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Heavenly Mother

JayUtah

Penultimate Amazing
JayUtah
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So this year's hot button in Mormonism is Heavenly Mother. That is, in Mormon doctrine God has a wife who bears spiritual children. These days the growing feminism movement has focused more attention on the possible veneration of Heavenly Mother. This has been heretofore forbidden. In the lyrics of a popular Disney song, "We Don't Talk About Heavenly Mother." The church's General Conference is happening this weekend, with eager anticipation of some doctrinal clarity. So far none yet.

So how does that jive with people's understanding of the veneration of Mary in Catholicism? How does that jive with goddesses in antiquity?
 
Monotheism is the boringest form of religion you can imagine, and say what you will about human nature, it detests boredom. So of course deities multiply. Some of them will be female, and most -- all? dunno, but let's try to find a real virgin goddess in the mythological museum -- will birth goddle offspring. And monsters. And heroes. And they'll keep their looks while doing so! Fun!

I predict that this Mormon proto- or pre- or incipient goddess will acquire stature and attributes as time goes on, allsame the Virgin Mary, who was taken up bodily into heaven, then became immaculate, and is now the full-blown Mother of God.

Any deity can diminish, of course. The Catholics have demoted pagan gods to sainthood or demon status; such is life. Some goddesses become Lilliths.

BTW, I think you mean "jibe," not "jive." (Have I caught JAY UTAH in a wrong usage?!? Oh, this truly is a weekend for miracles!)
 
sackett said:
I predict that this Mormon proto- or pre- or incipient goddess will acquire stature and attributes as time goes on, allsame the Virgin Mary, who was taken up bodily into heaven, then became immaculate, and is now the full-blown Mother of God.
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The way the RCC handles the three part God thing is hard to get your head around. They claim that the Father, Son, and Casper were always there from the start although Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary. This then allows them to speak of Mary as Mother of God. Makes your head spin doesn't it?

I suppose you don't have to be crazy to take all this stuff on but it helps.
 
JayUtah said:
So how does that jive with people's understanding of the veneration of Mary in Catholicism? How does that jive with goddesses in antiquity?
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In terms of doctrine, it's not even comparable. God doesn't have a wife or anything remotely comparable for Catholics or mainstream Christians. In Catholic doctrine, Mary is a very special human being, but still a human being.


In psychological terms, though, it's a lot more comparable. Humans seem to be really drawn toward imagining spiritual beings, but who have resemblance to ourselves, and all throughout history, they've somehow managed to make images of male and female deities, even if, officially, they aren't deities.

Mary officially is just an ordinary girl picked for an extraordinary task, and she was so good at it that she become the personification of the ultimate woman. Well, for Catholics, she was somewhat extraordinary, in that she was conceived without original sin, but evren that was a case of God tinkering with an ordinary girl's soul to make her special so that Jesus could come out of her pure. I shudder to think there was a time in my life, about 50 years ago, when that made sense to me.

And for 2,000 years, the perfect woman was one who didn't screw.....which, frankly, is messed up. I'm glad to see that idea going away. At least the Mormon God and goddess get to have a good sex life. Is the Mormon version not so tense as Jehovah? Especially in the Old Testament days, that guy really needed to relax. Finding a spiritual companion might have saved humanity from some plagues and such.
 
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sackett said:
BTW, I think you mean "jibe," not "jive." (Have I caught JAY UTAH in a wrong usage?!? Oh, this truly is a weekend for miracles!)
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For formal writing (and for not confusing unknown audiences), I would agree with you. But "jive" for the "accord" sense of "jibe" is well-established in some regions. Probably originally was just a mistaken choice due to similarity, but now folks mean to do it.
 
The Great Zaganza said:
The real question is: does the Heavenly Mother have her own planet?
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You'll just have to wait. God will speak to the General Council. Later. In God's good time.

The GC is made up of Mormondom's eldest. They can't all stay up for God. You'll hear soon enough. Go away.

Damn gentiles and their nosey ways.
 
JayUtah said:
So this year's hot button in Mormonism is Heavenly Mother. That is, in Mormon doctrine God has a wife who bears spiritual children. These days the growing feminism movement has focused more attention on the possible veneration of Heavenly Mother. This has been heretofore forbidden. In the lyrics of a popular Disney song, "We Don't Talk About Heavenly Mother." The church's General Conference is happening this weekend, with eager anticipation of some doctrinal clarity. So far none yet.

So how does that jive with people's understanding of the veneration of Mary in Catholicism? How does that jive with goddesses in antiquity?
Click to expand...

I dunno but it all jives perfectly well with "Religious people don't have anywhere near the issue with their religions not making sense or being internally consistent than non-religious people expect them to."
 
Meadmaker said:
In terms of doctrine, it's not even comparable. God doesn't have a wife or anything remotely comparable for Catholics or mainstream Christians. In Catholic doctrine, Mary is a very special human being, but still a human being.
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Right, the doctrinal origins are like comparing apples to brake pads.

In psychological terms, though, it's a lot more comparable. Humans seem to be really drawn toward imagining spiritual beings, but who have resemblance to ourselves, and all throughout history, they've somehow managed to make images of male and female deities, even if, officially, they aren't deities.
Click to expand...

Indeed, where I thought about going with this is the notion that a religion will find a goddess. The doctrinal path to it may be weird and torturous. But it gets there.

Another problem with the comparison is that in Catholicism the veneration of Mary is normalized. In Mormonism the veneration of Heavenly Mother is forbidden. She exists, but she isn't to be talked about, worshiped, or prayed to. This has issues for Mormon feminists, stemming from the plight of women in Mormonism. Mormon women cannot be ordained to the priesthood. The prospect of women in the afterlife is to be the wife to a male god -- an exalted Mormon man. Possibly one of several such wives, if you want to get into the uglies about it. So using the present Heavenly Mother doctrine as a model, women are told that their role in the afterlife is to be a mother to "spirit children," none of whom are to be told much more than that you exist, and who are not allowed to pray to you or venerate you in any way. All the glory goes to the celestial baby-daddies.

That wave sort of crested this weekend here in our little mountain hamlet.
 
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PR. Religions rarely grow enough internally fast enough for their own liking. You need converts.

And the best way to do that, history has taught us, is to look at what's popular in other religions and create (as in pretend there always was) a version of it in your religion and go "see we have that to?"

Mother-Goddess figures of various types are super-popular throughout history. Most flavors of Christianity lean into Mary to fill that role, all while trying real hard to pretend that's not what they are doing because it doesn't really fit with the rest of their mythology. Same thing with Saints. Those are Demigods you ordered from Wish.com.

"It's not comparable" is missing the point. Asylum Films aren't comparable to the blockbusters they rip off and they know it better than anyone. That's hardly the reason they get made.

It's the religious conversion version of:

Other Religions: "Mommy can we stop and get Demigods and a Mother-Goddess?"
Christianity: "No we have Demigods and a Mother-Goddess at home."
 
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Can't have the ladies thinking they're anything more than baby factories for the patriarchy. Next thing you know they'd be asking why they can't have multiple husbands.
 
Thor 2 said:
The way the RCC handles the three part God thing is hard to get your head around. They claim that the Father, Son, and Casper were always there from the start although Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary. This then allows them to speak of Mary as Mother of God. Makes your head spin doesn't it?

I suppose you don't have to be crazy to take all this stuff on but it helps.
Click to expand...

Oh Lord our only God, brother of the other god...
 
Oh. Uh huh.

JayUtah said:
The dictionary says I meant "jibe." "Jive" is accepted colloquially where I live.
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So colloquial is good enough for us here on this little forum.

I was just rootling* around in Wiki on the Mormon mother goddess(es). No wonder the saints don't talk about that doctrine. I wonder what other Spawns of Smith they keep locked in the attic?

* Rootling is, I suppose, a colloquial form of rooting, but the online Scrabble dictionary we use at our house allows it as fully legit and playable. Imagine my wintry discontent when my gf laid it out for a score of 68 + 50.
 
I suppose it all depends on how you like to spin it. No fan of Mormonism here, but in that version at least, the goddess's part in the whole operation seems fairly normal. I mean, it's made up and stupid, but it's not quite so creepy.

In the Catholic version, if you don't start with their doctrines and strange sexual ideas, we seem to be left with God grooming a woman to accept involuntary artificial insemination without enough awareness to call it a rape.
 
Wait wait wait. God, I mean to say God with a capital G and all, has one wife, just the one? Isn't that committing the ultimate blasphemy of questioning God's libido, and the secondary sacrilege of raising Joseph Smith above God (or putting God below him)?


eta: This wife, is she a Wife with a capital W? That's actually not just a casual question, not just semantics, but actually a deep theological issue. Because if she's wife with a capital W, then no doubt she is possessed of a libido with a capital L, and therefore might be able to satisfy God's omnipotent ...potency, sorry Potency. So that maybe the Mormon Church's latest doctrinal whatever-it-is about God's wife, sorry Wife, might be justified after all.
 
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Nor yours neither!

Chanakya said:
Wait wait wait. God, I mean to say God with a capital G and all, has one wife, just the one? Isn't that committing the ultimate blasphemy of questioning God's libido, and the secondary sacrilege of raising Joseph Smith above God (or putting God below him)?


eta: This wife, is she a Wife with a capital W? That's actually not just a casual question, not just semantics, but actually a deep theological issue. Because if she's wife with a capital W, then no doubt she is possessed of a libido with a capital L, and therefore might be able to satisfy God's omnipotent ...potency, sorry Potency. So that maybe the Mormon Church's latest doctrinal whatever-it-is about God's wife, sorry Wife, might be justified after all.
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The wonders of Mormonism are not mine to question.
 
I guess the only interesting part about this myth is that it has been forbidden to discuss.

The other slightly interesting question is: only one?

Why would a Mormon God have only one wife?
 
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