Conversations on God as Woman

This past Sunday Melissa Harris-Perry had a very interesting segment on her new show with Selene Jones, president of Union Theological Seminary, on women as religious leaders and as images of the divine. This is not the type of discussion I have commonly seen outside of liberal religious circles. This is an important conversation and I hope it continues.


Since I don’t believe in a god, you might wonder why I care how we envision him/her/it/them. But I do care. Non-theists are a small minority in America, and we are affected by the policies enacted by and attitudes prevalent among the majority of Americans who are theists. So it is important to me that, culturally, we do not limit our vision of the divine to white maleness. Our perception of what is good and worthy should not automatically make half of the population “other”. When we picture the divine we shape what we think is of value, and we all need to be able to participate in being valuable and seeing others as so.

Even personally, I care about how we picture the divine. I have found a lot of value in some pagan practices. Sometimes I wonder if it is even fair to participate in rituals since my beliefs are out of line with most Pagans, but picturing divine females helps me to deal with aspects of myself. As a Christian, I never felt like I was related to God, but working with goddesses is connecting to parts of myself. They are not other; they are me. Even as I feel my connection to Paganism slipping, I remember learning that reverence for goddess could be a real and deeply experienced religion, and how both welcoming and shocking that was.

It only requires a quick look at recent headlines to see that allowing patriarchy to dominate all discussions of religious faith is a bad idea and does not serve any of us well. Being an atheist does not shield me from its effects. I hope that going forward we have more public discussions of a more rounded view of divinity and religion.

Atheists & Agnostics Best Informed on Religion

An interesting Pew study found that American atheists and agnostics had a better overall knowledge of religion than did believers. You can read the longer Pew article and shorter L.A. Times overview here. Not surprised by any of this, not even the finding that Mormons knew the New Testament better than evangelicals.

The study did not break out UU's as a group, but it would be interesting to see where we fit. I would guess that many non-born-and-raised UU's would do well for the same reasons as the atheists and agnostics. It would also be nice to see how those who grow up in UU RE compare.

Atheism and the Goddess

Yesterday our Fellowship held a service with the theme of the Divine Feminine and one of the readings was an excerpt from “Atheism and the Goddess” by Margaret Pearce. This, for me, was the highlight of the service and it felt tailor made for someone like me.

I do not believe in a divine being and have not for quite some time. When I was a believer, I never felt any such being. I am perfectly happy in this state of unbelief. The world and the universe are so awesome and fascinating on their own. But. I have always felt engaged and inspired by images and stories of goddesses. I enjoy so many pagan practices and ideas and I want to engage with them, but my more rational side argues with me. Is it really honest to participate in rituals, etc. when you don’t actually believe in these deities? Is it any better than when I used to pretend in the Christian church in which I was raised?

It sounds like Pearce struggled with these same issues and that, in itself, was validating. I don’t need to believe in a literal divine being to think about or meditate on a deity who looks like me. The values of goddess worship are ones I hold dear and these practices are a good way to integrate them into my life. I am not being any more honest to pretend these archetypes don’t have a pull on me.

This balance is why I enjoy the women’s group I have found so much. As women, we come together to celebrate and strengthen aspects our lives through focus on various goddesses and the cycle of the year. No one requires me to check my brains at the door, but the ritualistic elements help me to involve other sides of myself as well. I don’t know if I mentioned it here, but I have pretty much given up the local CUUPS group. I don’t think I am in sync with what they are trying to do, so it is best for me to step back and allow them to enjoy their rituals as they want. CUUPS helped to bring me to both UU’ism and my women’s group and I am very grateful for that. I wish them all the best, but I don’t plan on joining them anymore.

I don’t remember who it was, but someone in Margot Adler’s Drawing Down the Moon referred to his pagan practice as not irrational, but arational. This works for me and it provides an important balance so that I am not being so damn Apollonian all the time. A rational atheist and an arational pagan, that may just describe me.