on goddesses. Susan Jayne Garlick^talk 20:59, 2 September 2007 (CDT)

In the Catholic view, Mary herself is not divine as such, although she is considered "full of grace" and "without sin". Rather, it is her role as the mother of Christ and as co-redemptor that can be considered divinely granted, but these do not give her any divine character in herself. --AKjeldsen^Godspeed! 07:37, 3 September 2007 (CDT)

Regarding the Venus of Willendorf: It might be an icon of religious veneration, but on the other hand, it could just as easily be a great many other things: a representation of an individual for the purpose of symbolic magic (i.e; a sort of "voodoo doll"), or even the paleolithic equivalent of pornography.

For the record--most neopagans no longer believe in the idea of a universal matriarchal world prior to the coming of the BAD MEN. Some still hold to some semblance of that belief, but even within the pagan community it's pretty well discredited.Researcher 04:41, 23 September 2007 (EDT)

Researcher, can you give me some sources on that? I run into alot of that sort of belief on my campus, and it's hard to trounce the silly little pagans without sourcing.

Not sure who this is, but you can check "Drawing Down the Moon" from the early 80s (one of the best books, really) or "In the Lap of the Goddess" from the 90s. They both work to debunk the myth within a neopagan framework. Otherwise, all I have is my own experience. Researcher 21:28, 6 April 2008 (EDT)

The Church did a marvelous job of creating a cult of Mary, and using her to supplant female goddesses worshipped by the heathens they converted in various parts of the world. I think it could be argued that Mary is a de facto goddess in that she is now worshipped in place of various heathen goddesses. Rational Ed^faith 09:41, 4 April 2008 (EDT)

Now, saints, including Mary, are not really worshipped as such - they're intermediaries. Besides, the cult of Mary only became prominent in the 13th century or so, by which time most pagan goddesses were long forgotten.--AKjeldsen^Godspeed! 11:26, 4 April 2008 (EDT)

Not according to my sources. In fact, as Mary was not an important element in the early church, it is probable that her status was raised for its convenience in converting worshippers of female deities.

Did you actually look at those sources first? --AKjeldsen^Godspeed! 12:08, 4 April 2008 (EDT)

Now at least you both can look at them... Editor at CP^{for a change} 12:15, 4 April 2008 (EDT)

Hmm. I guess that is a little easier than edit->copypaste to address line... --AKjeldsen^Godspeed! 12:21, 4 April 2008 (EDT)

My experience living in Catholic countries (El Salvador, Venezuela, Colombia) found that a great many Catholics do indeed place Mary a great deal higher than is suggested by official doctrine. And that local deities were still worshipped through Mary in shrines once dedicated to local deities. Rational Ed^faith 12:30, 4 April 2008 (EDT)

That's possible, but that does not mean the same thing happened in the early Church. The fact is that Mary did not play any significant role in the Western Church until the 11th century at the earliest - and probably more like 12th to 13th century, as part of a general change in the way faith and religion were perceived in Western Europe. For a better source on this subject, I recommend a book like Mary Through the Centuries by Jaroslav Pelikan. --AKjeldsen^Godspeed! 12:37, 4 April 2008 (EDT)

The 13th century was in plenty of time for use in converting western hemisphere heathens. Rational Ed^faith 12:42, 4 April 2008 (EDT)

Where exactly do you figure that there were goddess-worshipping pagans that needed to be converted in the 13th century? --AKjeldsen^Godspeed! 14:02, 4 April 2008 (EDT)

Certainly in Andean Peru the local mountain goddess was absorbed into Mary such that all the representations of her tend to be triangular. Genghis ^Marauding 14:28, 4 April 2008 (EDT)

Being absorbed doesn't mean so much after all. Pagan holidays were absorbed into Christmas and Easter, weren't they? I'm not calling them Pagan feasts taken by Christians though. Editor at CP^{for a change} 15:11, 4 April 2008 (EDT)

By the way, AK, I let the crack go about whether I'd read the sources I included. I assumed you might read them before you replied. Here's a nice quote form the first one in case you didn't have time: "It was not until the time of Constantine, the early part of the fourth century, that anyone began to look to Mary as a goddess. Even at this period, such worship was frowned upon by the church, as is evident by the words of Epiphanius (d. 403) who denounced certain ones of Trace, Arabia, and elsewhere, for worshipping Mary as a goddess and offering cakes at her shrine. She should be held in honor, he said, "but let no one adore Mary." Yet, within just a few more years, Mary worship was not only condoned by what is known today as the Catholic Church, it became an official doctrine at the Council of Ephesus in 431!" Rational Ed^faith 12:47, 4 April 2008 (EDT)

I didn't read them in detail, but I note that you have a Baptist site, three Evagelical sites, a wierd blog of some sort and a site about racism. When the subject is Catholic history, using the first four in particular as sources seems like going to Conservapedia for information about the ACLU. Very little credibility here. --AKjeldsen^Godspeed! 14:02, 4 April 2008 (EDT)

Are you calling those Protestants and evangelicals liars? Or just misinformed and misguided? Rational Ed^faith 14:13, 4 April 2008 (EDT)

I'm sure they believe what they're writing. I'm just saying that going to people who usually have a beef the size of Manhattan with the Catholic Church may not be best approach in this situation. Just look at some of the other Catholic-related articles on Baptist Pillar: "Is Catholicism Christian?" "Popery Opposed To The Bible." "The Papal Heresy." Seriously. --AKjeldsen^Godspeed! 14:24, 4 April 2008 (EDT)

Actually, I note that the article on Baptist Pillar is taken from Babylon Mystery Religion, which I assume is the one by Ralph Woodrow. That book was withdrawn by the author in 1997 because it was based on the faulty The Two Babylons by Alexander Hislop. The fact that this article is still up without any mention of this does not speak well of their good faith (so to speak). --AKjeldsen^Godspeed! 14:35, 4 April 2008 (EDT)

Can you suggest an online source for doctrine formed at the Council of Ephesus in 431? Rational Ed^faith 14:58, 4 April 2008 (EDT)

www.vatican.va? Otherwise, maybe checking your local library? Editor at CP^{for a change} 15:14, 4 April 2008 (EDT)

You are such a kidder, Ed. I live 15 minutes from the University of Virginia, but I don't have time to start diving into the stacks right now. Rational Ed^faith 15:19, 4 April 2008 (EDT)

You were able to find those six links in a couple of minutes... Editor at CP^{for a change} 15:57, 4 April 2008 (EDT)

Sure. The CCEL or The Medieval Sourcebook both have lots of material. --AKjeldsen^Godspeed! 15:50, 4 April 2008 (EDT)

Just to clear up this Ephesus thing before it gets any further: The Council of Ephesus did not declare "Mary worship" an official doctrine as that article above claims. Ephesus was convened to discuss the question of Nestorianism, which was one of those interminable conflicts over the relationship between Christ's divine and human natures that ran through most of the 4th to the 6th centuries. The only reason why Mary got dragged into this was because the Nestorians denied that the term Theotokos (roughly meaning "Mother of God") was a proper epithet for her, preferring instead the term Christotokos, "Mother of Christ." This was because the Nestorians believed that Christ existed in two simultaneous persons, a human and a divine. Mary could only have been the mother of the human person, but not the divine person, so calling her "Mother of God" was incorrect. This belief was denounced by the Council of Ephesus, and as part of this, St. Cyril of Alexandria published a series of anathemizations, among them against those who denied that Mary was Theotokos. That's all there is to that. --AKjeldsen^Godspeed! 19:59, 4 April 2008 (EDT)

Goddess Worship

Neopagan cleavage. Nice phrasing Researcher. -Smyth 14:18, 24 September 2007 (EDT)

Nike

I didn't realize she was female... human 13:31, 7 April 2008 (EDT)

Page outdated

Most modern Pagans have long since departed from Margaret Murray and Marija Gimbutas' ideas regarding an ancient, unbroken lineage of witches or a global or even regional Goddess cult. There are those that still cling to the idea, but most of us at least have enough sense in our heads to see when the archaeological evidence no longer supports a claim. Many of the popular Pagan books make this claim in that many were published before the community at large had largely drifted away from the idea. More recently published materials either don't include it, or outright call out the prior mistaken belief.

I don't expect you to approve of my beliefs nor am I asking for it. I don't proselytize and could care less if you believe what I do or even if you believe I have any sense in my head at all for my beliefs. But given much of your excellent material on evolution/creation falls on the argument of "they don't understand evolution" I'd recommend an update to this page to reflect the same with respect to Goddess centered religion. It is a wiki, and I'd make the change myself, but clearly I'm not a disinterested party, so I figure I'd offer up the thought and let someone else go to town on it. Aremisasling (talk) 01:57, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Non green green goddesses

This This and No 1 engine here Anna Livia (talk) 18:10, 18 July 2018 (UTC)