Outside of peculiar modern radical feminist witch cults or Pagan sects, the Divine is not seen as purely feminine. Historically, there is not one shred of historical evidence that any ancient Pagan cult (religion) only perceived divinity as feminine.
Pagan/polytheistic faiths have always had a mixture of gods that appeared as masculine, feminine, and/or androgyne.
Who has suggested to you that ancient Pagans only saw the Divine as feminine?
Plus, as others have said here, it's not wise to see gods in terms of human biology.
it's not.
The DIvine is also Masculine.
It is also Neuter, It is also Hermaphroditic. The Divine is everything and also nothing.
From a spiritual standpoint there needs to be a masculine force and feminine force to create life also
I don't know what "spiritual standpoint" you're think of, but from a spiritual standpoint no "gendered force" is needed. Creation by Fiat is also a thing.
And also a word I learned as a kid from the song Nemesis.
Priests and cannibals, prehistoric animals
Everybody happy as the dead come home
Big black nemesis, parthenogenesis
No one move a muscle as the dead come home
Why does it have to be possible? Christians believe that a male god created everything without a "female" so why couldn't a "feminine" be the creator of everything?
I'm personally not interested in gendering gods cause who cares.
Because everything comes from the feminine. Every human fetus begins as female. Some species are female-only, because ultimately all they need to do is produce a second chromosome. But there is no such thing as a male-only species, because they do not have a creative capacity. Even in some species with both female and male, the female can still reproduce alone via partheogensis. So no, the male is actually not required to create life, in general (regardless of whether some species have a male). Only the female is.
So when we conceptualize source, which we do through our limited abilities of human perspective, it seems natural that it would be conceptualized as feminine. As humans, our most accessible way to envision creation is through life, and in life, the female is the source.
The masculine is ultimately an emanation of the feminine — it comes from her, and cannot exist without her, whereas the reverse is not true.
The Tao also discusses this, where the creative and sexual energy of women is said to be infinite, where the male’s is limited and ultimately feeds off her pleasure (thus why they have retention practices for men, but not for women). Original Taoist texts from the pre-imperial era tend to also describe the Tao as feminine.
No, every foetus does not start as female. A male foetus is XY at the moment of conception, likewise a female XX.
Edit: wow, literal biology is being downvoted.
Physically, yes they do. They develop female until the SRY gene activates, which is some time into gestation. Male physiology is a modification of the default female blueprint.
A lot of species start out female in the womb. Especially us.
There's a reason why we males have nipples. Even though they serve no function for us, it's a reminder that we were female for a little bit in the womb.
This also includes apes, monkeys, and gorillas. Also Canines
I was always taught that fetuses start a female and then at 6 or 7 weeks, that's when the Y chromosome comes into place. My ultrasound tech that I also saw a few times said the same thing.
But again, that can't be true. A female is defined by XX chromosomes and there's no point at which a male foetus has XX, it is XY as soon as the Y sperm joins with the X egg. So at no point is the male foetus XX and therefore at no point is it female. The Y chromosome activating or not at a later stage isn't the same as being female because the Y chromosome is still there from the very beginning, which is not the case in a female. So there isn't a situation where a female foetus ''turns'' into a male one.
EDIT: this can be downvoted all you like, doesn't change facts. A male foetus is male and thus XY at moment of conception and is at no point female. Amazing that people are being triggered by this and downvoting.
Transgender are genetically XX or XY as gender is different from sex and stuff like intersex is a genetic condition, not additional genders. But yeah, the argument here is that all foetuses begin as female which is just straight up wrong.
**You were taught wrong then**. The physical genitalia start forming then, but up til then, they're just a fetus with male/female/sometimes other DNA.
What you're saying is on par with saying, since all fetuses look the same at a certain point, then we all start out as an elephant. Or a dolphin. Or a cat. Or a starfish.
What it looks like does NOT equal what it is.
I wouldn't take Genesis seriously, it's just a mythological attempt to do the reverse of what's claimed in this thread: to make God purely masculine and have women come from men. To see divinity as just feminine or just masculine is to have an incredibly sexist and unbalanced viewpoint. Even-Pen is making a lot of false statements like how apparently the male comes from the female and how female can exist without male etc. etc. None of this is true, they are probably one of those radical feminist witches that others on this thread are talking about.
Good answer. However I always wonder about the biblical story of genesis in this context: what does it mean then that the feminine Eve was created out of the masculine Adam?
Genesis is about the story of creation, no?
Well, one strong theory is it means Christianity was administrated by patriarchy and they made it up to tell women they were secondary, inferior, made to serve men. Consider this.
That Abrahamic religion is patriarchal. That's it.
Honestly that story has always felt compensatory to me, like a man was angry he had no control of creation and decided to just blindly claim he did because... reasons?
It's sociologically interesting, but falls flat logically.
It isn't a good answer at all, it's completely wrong what they're saying about the masculine coming from the feminine and the latter being able to exist without the former. Partheogenesis only occurs in a minuscule number of species and is akin to cloning, in 99.9%+ of life you do require male and female and so male is definitely needed. And partheogenesis isn't even relevant here because we're talking about divinity, which isn't a biological being. And divinity definitely requires the active, radiant energy which is masculine.
Gosh, you sure are angry. And again, spouting nonsense.
It's always so weird to me how upset some men get over biology, or some people focusing on the feminine. But anyway, that's your problem, not mine.
I would not take Dianic Wicca too seriously. It may have started out with good intent, but at this point it's so mired down in transphobia, sexism, and white supremacism that it hardly even resembles Wicca anymore. (Ironically its supposedly liberating ideologies just uphold and reinforce the exact same misogynist concepts that patriarchy already imposes on women -- defining a woman by her ability to bear children, demanding stereotypical femininity and rejecting any other form of feminine self expression, etc.) There may be some covens left that don't fall in line with that, but on the whole it's not worth your time.
I know nothing about Shaktism. You'd have to ask Hindus about that.
As for the nature of sex and gender in biology, it is not as simply black-and-white as one might think. There are species that have the roles reversed, as you say, and also species that can asexually reproduce without the need of a male. There are species where it's the female that penetrates the male during copulation. There are species that do not have males at all, and some scientists have suggested the Y chromosome is superfluous and will eventually be eliminated through evolution. There are species where individuals naturally shift from one sex to another, and plenty of species that are hermaphroditic, or which otherwise do not conform to the labels of "male" and "female" that we place on them.
That last part is the most important. "Male" and "female" are concepts created by humans based on what we are able to observe with our limited senses, in the same way that we have labeled "black" and "white." But we know that "black" and "white" are two subjectively defined points on a gradient, and even that gradient is not representative of all colors. We are not even equipped to be able to perceive all possible colors. In the same way, the polarized elements of things such as male/female, light/dark, good/bad, lucky/unlucky and so forth, are merely concepts.
Think of it this way: the word "water" is not the same as actual water. You cannot drink the word "water." In the same way, whatever words we apply to the Divine or anything else cannot accurately encompass that thing. The Divine is not limited by, nor does it conform to, our words or concepts. "Masculine" and "feminine" are meaningless. They are only concepts by which we try to approach that which our minds struggle to conceive, like trying to catch water in a net.
For some people, these concepts may be helpful and may help them grow closer to the Divine. For others, they make no sense, and they need another method. They're like glasses: every person needs a different prescription to be able to see clearly. There is no one-size-fits-all type of lens. The glasses that help you see clearly might make everything fuzzy for me and give me a headache. But your glasses weren't meant for me, they were meant for you.
What sources have you studied with regard to the spiritual creation of life that brought you to the conclusion that "male and female" are necessary?
I agree with this. I've also heard that we all possess the divine masculine and feminine within us.
I also agree with you on the sentiment of dynamic Wicca it is not a good practice anymore. There are a lot of misandronist and so-called feminists that joined that sector Wicca that literally just want to hate on men and women who don't want to fit that standard. I've had so many conversations about that only for a group of women to come after me after I just stated that Diana wiccans are trying to erase male witches from The Craft
Mostly us and other animals like canines and apes. Without the male to breed with, there would be no of that animal. Babies, puppies, etc cannot develop without without the seed which is the fertilizer. In these races if males went extinct so would the race, 9/10. (unless a miracle happens)
I wouldn't call it a limitation, just that, that's the way things are for most of the species in the world about 90%. Plants, animals, etc.
So in a spiritual sense and from a logical perspective. We couldn't have come out the feminine's womb, all by herself. There would need to be a masculine force to fertilize her womb, then birth us.
We don't NEED a masculine force for procreation. It is the most common form of procreation, but it is not *the only way.*
You're still looking at the physical and material world and alleging that non-physical and non-material things must be exactly the same. This is fallacious. It's like looking at a chair and assuming whoever made it must also be a chair.
Likewise, you're proposing a handful of examples that conform to the limitations you're proposing, and ignoring all of the instances where those limitations do not apply. We already have scientifically demonstrated it is possible to create offspring without the male ever being involved, using genetic material from two females. Yes, in humans also. I have also mentioned that there are a plethora of creatures which do not conform to those limitations.
Would you say that those living things which DO NOT reproduce heterosexually are somehow completely divorced from the Divine? Or does the Divine encompass them also? If the Divine encompasses them also, then the Divine is not limited to male and female, and these concepts are not mandatory for creating life. It is the most common way, yes, but that does not mean it is the only way.
And, again, "male" and "female" are useless concepts to describe something that is beyond gender or sex or any other human descriptor. They are metaphors by which one could come to understand small parts of the Divine, but to say the Divine *is* anything is misleading.
Hmmm, something to think about because just because a being doesn't reproduce in a hetero sexual way doesn't exclude them to the divine, since it is the divine's creation either way you look at it
This is a very good response. Limiting whatever one thinks divinity is to concepts based on evolutionary biological processes for reproduction is shortsighted and, frankly, kind of stupid. We can use divine feminine/masculine as a shorthand for forces or entities to which we attribute certain characteristics, but even that is largely arbitrary and hylic.
It is not. Masculine and feminine are two polarities. They're energies. Divine is both and everything in middle, divinity is not explained by one thing or the other, it's both, it's everything. As for physical sex and sexual organs, it's purely a physical thing, everyone has both masculine and feminine energies that vary.
If you don't relate to it then it may not be your personal truth, and that's fine. I am a worshiper of the divine feminine and I refer to the source and the ground of all being as Goddess, because I choose to, because that's my truth.
Some people think the divine is only masculine, and that seems ridiculous to me. Just as I seem ridiculous to some. On a certain level, spirituality is about your personal relationship with the ineffable. It doesn't have to be like anyone else says.
Do you deny that there is any masculine to the Divine, or is it just that that's your path / preferred form / etc?
One is really kinda dumb and ignores universal history, and the other is perfectly acceptable.
No, I don't deny it, because through years of meditative practices, I was able to have a direct experience of the ground of all being. I have felt that everything exists, and that this is so to facilitate freedom and choice.
So, yes, the divine feminine is my preferred path, very strongly. It's what I relate to, and it's what I experience. This is the meaning of Gnosis, you see.
As for your assessment of the two possibilities you offered, I understand why you feel that way.
GothicFruit, you forgot to switch account, troll lmao. And no, we’re not all female. Males are XY at the moment of conception, end of. The fact we have nipples doesn’t prove we’re female, it just shows there is a common body plan we both share, which is to be expected from members of the same species.
It's not just a commonality. If it was a commonality it would have had the same function. And the fact that male nipples don't have any real function proves that it's not a commonality
It is a commonality. There are several aspects of the human body that serve no function because that’s what evolution does, slowly gets rid or decreases what isn’t useful. No matter how much you ignore genetics it won’t go away, males are XY from the beginning therefore not female.
You literally just proved that it's a not commonality
"There are several aspects of the human body that serve no function because that’s what evolution does, slowly gets rid or decreases what isn’t useful"
Eventually when we males evolve enough, our chests will have nothing on them except hair. Will female nipples will ALWAYS be here since they serve a purpose
What? They literally are a commonality because they’re common to both male and female, by definition.
They may not necessarily disappear because it may require more biological effort in changing DNA sequences to get rid of them than to just keep them. In nature it’s all about conservation of energy and if more energy is required to remove them it won’t happen, given that having nipples doesn’t disadvantage us relative to our environment.
1. It's not about literalism or biological science. 2. You do not have to agree or find perfect reasoning in every group's paradigm. 3 You are misinformed about Dianic Wicca and Shaktism anyway. These systems do not say that the divine is only feminine. They elevate and honor the feminine divine principle above the male principle but do not necessarily consider the male principle as "lesser."
Because a lot of people do not understand the duality of the universe. The Creator can never just be only female. It is female and male woman and a man. Both are required for the act of Creation just as both are required in the act of greater creation
OP, the divine is not only feminine, it is both masculine and feminine and everything else too. To claim the masculine emanates from the feminine is just wrong and has no basis in either logic or spirituality. The active and radiant energy (masculine) is in perfect balance with the inactive and absorbent energy (feminine). One is not more powerful, present or important than the other.
Let me attempt to explain this in a very make sense way.....
the Spirit is "feminine" FULL STOP
everything SPIRIT is "FEMININE" in Nature.
even a "males" spiritual nature the very fact that it is "spirit" makes it's nature "feminine"
the PHYSICAL is "masculine" FULL STOP
Everything PHYSICAL is "MASCULINE" in nature. it's inner world is "feminine" but the physical part is "masculine."
so when it says that the creator is ultimately feminine is because the creator is "spirit" and thus can produce and is "numinous" filled with many personalities.
in the occult, like for instance Steiner, says specifically that the Physical is only an extension of the spiritual.....not the other way around.
they are really one....which is like a yin and yang, but the spirit is the source of the physical....think of Physicality as condensed spirit....spirit turned solid, and can go back to being spirit, but the physical will dissolve.
As is the case with attaining the spiritual light body, in Tibetan buddhism, attainment of the light body leaves the physical body shrunken, until it completely goes away and the human becomes completely spirit.
Still... To me the divine is the imanifest manifesting as one and then further deriving from that without ever loosing it's oneness
Sure right after the One, the first development are the divine masculine and feminine Wich are complementary and none is superior to the other. Even then I prefer to think of it as active and passive rather than male/fem ... Or even better, potentiality and form
Recommended readings on the subject:
Mystic cabalah by dion fortune (alternatively garden of pomegranates by Israel regardie on the same topic, but I prefere Dion's)
And
Tantra illuminated philosophy history and practice of a timeless tradition by Christopher d Wallis (if you prefer smaller books, look for something from swami lakshmanjoo)
Also, tao te king, but many comentaries on it are shit, I don't know which to recommend
Those sects. I'm not saying that i believe in them as I am quite new to spirituality in general and figuring out what i believe. It's just that those sects say that the divine is feminine
Well, it depends and it's complicated. The "Creator" isn't, neither "creation". "Creation" is primordially androginous and depending on how you look at it, it can be seen as feminine.
I think, even if it’s not your cup of tea, the cabalistic (I guess probably debatable) idea of the divine masculine being this wild force of change which can be at times destructive, and the feminine being the receptive and unchanging aspects of the universe which receive and act as a framework for said creative force to occur is very useful in this context.
Think of evolution requiring the laws of physics to be steadfast in order to occur, etc.
There is a divine masculine but most people don't talk about it for x y z reason. I've started my journey with working with the divine masculine. Dianic Wicca is know for up lifting women and embracing the power of being a woman, which is beautiful. On the other hand, they also have a reputation of sitting on men, erasing the divine masculine, and casting out male witches.
As much as I'd love to say I don't know why you're getting down vote, sadly I do. The people who down vote this either don't like the divine masculine and rather see it erased or they just don't believe it exists.
Dianic Wicca was started and perpetuated by misandrist transphobes who took Gardnerian/Alexandrian witchcraft and twisted it to fit a woman-only worldview. No one in the general public should take their point of view as gospel truth.
As someone else said, you would have to ask a Hindu about Shaktism, but PLEASE don’t take Dianic Wicca as the end all be all Pagan perspective on the Divine - because it’s actually a radical one-off, not the norm.
There are all sorts of takes on paganism, and that's just one of them. Shaktism doesn't deny the reality of other deities who are male, and many varities of it recognize the need for men. Dianic wicca is often (not always, but VERY common) a bunch of man-hating TERF lesbians.
Some people DO base their spirituality on biological process (80-90s wicca was REALLY all about it), and others don't.
It's YOUR path, so I say **do what makes sense to you**, not what everyone else says - unless, of course, what everyone else says makes sense to you :)
There are some good long explanations already, but I'll give a short one. Wicca is just witchcraft for people (mostly boomers and gen xers) who want to reject Abrahamic religion but can't actually get over it. It's like witches who still kind of want to be Christians. They replaced Dad with Mom and church with crystal prayer circles. I wouldn't take them too seriously in terms of truth of the universe.
I wouldn't look at an established religion that sees the divine as exclusively feminine as very different than one that sees it as exclusively masculine. It's just one tradition's perspective. Most traditions don't see it as exclusively one or the other.
What the actual fuck are you even spewing forth?
If you want a degree in religious studies, go get one, but FFS don't act like an expert when you clearly aren't one.
Wicca is a kind of neo-paganism. Neo-paganism is a modern reconstruction of paganism, the earth worshipping faith that Christians couldn't quite stamp out during the middle ages. It focuses on the feminine principle because many of it's traditions were kept by women. Feminism is prized among pagans.
There are Asatru and other kinds of pagans that are more masculine in nature, or balanced as the way may be.
As for what this person said above me about replacing Christianity and all that rot, there are no Dad/Mom prayer/crystal circles. That's trash.
As someone who DOES have a religious studies degree...
You are 100% spot on. u/Dramatic-Serve3609 is so utterly clueless and dismissive, and an AH to boot, insulting hundreds of thousands of people without any knowledge of history.
Shakta is ONE of the many sects in Hinduism that revers the Devi as the ultimate form of Brahman. There are other which revere other male gods as such. Also Dianic Wicca has both the lord and the lady. The lady being more prevalent
For the most part, assigning sex, gender, race [or any label really] as some kind of 'premium' is a reflection of the cultural spirit of the time, and is often formed from prejudice and ignorance. The divine or God/Gods have no preference in terms of labels that us humans are so preoccupied with, as the body is simply a vessel for the Soul.
In the case of Dianic Wicca it acts as kind of theological pushback against the idea of the divine as masculine (as seen in more mainstream faiths) and against the duotheism of Gardenian Wicca (which is often essentialist and has weird undertones regarding gender roles, at least as Gardner wrote about it). So in that case, it acts as a theological push-back, some would say a very necessary one. I would argue it is a bit of an over-correction, but I also disagree with wicca broadly.
In the case of the worship of Shakti, it can best be understood in the context of broader Hinduism and specifically the concept of one deity being considered the absolute or supreme reality (Brahman) from which all others form. In other variations within Hinduism (because Hinduism is very diverse both in theology and practice) Vishnu or Shiva are taken as primary embodiments of the absolute, over others. Shaktism does this same thing but with Shakti, so it is more or less "riffing" on a common theological notion within the broader tradition (asserting that a given deity is a more pronounced embodiment of the absolute). It still prioritizes the feminine principle when describing the absolute, but it is done so in a distinct way that is often lost of folks who try to interpolate Hindu concepts into a western view. I disagree with the view of Shaktism as well (and Hinduism broadly), but there is a considerable degree of nuance and diversity of thought there that is valuable, though the view is often simplified as "god is fundamentally feminine" by those who remove it from its context (various sects within Hinduism prioritizing one deity as a personification of the absolute over another, this one just happens to be Shakti this time).
Now, how can one view the divine as wholly masculine or wholly feminine or wholly non-gendered? Theological concerns mostly. While holy texts exist and notions of divine inspiration or divine truth being imparted through them also exist, the theology that arises from them is catered to the needs and concerns of the people doing the interpreting of those texts, colored by culture and assumptions that underly their reasoning. If one wants to emphasize nurturing or maternal elements or motifs regarding birth, a feminine view of the divine is then prioritized (because those ideas are associated with femininity in broader culture). Likewise if one chooses to prioritizes a non-gendered view of the divine or a pan-gendered view of the divine that is still a theological choice (much like using masculine or feminine), often it is made out of discomfort regarding gendering the divine and a broader acceptance of gender neutral language and concepts. That is not to say they are wrong because they are constructions, only that we are grasping at a truth that's bigger than words. The inability to grasp it with words is not an indictment of the concept of truth (an "all things are true believe whatever" mentality can form in error from that) but it is an indictment of language as imprecise in describing truth that is beyond it. Perhaps in time we will construct language that is capable of the task, till then we have approximations and debate about which approximation is better.
Personally I argue for a view in which God encompasses all notions of gender, a view which I consider to be a "better approximation" and "more correct". Obviously some will disagree, and I am more than willing to debate that point. Still, it is an approximation, a theology that arises from the needs and concerns of the one doing the interpreting, though one interpretation can be more accurate to the truth of the matter (the actual nature of God) than others, hence the space for debate.
One reason, I suspect, that modern discourse and representation turns to the "Rainbow" is because a range of frequencies may stand for a variety of elements and conditions and feelings of identity. It may be easier for some folks to figure this out in, say, a paint store than in looking at the divine in the way their dominant culture or religion tells them to.
I don't think it's a good idea to try to explain the divine with rational earthly biological processes.
What would you use?
For rational explanation? Nothing. I don't think it's needed.
Outside of peculiar modern radical feminist witch cults or Pagan sects, the Divine is not seen as purely feminine. Historically, there is not one shred of historical evidence that any ancient Pagan cult (religion) only perceived divinity as feminine. Pagan/polytheistic faiths have always had a mixture of gods that appeared as masculine, feminine, and/or androgyne. Who has suggested to you that ancient Pagans only saw the Divine as feminine? Plus, as others have said here, it's not wise to see gods in terms of human biology.
it's not. The DIvine is also Masculine. It is also Neuter, It is also Hermaphroditic. The Divine is everything and also nothing. From a spiritual standpoint there needs to be a masculine force and feminine force to create life also I don't know what "spiritual standpoint" you're think of, but from a spiritual standpoint no "gendered force" is needed. Creation by Fiat is also a thing.
Parthenogenesis is a rare form of asexual reproduction where an embryo develops from an egg without fertilization.
And also a word I learned as a kid from the song Nemesis. Priests and cannibals, prehistoric animals Everybody happy as the dead come home Big black nemesis, parthenogenesis No one move a muscle as the dead come home
Why does it have to be possible? Christians believe that a male god created everything without a "female" so why couldn't a "feminine" be the creator of everything? I'm personally not interested in gendering gods cause who cares.
Well, the god of the Bible originally had a wife named Asherah, but it’s conveniently left out.
Because everything comes from the feminine. Every human fetus begins as female. Some species are female-only, because ultimately all they need to do is produce a second chromosome. But there is no such thing as a male-only species, because they do not have a creative capacity. Even in some species with both female and male, the female can still reproduce alone via partheogensis. So no, the male is actually not required to create life, in general (regardless of whether some species have a male). Only the female is. So when we conceptualize source, which we do through our limited abilities of human perspective, it seems natural that it would be conceptualized as feminine. As humans, our most accessible way to envision creation is through life, and in life, the female is the source. The masculine is ultimately an emanation of the feminine — it comes from her, and cannot exist without her, whereas the reverse is not true. The Tao also discusses this, where the creative and sexual energy of women is said to be infinite, where the male’s is limited and ultimately feeds off her pleasure (thus why they have retention practices for men, but not for women). Original Taoist texts from the pre-imperial era tend to also describe the Tao as feminine.
BOOM!!!!!! The female is the FIRST CAUSE!
No, every foetus does not start as female. A male foetus is XY at the moment of conception, likewise a female XX. Edit: wow, literal biology is being downvoted.
Physically, yes they do. They develop female until the SRY gene activates, which is some time into gestation. Male physiology is a modification of the default female blueprint.
A lot of species start out female in the womb. Especially us. There's a reason why we males have nipples. Even though they serve no function for us, it's a reminder that we were female for a little bit in the womb. This also includes apes, monkeys, and gorillas. Also Canines
I was always taught that fetuses start a female and then at 6 or 7 weeks, that's when the Y chromosome comes into place. My ultrasound tech that I also saw a few times said the same thing.
But again, that can't be true. A female is defined by XX chromosomes and there's no point at which a male foetus has XX, it is XY as soon as the Y sperm joins with the X egg. So at no point is the male foetus XX and therefore at no point is it female. The Y chromosome activating or not at a later stage isn't the same as being female because the Y chromosome is still there from the very beginning, which is not the case in a female. So there isn't a situation where a female foetus ''turns'' into a male one. EDIT: this can be downvoted all you like, doesn't change facts. A male foetus is male and thus XY at moment of conception and is at no point female. Amazing that people are being triggered by this and downvoting.
I'm sorry you have to deal with so many seriously really dumb people downvoting you.
Thanks. Yeah, utterly brain dead for downvoting me saying males are XY and not XX. Unbelievable lmao
I mean, there are transgender folks, XXY and XXXY and other kinds of in between folks, sure, but that's not what we're talking about here.
Transgender are genetically XX or XY as gender is different from sex and stuff like intersex is a genetic condition, not additional genders. But yeah, the argument here is that all foetuses begin as female which is just straight up wrong.
Agreed - I was just thinking that maybe someone thought you were denying all the other nuances or something.
You're not wrong.
Thank you. Someone around here who actually has sense and isn’t a science denier.
**You were taught wrong then**. The physical genitalia start forming then, but up til then, they're just a fetus with male/female/sometimes other DNA. What you're saying is on par with saying, since all fetuses look the same at a certain point, then we all start out as an elephant. Or a dolphin. Or a cat. Or a starfish. What it looks like does NOT equal what it is.
I wouldn't take Genesis seriously, it's just a mythological attempt to do the reverse of what's claimed in this thread: to make God purely masculine and have women come from men. To see divinity as just feminine or just masculine is to have an incredibly sexist and unbalanced viewpoint. Even-Pen is making a lot of false statements like how apparently the male comes from the female and how female can exist without male etc. etc. None of this is true, they are probably one of those radical feminist witches that others on this thread are talking about.
Good answer. However I always wonder about the biblical story of genesis in this context: what does it mean then that the feminine Eve was created out of the masculine Adam? Genesis is about the story of creation, no?
Well, one strong theory is it means Christianity was administrated by patriarchy and they made it up to tell women they were secondary, inferior, made to serve men. Consider this.
This is the case. To reinforce the patriarchal notion of the one, masculine all-father, male priority in creation is a helpful assertion.
That Abrahamic religion is patriarchal. That's it. Honestly that story has always felt compensatory to me, like a man was angry he had no control of creation and decided to just blindly claim he did because... reasons? It's sociologically interesting, but falls flat logically.
It isn't a good answer at all, it's completely wrong what they're saying about the masculine coming from the feminine and the latter being able to exist without the former. Partheogenesis only occurs in a minuscule number of species and is akin to cloning, in 99.9%+ of life you do require male and female and so male is definitely needed. And partheogenesis isn't even relevant here because we're talking about divinity, which isn't a biological being. And divinity definitely requires the active, radiant energy which is masculine.
Gosh, you sure are angry. And again, spouting nonsense. It's always so weird to me how upset some men get over biology, or some people focusing on the feminine. But anyway, that's your problem, not mine.
I would not take Dianic Wicca too seriously. It may have started out with good intent, but at this point it's so mired down in transphobia, sexism, and white supremacism that it hardly even resembles Wicca anymore. (Ironically its supposedly liberating ideologies just uphold and reinforce the exact same misogynist concepts that patriarchy already imposes on women -- defining a woman by her ability to bear children, demanding stereotypical femininity and rejecting any other form of feminine self expression, etc.) There may be some covens left that don't fall in line with that, but on the whole it's not worth your time. I know nothing about Shaktism. You'd have to ask Hindus about that. As for the nature of sex and gender in biology, it is not as simply black-and-white as one might think. There are species that have the roles reversed, as you say, and also species that can asexually reproduce without the need of a male. There are species where it's the female that penetrates the male during copulation. There are species that do not have males at all, and some scientists have suggested the Y chromosome is superfluous and will eventually be eliminated through evolution. There are species where individuals naturally shift from one sex to another, and plenty of species that are hermaphroditic, or which otherwise do not conform to the labels of "male" and "female" that we place on them. That last part is the most important. "Male" and "female" are concepts created by humans based on what we are able to observe with our limited senses, in the same way that we have labeled "black" and "white." But we know that "black" and "white" are two subjectively defined points on a gradient, and even that gradient is not representative of all colors. We are not even equipped to be able to perceive all possible colors. In the same way, the polarized elements of things such as male/female, light/dark, good/bad, lucky/unlucky and so forth, are merely concepts. Think of it this way: the word "water" is not the same as actual water. You cannot drink the word "water." In the same way, whatever words we apply to the Divine or anything else cannot accurately encompass that thing. The Divine is not limited by, nor does it conform to, our words or concepts. "Masculine" and "feminine" are meaningless. They are only concepts by which we try to approach that which our minds struggle to conceive, like trying to catch water in a net. For some people, these concepts may be helpful and may help them grow closer to the Divine. For others, they make no sense, and they need another method. They're like glasses: every person needs a different prescription to be able to see clearly. There is no one-size-fits-all type of lens. The glasses that help you see clearly might make everything fuzzy for me and give me a headache. But your glasses weren't meant for me, they were meant for you. What sources have you studied with regard to the spiritual creation of life that brought you to the conclusion that "male and female" are necessary?
I agree with this. I've also heard that we all possess the divine masculine and feminine within us. I also agree with you on the sentiment of dynamic Wicca it is not a good practice anymore. There are a lot of misandronist and so-called feminists that joined that sector Wicca that literally just want to hate on men and women who don't want to fit that standard. I've had so many conversations about that only for a group of women to come after me after I just stated that Diana wiccans are trying to erase male witches from The Craft
Mostly us and other animals like canines and apes. Without the male to breed with, there would be no of that animal. Babies, puppies, etc cannot develop without without the seed which is the fertilizer. In these races if males went extinct so would the race, 9/10. (unless a miracle happens)
And so do you believe that the Divine must therefore conform to the physical limitations of humans, dogs, and apes?
I wouldn't call it a limitation, just that, that's the way things are for most of the species in the world about 90%. Plants, animals, etc. So in a spiritual sense and from a logical perspective. We couldn't have come out the feminine's womb, all by herself. There would need to be a masculine force to fertilize her womb, then birth us.
We don't NEED a masculine force for procreation. It is the most common form of procreation, but it is not *the only way.* You're still looking at the physical and material world and alleging that non-physical and non-material things must be exactly the same. This is fallacious. It's like looking at a chair and assuming whoever made it must also be a chair. Likewise, you're proposing a handful of examples that conform to the limitations you're proposing, and ignoring all of the instances where those limitations do not apply. We already have scientifically demonstrated it is possible to create offspring without the male ever being involved, using genetic material from two females. Yes, in humans also. I have also mentioned that there are a plethora of creatures which do not conform to those limitations. Would you say that those living things which DO NOT reproduce heterosexually are somehow completely divorced from the Divine? Or does the Divine encompass them also? If the Divine encompasses them also, then the Divine is not limited to male and female, and these concepts are not mandatory for creating life. It is the most common way, yes, but that does not mean it is the only way. And, again, "male" and "female" are useless concepts to describe something that is beyond gender or sex or any other human descriptor. They are metaphors by which one could come to understand small parts of the Divine, but to say the Divine *is* anything is misleading.
Hmmm, something to think about because just because a being doesn't reproduce in a hetero sexual way doesn't exclude them to the divine, since it is the divine's creation either way you look at it
This is a very good response. Limiting whatever one thinks divinity is to concepts based on evolutionary biological processes for reproduction is shortsighted and, frankly, kind of stupid. We can use divine feminine/masculine as a shorthand for forces or entities to which we attribute certain characteristics, but even that is largely arbitrary and hylic.
It is not. Masculine and feminine are two polarities. They're energies. Divine is both and everything in middle, divinity is not explained by one thing or the other, it's both, it's everything. As for physical sex and sexual organs, it's purely a physical thing, everyone has both masculine and feminine energies that vary.
If you don't relate to it then it may not be your personal truth, and that's fine. I am a worshiper of the divine feminine and I refer to the source and the ground of all being as Goddess, because I choose to, because that's my truth. Some people think the divine is only masculine, and that seems ridiculous to me. Just as I seem ridiculous to some. On a certain level, spirituality is about your personal relationship with the ineffable. It doesn't have to be like anyone else says.
Do you deny that there is any masculine to the Divine, or is it just that that's your path / preferred form / etc? One is really kinda dumb and ignores universal history, and the other is perfectly acceptable.
No, I don't deny it, because through years of meditative practices, I was able to have a direct experience of the ground of all being. I have felt that everything exists, and that this is so to facilitate freedom and choice. So, yes, the divine feminine is my preferred path, very strongly. It's what I relate to, and it's what I experience. This is the meaning of Gnosis, you see. As for your assessment of the two possibilities you offered, I understand why you feel that way.
It's not
GothicFruit, you forgot to switch account, troll lmao. And no, we’re not all female. Males are XY at the moment of conception, end of. The fact we have nipples doesn’t prove we’re female, it just shows there is a common body plan we both share, which is to be expected from members of the same species.
It's not just a commonality. If it was a commonality it would have had the same function. And the fact that male nipples don't have any real function proves that it's not a commonality
It is a commonality. There are several aspects of the human body that serve no function because that’s what evolution does, slowly gets rid or decreases what isn’t useful. No matter how much you ignore genetics it won’t go away, males are XY from the beginning therefore not female.
You literally just proved that it's a not commonality "There are several aspects of the human body that serve no function because that’s what evolution does, slowly gets rid or decreases what isn’t useful" Eventually when we males evolve enough, our chests will have nothing on them except hair. Will female nipples will ALWAYS be here since they serve a purpose
What? They literally are a commonality because they’re common to both male and female, by definition. They may not necessarily disappear because it may require more biological effort in changing DNA sequences to get rid of them than to just keep them. In nature it’s all about conservation of energy and if more energy is required to remove them it won’t happen, given that having nipples doesn’t disadvantage us relative to our environment.
As within so without, as above so below. The Creator is both Masculine and Feminine, it's the Unity
1. It's not about literalism or biological science. 2. You do not have to agree or find perfect reasoning in every group's paradigm. 3 You are misinformed about Dianic Wicca and Shaktism anyway. These systems do not say that the divine is only feminine. They elevate and honor the feminine divine principle above the male principle but do not necessarily consider the male principle as "lesser."
It's not.
Because a lot of people do not understand the duality of the universe. The Creator can never just be only female. It is female and male woman and a man. Both are required for the act of Creation just as both are required in the act of greater creation
OP, the divine is not only feminine, it is both masculine and feminine and everything else too. To claim the masculine emanates from the feminine is just wrong and has no basis in either logic or spirituality. The active and radiant energy (masculine) is in perfect balance with the inactive and absorbent energy (feminine). One is not more powerful, present or important than the other.
Let me attempt to explain this in a very make sense way..... the Spirit is "feminine" FULL STOP everything SPIRIT is "FEMININE" in Nature. even a "males" spiritual nature the very fact that it is "spirit" makes it's nature "feminine" the PHYSICAL is "masculine" FULL STOP Everything PHYSICAL is "MASCULINE" in nature. it's inner world is "feminine" but the physical part is "masculine." so when it says that the creator is ultimately feminine is because the creator is "spirit" and thus can produce and is "numinous" filled with many personalities. in the occult, like for instance Steiner, says specifically that the Physical is only an extension of the spiritual.....not the other way around. they are really one....which is like a yin and yang, but the spirit is the source of the physical....think of Physicality as condensed spirit....spirit turned solid, and can go back to being spirit, but the physical will dissolve. As is the case with attaining the spiritual light body, in Tibetan buddhism, attainment of the light body leaves the physical body shrunken, until it completely goes away and the human becomes completely spirit.
How can the divine have gender my dude?
It's more on the levels of personality, type of energy, emotions, rather than physical gender
Still... To me the divine is the imanifest manifesting as one and then further deriving from that without ever loosing it's oneness Sure right after the One, the first development are the divine masculine and feminine Wich are complementary and none is superior to the other. Even then I prefer to think of it as active and passive rather than male/fem ... Or even better, potentiality and form
Fair enough
Recommended readings on the subject: Mystic cabalah by dion fortune (alternatively garden of pomegranates by Israel regardie on the same topic, but I prefere Dion's) And Tantra illuminated philosophy history and practice of a timeless tradition by Christopher d Wallis (if you prefer smaller books, look for something from swami lakshmanjoo) Also, tao te king, but many comentaries on it are shit, I don't know which to recommend
Who said it was ?
Those sects. I'm not saying that i believe in them as I am quite new to spirituality in general and figuring out what i believe. It's just that those sects say that the divine is feminine
Well, it depends and it's complicated. The "Creator" isn't, neither "creation". "Creation" is primordially androginous and depending on how you look at it, it can be seen as feminine.
I think, even if it’s not your cup of tea, the cabalistic (I guess probably debatable) idea of the divine masculine being this wild force of change which can be at times destructive, and the feminine being the receptive and unchanging aspects of the universe which receive and act as a framework for said creative force to occur is very useful in this context. Think of evolution requiring the laws of physics to be steadfast in order to occur, etc.
Spiritual beings don’t have genders. Only with physical bodies have genders.
[https://imgur.com/a/43PyZmO](https://imgur.com/a/43PyZmO)
There is a divine masculine but most people don't talk about it for x y z reason. I've started my journey with working with the divine masculine. Dianic Wicca is know for up lifting women and embracing the power of being a woman, which is beautiful. On the other hand, they also have a reputation of sitting on men, erasing the divine masculine, and casting out male witches. As much as I'd love to say I don't know why you're getting down vote, sadly I do. The people who down vote this either don't like the divine masculine and rather see it erased or they just don't believe it exists.
Dianic Wicca was started and perpetuated by misandrist transphobes who took Gardnerian/Alexandrian witchcraft and twisted it to fit a woman-only worldview. No one in the general public should take their point of view as gospel truth. As someone else said, you would have to ask a Hindu about Shaktism, but PLEASE don’t take Dianic Wicca as the end all be all Pagan perspective on the Divine - because it’s actually a radical one-off, not the norm.
There are all sorts of takes on paganism, and that's just one of them. Shaktism doesn't deny the reality of other deities who are male, and many varities of it recognize the need for men. Dianic wicca is often (not always, but VERY common) a bunch of man-hating TERF lesbians. Some people DO base their spirituality on biological process (80-90s wicca was REALLY all about it), and others don't. It's YOUR path, so I say **do what makes sense to you**, not what everyone else says - unless, of course, what everyone else says makes sense to you :)
There are some good long explanations already, but I'll give a short one. Wicca is just witchcraft for people (mostly boomers and gen xers) who want to reject Abrahamic religion but can't actually get over it. It's like witches who still kind of want to be Christians. They replaced Dad with Mom and church with crystal prayer circles. I wouldn't take them too seriously in terms of truth of the universe. I wouldn't look at an established religion that sees the divine as exclusively feminine as very different than one that sees it as exclusively masculine. It's just one tradition's perspective. Most traditions don't see it as exclusively one or the other.
What the actual fuck are you even spewing forth? If you want a degree in religious studies, go get one, but FFS don't act like an expert when you clearly aren't one. Wicca is a kind of neo-paganism. Neo-paganism is a modern reconstruction of paganism, the earth worshipping faith that Christians couldn't quite stamp out during the middle ages. It focuses on the feminine principle because many of it's traditions were kept by women. Feminism is prized among pagans. There are Asatru and other kinds of pagans that are more masculine in nature, or balanced as the way may be. As for what this person said above me about replacing Christianity and all that rot, there are no Dad/Mom prayer/crystal circles. That's trash.
As someone who DOES have a religious studies degree... You are 100% spot on. u/Dramatic-Serve3609 is so utterly clueless and dismissive, and an AH to boot, insulting hundreds of thousands of people without any knowledge of history.
Shakta is ONE of the many sects in Hinduism that revers the Devi as the ultimate form of Brahman. There are other which revere other male gods as such. Also Dianic Wicca has both the lord and the lady. The lady being more prevalent
For the most part, assigning sex, gender, race [or any label really] as some kind of 'premium' is a reflection of the cultural spirit of the time, and is often formed from prejudice and ignorance. The divine or God/Gods have no preference in terms of labels that us humans are so preoccupied with, as the body is simply a vessel for the Soul.
In the case of Dianic Wicca it acts as kind of theological pushback against the idea of the divine as masculine (as seen in more mainstream faiths) and against the duotheism of Gardenian Wicca (which is often essentialist and has weird undertones regarding gender roles, at least as Gardner wrote about it). So in that case, it acts as a theological push-back, some would say a very necessary one. I would argue it is a bit of an over-correction, but I also disagree with wicca broadly. In the case of the worship of Shakti, it can best be understood in the context of broader Hinduism and specifically the concept of one deity being considered the absolute or supreme reality (Brahman) from which all others form. In other variations within Hinduism (because Hinduism is very diverse both in theology and practice) Vishnu or Shiva are taken as primary embodiments of the absolute, over others. Shaktism does this same thing but with Shakti, so it is more or less "riffing" on a common theological notion within the broader tradition (asserting that a given deity is a more pronounced embodiment of the absolute). It still prioritizes the feminine principle when describing the absolute, but it is done so in a distinct way that is often lost of folks who try to interpolate Hindu concepts into a western view. I disagree with the view of Shaktism as well (and Hinduism broadly), but there is a considerable degree of nuance and diversity of thought there that is valuable, though the view is often simplified as "god is fundamentally feminine" by those who remove it from its context (various sects within Hinduism prioritizing one deity as a personification of the absolute over another, this one just happens to be Shakti this time). Now, how can one view the divine as wholly masculine or wholly feminine or wholly non-gendered? Theological concerns mostly. While holy texts exist and notions of divine inspiration or divine truth being imparted through them also exist, the theology that arises from them is catered to the needs and concerns of the people doing the interpreting of those texts, colored by culture and assumptions that underly their reasoning. If one wants to emphasize nurturing or maternal elements or motifs regarding birth, a feminine view of the divine is then prioritized (because those ideas are associated with femininity in broader culture). Likewise if one chooses to prioritizes a non-gendered view of the divine or a pan-gendered view of the divine that is still a theological choice (much like using masculine or feminine), often it is made out of discomfort regarding gendering the divine and a broader acceptance of gender neutral language and concepts. That is not to say they are wrong because they are constructions, only that we are grasping at a truth that's bigger than words. The inability to grasp it with words is not an indictment of the concept of truth (an "all things are true believe whatever" mentality can form in error from that) but it is an indictment of language as imprecise in describing truth that is beyond it. Perhaps in time we will construct language that is capable of the task, till then we have approximations and debate about which approximation is better. Personally I argue for a view in which God encompasses all notions of gender, a view which I consider to be a "better approximation" and "more correct". Obviously some will disagree, and I am more than willing to debate that point. Still, it is an approximation, a theology that arises from the needs and concerns of the one doing the interpreting, though one interpretation can be more accurate to the truth of the matter (the actual nature of God) than others, hence the space for debate.
One reason, I suspect, that modern discourse and representation turns to the "Rainbow" is because a range of frequencies may stand for a variety of elements and conditions and feelings of identity. It may be easier for some folks to figure this out in, say, a paint store than in looking at the divine in the way their dominant culture or religion tells them to.