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Heavenly Mother

sackett said:
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!)
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Mormonism actually is a form of polytheism...but they never call it that because it's bad marketing to a largely monthiestic base of potential converts.
 
JayUtah said:
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.
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I thought about it some more, and I think the impetus behind this trend is that Gods tend to be idealized humans. It's almost like a perfect version of themselves. I think for a woman, imagining that perfect version of themselves being a masculine figure is just not too cool for them, so there has to be a goddess.

To some extent, then, the relationship between gods and goddesses also describes the ideal relationship for the culture.

Which is kind of scary for Mormonism. Shut up, stay hidden, and have babies doesn't seem all that inspiring as a perfect vision of a woman. It's even worse than the traditional vision of Mary as the ideal woman. Ok. Fine. Mary isn't exactly independent and powerful in her own right, and she is totally subservient to God, the male, but at least she is seen as wise, able to give good advice, and worthy of respect. She's right there as Queen of Heaven, even if she has no more power there than Queen Elizabeth II has on Earth.


Personally, I prefer the ancient Greek model. I never understood it until I read the actual Illiad a few years back, where the gods possess people and make those people have godlike qualities. I'm taking heavy bets that a bunch of women prayed to Aphrodite and asked to be possessed, and both husbands and wives were happier for it. I'm also guessing that there were plenty of times that women prayed to Ares and men to Aphrodite.
 
The Great Zaganza said:
The real question is: does the Heavenly Mother have her own planet?
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More to the point - The Heavenly Mother IS Her own planet.

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Meadmaker said:
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.
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Mary is basically Sailor Moon. And the Holy Spirit is the talking cat. It all fits together seamlessly!
 
JayUtah said:
And that's where I think Mormon feminists are with this right now. Hence the desire to venerate Heavenly Mother.
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Thus broadening Mormonism and bringing it more into humanity's imaginative life. A cult that includes multiple deities (not Smith's implied ones, but out-in-the-open worshipped gods) will be heap more fun than any kind of protestantism. It'll bring in more tithes too, just betcha.

We live in an accelerated age, with changes bustling along like British bookies at the races. Could the LDS start rapidly transforming itself? Could we live to see Saints shooting off fireworks and squirting themselves and each other with colored water, like Hindus during Holi? Imagine the colorful progress of Mrs. God, a towering idol dressed in a mother hubbard and apron, spewing candy-filled baby dolls from unexpected places to delight the kids!

If we must have religions, then let them be silly fun. Hell, I might even convert.
 
CORed said:
Also, Satan, angels, demons, etc.
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The Jews have Satan, angels, dybbuks, and maybe other beings. Muslims have Satan, angels, and jinns, not to mention the Heavenly Poontang Corps for good boys.

You have to wonder if there's ever been a truly monotheistic cult. If there ever was, how long did it last?
 
I've talked at length about how little sense Satan makes.

Within the framework of Christianity, how does God have a vastly less powerful arch-nemesis?

And if you read the Bible and not Milton and Dante and the rest of the fandom... Satan's barely in it and he is really, really badly described. The two major parts of the Bible that are explicitly Satan and not another vaguely evil character retconned into him later; Job and tempting Jesus in the desert, he comes across far less as some ultimate evil or Moriarty to God's Holmes and more as in cahoots with God as a vaguely snarky underling who's job it is is to run QA tests on the faithful.
 
JoeMorgue said:
I've talked at length about how little sense Satan makes.

Within the framework of Christianity, how does God have a vastly less powerful arch-nemesis?

And if you read the Bible and not Milton and Dante and the rest of the fandom... Satan's barely in it and he is really, really badly described. The two major parts of the Bible that are explicitly Satan and not another vaguely evil character retconned into him later; Job and tempting Jesus in the desert, he comes across far less as some ultimate evil or Moriarty to God's Holmes and more as in cahoots with God as a vaguely snarky underling who's job it is is to run QA tests on the faithful.
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I like it.
 
All this talk of Satan makes me wonder what the Zoroastrian precursor was like. Maybe wikipedia can tell me.
 
Polytheism in Mexico is strong. Just don't tell them it's not monotheism. Some saints and Mary herself have far more shrines than god himself.
One Mary shrine is pile of big rocks and cement three yards from my house.
It was hand made by faithful family members in honor of a small miracle someone was awarded.

Blinky Xmas lights and all to honor a plaster statue. Yay.
 
Our Mariolaters are fond of old bathtubs, usually painted blue on the inside.

This also probably explains why, when I went into a (fascinating and time-gobbling) architectural salvage store recently, one of the things they had was a huge collection of orphaned claw feet!
 
sackett said:
Question: Have the Mormon elders announced anything about God's wife?
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This essay is literally the entirety of the doctrine on the subject. But there is a fair amount of speculative scholarship among those who study Mormonism academically.

The corollary issue here is that Mormon leader specifically say, "We don't have a lot of revelation about Heavenly Mother." Fine, but what about asking for revelation on the subject? Then we're told that asking for specific revelations on specific subjects is arrogant. In other words, the same old excuse all the fortune-tellers use. That's especially hilarious when it's clear there is ongoing "revelation" (even contradictory revelation) on such critical topics as the church's branding.
 
JayUtah said:
This essay is literally the entirety of the doctrine on the subject. But there is a fair amount of speculative scholarship among those who study Mormonism academically.

The corollary issue here is that Mormon leader specifically say, "We don't have a lot of revelation about Heavenly Mother." Fine, but what about asking for revelation on the subject? Then we're told that asking for specific revelations on specific subjects is arrogant. In other words, the same old excuse all the fortune-tellers use. That's especially hilarious when it's clear there is ongoing "revelation" (even contradictory revelation) on such critical topics as the church's branding.
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Shux, Jay, I didn't really expect anything prompt after the elders' discussion of Mrs. God. Just clearing the meeting room must've taken 45 minutes. Zimmer frames, even spider canes, preclude hurry.

Revelations also advance at their own pace. If there's no dollar value in expounding on Heavenly Mom, us gentiles can just set n whittle --

Waitaminnit! SCHOLARY speculation? Academic STUDY of MORMONISM? Who? Where? Come to that, how? Can I get a degree in LDS Studies? Theoretical or experimental? Will it involve dissection?

Nuffa that. Given the size and strength of the Mormon church, and its influence in America, influence sometimes amounting to power, we can damn well stay interested in this stuff. Their doctrinal tweedledee/tweedledum may not yet equal the Sunni/Shiite madness, but --

Upthread, I goofed on fanciful changes in LDS practice; just joshin', the way we do. Now consider the unwholesome fractures that seem to continue propagating through American society. Mormonism stands to one side of that; it's for itself, and it's strong because of it. In some distant time, it might emerge from a new civil chaos and become rawly political, as it has -- and did -- in the past, and as Smith and Young clearly wanted. What form might it take? What enticements might it offer?

Some distant time, I said. Yes, let's assume that. Goddammit, growing up on the edge of Zion doesn't have to make you paranoid.
 
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Then you leave the trinity and move on to the fourtinity.

That's how paganism works. According to them, One god manifests in the form of many beings. They originally believed in only one god, but unconsciously became polytheists. The devil's trap is always the same.

Hindus: "333 in 1"

Christians: "3 in 1"

Pantheists: " all things in 1"

New Agers: "we are in 1"
 
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