From a biological viewpoint, patriarchal religion denied women the natural rights of every other mammalian female: the right to choose her stud, to control the circumstances of her mating, to occupy and govern her own nest, or to refuse all males when preoccupied with the important business of raising her young.

Barbara G. Walker

Categorized in : Religion Rights Women

Men get together in pretentious councils to decide what God is, what God thinks, what God wants the rest of us to do for him, and the one thing he never fails to want is more money.

Barbara G. Walker

god men thinking

In the beginning, in the time that was no time, nothing existed but the Womb. And the Womb was a limitless dark cauldron of all things in potential: a chaotic blood-soup of matter and energy, fluid as water yet mud-solid with salts of the earth; red-hot as fire yet restlessly churning and bubbling with all the winds. And the Womb was the Mother, before She took form and gave form to Existence. She was the Deep. . . .

Barbara G. Walker

mother dark wind

The very fears and guilts imposed by religious training are responsible for some of history's most brutal wars, crusades, pogroms, and persecutions, including five centuries of almost unimaginable terrorism under Europe's Inquisition and the unthinkably sadistic legal murder of nearly nine million women. History doesn't say much very good about God.

Barbara G. Walker

religious europe war

Male genitals are still called "the tree of life" by the Arabs, and a cross was one of the oldest diagrammatic images of male genitals.

Barbara G. Walker

males crosses tree

The profoundly cynical premise of all religionists is that people are not capable of behaving decently toward one another unless they are lured with promises of pie in the sky and simultaneously terrorized by the threats of extreme nastiness in the eternal afterlife in hell.

Barbara G. Walker

afterlife pie sky

Because religious training means credulity training, churches should not be surprised to find that so many of their congregations accept astrology as readily as theology, or a channeled Atlantean priest as readily as a biblical prophet.

Barbara G. Walker

biblical religious mean

...the history of early-medieval Arabia is nearly all legend. Like Buddha, Confucius, Jesus, and other founders of patriarchal religions, Mohammed lacks real verification. There is no reliable information about his life or teachings. Most stories about him are as apocryphal as the story that his coffin hangs forever in mid-air "between heaven and earth," like the bodies of ancient sacred kings.

Barbara G. Walker

real kings jesus

Credulity as a character trait is encouraged in every child who grows up with religious training, which invariably insists on the virtue of blind faith and the sinfulness of doubting and questioning.

Barbara G. Walker

growing-up religious children

Faith in God necessarily implies a lack of faith in humanity.

Barbara G. Walker

humanity fear religion

Is it really true that religion makes people more kindly, generous, or loving? History tends to disprove this. The worst wars, the most vicious Inquisitions, the cruelest pogroms and persecutions, were both fomented and supported by religion.

Barbara G. Walker

loving history people religion

Men of patriarchal cultures have been committing heinous acts in the name of their God ever since they created a god for themselves. It seems that the earlier, goddess-oriented, nature-centered religions were far less cruel.

Barbara G. Walker

religions name god men

Since St. Augustine announced that Eve - and, hence, collective woman - was responsible for original sin, rabid sexism has been a major pillar of patriarchal religious tradition.

Barbara G. Walker

woman sexism tradition sin

Marriage finally became acceptable to the churches when laws were established that could make it a means of depriving women of incomes and property, and making wives the equivalent of slaves.

Barbara G. Walker

make property women marriage

Patriarchal religions, like Judaism and Christianity, established and upheld the 'man's world.'

Barbara G. Walker

religions like man world

I see my role as a scholar announcing that women's feelings of unworthiness and insecurity often may be traced to training in a male-oriented religion, and I'm trying to investigate a richer spiritual life for both sexes.

Barbara G. Walker

women spiritual life religion

When I was 35, all of a sudden I thought maybe it'd be nice to knit a sweater.

Barbara G. Walker

be-nice sweater thought nice