To put this post in some context I'll start by saying that it is essentially a cross-post from a blog I read a lot, Street Prophets. A writer who is one of the stronger representatives of pagan religions on that site had written a diary, Stages of Neopagan Reactions to Christians. Although the site is predominantly Christian, people of many faiths share stories and information about their religions so that we can all learn about each other's faiths and build a stronger sense of community and participation. For those of you unfamiliar with Street Prophets, it's a site run by a very cool pastor friend of mine, the purpose of which is to bring together people of faith who care about what's going on in our country (politically, for the most part). This site has become a tremendous community of great people and I count many of them as my friends.

I took offense at one of the commenters who said that information being presented on the history of goddess religions in a class he took on religious identity was "very strange" and was taking the position that it was all bunk. He went on to say:

Fact is, there has been rather a lot of nonsense put out there, I call it neo-feminist pseudo-history. And I haven't a lot of patience with people that are simply making this stuff up out of whole cloth.

I don't know exactly what was presented to him in his class, so I can't make any comments on the validity of the information being taught. However, there is much historical basis for acknowledging goddess worship as among the earliest religions.

Here is a good overview provided by ReligiousTolerance.org.

To add further historical perspective on goddess religions and the persecution of their adherents, here is an excerpt from the introduction to a scholarly work on the history of goddess worship When God Was a Woman by Merlin Stone:

In prehistoric and early historic periods of human development, religions existed in which people revered their supreme creator as female. The Great Goddess - the Divine Ancestress - had been worshipped from the beginnings of the Neolithic periods of 7000 BC until the closing of the last Goddess temples, about AD 500. Some authorities would extend Goddess worship as far into the past as the Upper Paleolithic Age of about 25,000 BC. Yet events of the Bible, which we are generally taught to think of as taking place "in the beginning of time," actually occurred in historic periods. Abraham, first prophet of the Hebrew-Christian god Yahweh, more familiarly known as Jehovah, is believed by most Bible scholars to have lived no earlier than 1800 BC and possibly as late as 1550 BC. Most significant is the realization that for thousands of years both religions existed simultaneously - among closely neighboring peoples. Archaeological, mythological and historical evidence all reveal that the female religion, far from naturally fading away, was the victim of centuries of continual persecution and suppression by the advocates of the newer religions which held male deities as supreme.

The reason that you would have been told that "goddess worshippers" were persecuted during the burning times is that the Christians were burning at the stake those people they viewed as a threat to their authority and those whom they believed to be witches. It was usually women practicing the old ways who were believed to be witches and therefore a large proportion of people who were persecuted during the burning times were women.

Traditionally, it was women who were skilled in how to use herbs to cure, were midwifes and practiced many other things that were construed as magic. In fact many people of Wiccan and other pagan faiths view the folk magic traditions practiced by the healers and mystics of early European peoples as the basis for their faith.

The commentor at Street Prophets remembered being told that Glastonbury Tor was the oldest religious artifact and believed this to be "bizarrely untrue." As far as Glastonbury Tor is concerned, I don't know enough about it even to speculate, but just a cursory glance at this website about it suggests that in the context of early pre-Christian religions there is enough evidence to suggest that it certainly is an archeologically important site, whether it is the oldest religious artifact or not. (In fact, I found it to be so interesting that I am planning to write a post on it later.)

It is not "neo-feminist pseudo history" to talk about the persecution of women throughout history because there is no disputing that fact. And it seems to me that the commenter missed the point entirely of the discussion of early goddess-worshipping cultures. On a site like Street Prophets, where the whole point is learning about and celebrating each other's religions in the contect of coming together as a community of people who care about what's happening in our world, I found the comments offensive.

On a site like Blogickal, I couldn't resist sharing my proud moment of righteous indignation!

Posted by Angela-Eloise at 9:16 AM