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Dear Readers,
You’re invited to visit my website www.lynnesims.com
each time you receive my Albeit newsletter. It contains
helpful and humorous information throughout its pages, which
include:
· Home Page
· Albeit Archive
·
Resources
· Vital Statistics
· FYI
(for your information)
· About Lynne
·
Giggles Page, and
· Poems. |
I’m especially interested in your feedback, which you
can provide by clicking on the Email
Lynne tab provided for your convenience. My goal is to
add new material to each page every week; and I will greatly
appreciate your recommending my website and Albeit
newsletters to your friends, family, and peers. Thank you!
And now, on with the latest edition…
‘Copts’ and Robbers
What started in Egypt, the African land of humans’
origin, more than 4,000 years ago has morphed into the world’s
religions of today.
The Sun (Re or Ra) was our ancient ancestors’ first
deity. Sun’s only enemy was darkness, which occurred
when Sun disappeared below the horizon each night. But Sun
was not allowed to rest after descending, as ‘his’
job was to fight the darkness ‘underground’ and
emerge victorious with each new dawn of day.
As time passed, Sun ‘spat out’ the children of
Earth, and a subsequent cadre of nine lesser gods and goddesses
were born in their imaginations. They ruled the air, moisture,
sky, earth, fertility, the underworld, crops, death, and darkness—everything
associated with daily life. The gods and goddesses were said
to be able to merge with each other, and thus began the pantheon
of many gods, both ‘national’ and local.
Isis, whose name meant ‘Queen of the throne,’
was worshipped as the archetypal wife and mother— the
Mother Goddess of fertility and life. She was relegated to
second chair in the orchestration of early deities, subjugated
by Re, the supreme Sun God. They were later joined by her
incestuous boy-child when her earthly husband was murdered.
This son was subsequently proclaimed the God-King (half deity,
half human). Descendants of the God-King known as Pharaohs
became the ‘bigger than life’ rulers of ancient
Egypt, and demanded to be worshipped by ‘ordinary’
humans.
For thousands of years, homo-sapiens exited and re-entered
the fertile Nile delta, and the mixture of loam, home, and
homos became richer and more diversified. The bouquet of cultures,
beliefs, and allegiances changed with each passing tourist,
season, and advancement of intelligence.
Members of a people descended from these ancient Egyptians
were labeled as ‘Copts’ (ca. 1520) by the Monophysite
Christian church originating and centered in Egypt. Jews of
The Old Testament, and eventually Muslims with their Koran,
recognized only God and Allah in their monotheistic styles
of worship.
By this time, the originally enthroned Egyptian ‘trinity’
of Father (Re), Mother (Isis), and Son (Horus) had been replaced
by the triple-male figure heads Christians worship today—Father,
Son, and Holy Ghost all rolled into one. Jews and Muslims
however stuck to their polytheist God. ‘Mother,’
although still honored but not necessarily worshipped, was
ultimately replaced by the illusive ‘Holy Ghost’
of the early Coptic Church.
Why was the female gender side-lined in most of the world’s
ensuing major religions? Too busy birthing and nursing the
off-spring? Too unpredictable and mysterious? Lack of worldly
education? Too ‘magically’ intuitive? Too ethereal,
rather than ‘reasonable’? Scapegoats for men
to avoid the responsibilities of this life? (As one Burmese
girl explained in a recent documentary, the father’s
job is to prepare for the after-life, and it is the mother’s
job to prepare for this life. Ring any bells, ladies? This
separation of ‘roles’ could certainly be perceived
as consistent with the pie charts
on my Home Page, i.e., delegation of the world’s
working hours and imbalance of the distribution of the world’s
income. Apparently, it pays to be a man and always has!)
And yet in congregations (or on behalf of their religions),
don’t women do all the things that men don’t want
to do? Are not women of the major religions excluded from
decisions affecting their lives—directly or indirectly?
Are women allowed the same privileges as men; or are females
just used, excused, excluded, and abused by the rules perpetuating
the supremacy of men? Must women and girls eternally defend
and alter themselves to please the man-gods? The original
one God, Sun, was and still remains no respecter of persons,
and will one day snuff the lives of both genders without the
slightest differentiation, even if his-story may depict otherwise.
Who are the robbers of dignity bestowed upon women? When
and where and why was the sacred formula of honoring both
genders altered beyond recognition? Is there a way for women
to reinstate our queenly positions and place ourselves on
the thrones of balanced partnership in perpetuating the holy
human family? Or is it too late already?
These multiple questions have often been asked through whatever
medium was available to the questioners of such practices—most
recently The Da Vinci Code, a controversial book
and movie filled with Copts’ and robbers’ theories.
Perhaps the greatest lesson to be learned from asking these questions is that the human brain, once stretched to encase a new idea, will never revert to the way it was before asking. The very action of thinking is the rising sun of humanity’s potential immortality.
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