…in the beginning, God was no size at all. Because there was no Space. And no age at all, because there was no Time.
God just was.
And perhaps, because she was lonely, God grew.
And when God grew, Time and Space exploded into being.
Stuff at colossal temperatures shot outwards, clumping into clouds of burning
gas and splashes of red hot liquid. Suddenly God was everywhere, because there was everywhere to be.
And God called Time and Space her Universe.
Time passed. Space spread. But still, God was lonely.
(And, with so much Time on her hands, she might even have been a little bored.)
God sighed, and said to the glowing clouds:
“Do you like this Universe I’ve made for you?”
But the clouds said nothing at all.
God said to the splashes of red hot liquid:
“Do you like this Universe I’ve made for you?”
But the splashes of liquid said nothing at all.
God waited.
The glowing clouds shrank into hot shining stars. Each hurtling drop of red hot
liquid cooled, and grew a rocky crust. Some went spinning round the stars,
becoming planets.
“Now this is getting interesting”, said God to herself.
And God said to the stars:
“Do you like the shining light the glowing clouds have lit for you?”
The stars said nothing at all. But God thought perhaps she heard them singing, high and faint, across the Universe.
And she said to the planets:
“Do you like the rocky mountains that have cooled to cover you?”
The planets said nothing at all.
But there was a roaring and rumbling, as the mountains threw out great fountains of molten lava, and clouds of ash, and steam, and sulphurous vapours.
From the mountain clouds, rain fell upon the surface of the planets.
God said to the rain:
“Do you like falling from the clouds that the mountain tops have made
for you? Will you flow into great lakes and seas for me?”
But the rain just rained, and said nothing at all. Except on one planet, where
God thought she heard the rain whisper “yes…yes…yes”.
Although it might have been her imagination.
God loved that planet, where the rain had spoken to her.
And she called it Earth, because she hoped that something interesting would
grow in it.
Earth grew cooler still, and more rain fell from the mountain clouds. Icy comets crashed into Earth, and melted. Soon the mountains were running with rivers flowing into lakes, and seas, and oceans.
God said to Earth:
“Do you like the rivers and lakes, the seas and oceans the skies have
made for you? Do you like being watered by the rain from the mountain
clouds? Will you grow something for me?
Earth said nothing. But when God listened very closely, she could hear a
muffled bubbling.
Hot lava was squeezing up through the rocky crust at the bottom of the oceans, heating the water, and squirting rich minerals into the muddy mixture.
God said to the boiling mud at the bottom of the oceans:
“Do you like these hot rich minerals the Earth has given you?”
The mud said nothing at all.
But God waited patiently. And something happened.
Something moved.
All by itself.
“Come out” coaxed God. “Come and talk to me.”
And though the creature said nothing, it wiggled a little. And divided in two.
“Well,” said God, “this is interesting”.
She watched and waited. Each creature divided into two more, and soon there were hundreds, and thousands, and millions of little creatures swimming around in the mud, feeding on the bubbling minerals, all alike. Or were they?
Not quite. Some were a little different. One had a tail. It divided into two more, each with tails. Now there were hundreds with tails, and some had mouths as well. Some started to chase and eat each other.
The longer God watched, the more kinds of creatures she saw.
God said to the creatures:
“Do you like the rich warm mud that feeds your wiggling bodies? Are
you happy? Does it hurt when someone bites your tail?”
But the creatures said nothing. They went on chasing each other, and dividing into more and more creatures, until there were so many different kinds that God nearly lost count.
And some of them were green.
God especially liked the green ones. They rose to the surface, and basked in the sun, and instead of feeding on minerals on the muddy bottom, they fed on sugar they made themselves out of sunlight and carbon dioxide from the volcano vapours. And best of all, as they made the sugar, they also made oxygen – pure fresh air!
God said to the tiny green plants:
“Do you like the light the sun shines down on you? Are you happy?
Will you make more clean fresh air for me?”
The green plants said nothing at all. But they carried on dividing, and making
more sugar and fresh air. Soon the skies and the foamy seas around the Earth
were filled with oxygen, and all the ocean creatures kept dividing and dividing,
until, from shore to shore, there were billions of them.
God looked closely. She saw that some had little feet. Near the shore where the water was shallow, they used their feet to cling to the rocks. Some grew long tentacles, and caught passing creatures for food. Some had several feet, and walked along the rocks. Some moved by squirting water. Some grew flippers and fins.
God said to the sea shore creatures:
“Do you like the shores the land and sea have made for you? The rock
pools left by the tide where the sun warms the water for you? And all the
different creatures you have to chase and eat? Are you happy?”
The sea shore creatures said nothing at all, but went on chasing each other,
eating each other, and producing more and more of each other, until the rock
pools were very crowded.
Some kinds were born who could trap water, and survive high up on rocks that the tides left dry each day. Some kinds were born who could breathe the fresh air the plants had made, and whose feet could carry them over the dry rocks to land.
And meanwhile, the deep sea animals and plants went on growing, with new
kinds appearing all the time. Enormous ammonites with shells and tentacles.
Soaring sea weeds that waved in the sunlit waters.
Plants grew on the land too, and in the forests, the creatures grew tall. Some ate leaves. Some ate each other.
God said to the great land creatures:
“Do you like the forests the plants have sown for you? The sun that
warms your bodies? The cool fresh air the plants have made for you to
breathe?
“Does it hurt when you fight each other? Do you weep when your
friends are eaten?”
And the great creatures roared with pain and anger. But still they said nothing.
Then, one day, a terrible thing happened.
A gigantic rock from Space smashed into Earth. The forest caught fire with the heat of the impact, and black smoke hid the sun. Earth grew cold and dark.
Plants died, because without sunlight, they could make no sugar. Plant-eaters
died, because there were not enough plants to eat. Meat-eaters died, because there were not enough plant-eaters to eat.
God saw the devastation, and she wept.
“Oh my creatures!” she cried, “how can I comfort you?”
But the creatures said nothing at all.
Earth was still. Or almost. Something stirred on the cold ashen floor of the
forest. Small furry creatures, who made their own body heat, and kept warm and snug at night inside their fur.
The furry creatures had survived. Their fur, and their own body heat, had kept them warm. Seeds had survived, and green shoots poked through the blackened soil.
Slowly, the forests grew again. And life was good, with the great angry creatures gone.
God said to the furry creatures, as their babies fed contentedly on their mothers’ milk:
“Do you like the peaceful forest the Space rock left for you? Do you like
the milk your mothers make for you? Do you love your babies?
And, though the animals said nothing, they purred, softly.
The babies grew, and had babies of their own. Most looked like their parents.
But some were a little different. Some were born with hands that were good for climbing. Some with tails that were good for balancing. Some had no tails at all. Some could make loud shrieks to warn each other when danger threatened.
Some learned how to poke tasty ants out of rotten logs with sticks, and they
showed their children how to use the sticks too.
God said to these clever creatures:
“Do you like your forest home? The fruit on the trees? The ants in the
logs? Your families? Do you weep when your children grow and leave
you?”
The clever creatures said nothing, but their eyes shone.
“Well”, thought God, “these are the cleverest creatures in my Universe,
but still no-one has answered my questions”.
And she sighed, and she waited.
And waited.
A baby was born. The baby became a child. The child thought about the tasty ants, and the sticks he licked them from. He thought about his mother, and the sweet milk she gave him. He thought about the trees, and the fruit he ate from them.
And he looked up at the stars in the midnight sky, shining on him from
across the Universe. And he heard them singing.
God said to the child:
“Do you like the shining Universe I’ve made for you? Do you like the
fruit from the trees, and your mother’s milk? Do you like the ants you
poke from the logs with your stick?”
And the child answered
“Yes! Yes! Yes!”
“I do too” said God.
“And I love you most of all, because you love what I love.”
And then God asked the child:
“And do you hurt when you fall, and do you weep when you are lonely?”
“Yes”, said the child.
“I do too,” said God. “And now we can comfort each other.”
And through the child’s ears God heard the stars singing, and through the child’s eyes God saw the shining skies. On the child’s tongue, God tasted the ants, and in the child’s throat, God felt the sweet juice from the fruit trees. In the child’s bones, God suffered the pain of the child’s fall, and in the child’s tears, God wept with grief.
And God was not lonely any more.
God said:
“Dearest child – will you lend me your hands, and your strong young legs
as well? Will you look after my beautiful Earth for me? Will you keep
the rain clean, and the skies clear, and the forests green and bright? And
all the creatures that roam the land and seas, eating each other and being
eaten – even though they do not answer my questions, they are all
precious to me, and they are your brothers and sisters and cousins – will
you love them, as I love you?”
And the child thought in deep silence.
But all he would say was:
“Perhaps….”
© Elizabeth Liddle, 2000
I wrote this a while back, as you can see.
A couple of people have raised the issue of divine pronouns, so I thought I’d leave this here.
Richardhughes said:
I’m pretty sure that I’ve only ever used the term “it” to refer to god (besides when I use the term “god”) in this forum. Why? Because I don’t think god has a gender.
EL said:
So, calling god “she” isn’t sexist?
Anyway, I figured as much. A lot of what I see here is pretty much political/social activism, not argument.
William,
But not a peep from you when dozens of commenters at UD and elsewhere refer to God as ‘he’.
Then someone here refers to God as ‘she’, and suddenly you are outraged.
No, not really. “It” seems not to capture the quality we tend to attribute to God, so we are stuck with gendered pronouns. I could use “xe” I suppose, but I don’t see a problem with “she”. As I said, as “he” is more common, it goes a little way to redressing the balance.
Why should using my preferred pronoun for god make what I’m saying “not argument”?
Why would it be “not political” to use “he” for God but “political” to use “she”?
Good job I read down rather than repeat this rather obvious point.
Like outrage because God doesn’t get a male pronoun, for example?
I’m not sure how many women there are on this site – most of those with gendered usernames seem to be male.
I’m amazed that anyone has taken issue with my, i.e. a woman’s, use of a female pronoun for a putative deity. Why on earth should I not? Are the only valid forms of theism those that posit a male God?
ETA: especially from William, who doesn’t even claim to be a Christian, and has not told us how he envisages the gender of his God.
No one knows who the designer is, but it’s a he. *wink wink*
Yeah, men in particular are so steeped in the sexist culture in which they were raised, and which they have absorbed unconsciously, that it can be a horrible shock to a man suddenly hearing “she” or seeing a woman in a place where they automatically expected a male figure. I say “men in particular” because many women, having already been the excluded gender all their lives, don’t tend to be as shocked but more likely pleased when suddenly hearing/seeing their gender represented.
Now some men take it beyond temporarily shocked well into rabid response territory. I don’t really see rabid in WJM. But it’s certainly signifies something unbalanced in his view that he acts as if he has the right to scold any of us for “irritating” theists with god as “she” when he never scolds theists for their sexist “he”.
Male god? Fine. Female god? No no no. Anything for the men, nothing for the women, Maybe not consciously, but if that’s how it works in practice, I’ll call it out.
Elizabeth,
Mrs Fox says +1
It’s really obvious, in that the Bible typically uses male pronouns for God. Jesus was a man, and said to pray “Pater” in heaven.
You going to start calling Mut “he” and Osiris “she,” in some bourgeois fit of “concern” about sex roles of Egyptian gods/goddesses? Is Allah going to be called “she,” or is that a little too apparent as to its goal of sticking it to certain (the wrong) people? Since when do atheists get to tell theists what their gods are to be called?
Nietzsche knew:
http://www.philosophyonline.co.uk/oldsite/philosophy-study-resources/nietzsches-beyond-good-and-evil/text/bgae-3.php
Oh, but the scholar knows better, and instead of reasoning it out with them, well, just metaphorically poke them in the eye. They deserve it.
WJM certainly right about the politics of this. Only it’s so true that there’s simply no question about it–to the “skeptics.”
Glen Davidson
Really? So there’s no point in respecting the beliefs and traditions of the religious? Many Xians would say that God has no gender, but that doesn’t change how God has been addressed in “holy writings” and such. Don’t play naive about “valid forms of theism,” mostly it’s about the “Xian God,” not just any “God.”
Sure he did.
Glen Davidson
Who said I was even talking about “the Bible”?
good grief
As for “bourgeois fit of concern” – wtf?
William was discussing people who believe the Bible.
Clearly.
Glen Davidson
OK, then I missed it then.
Honestly I find this quite bizarre. I’ve tended to use the female pronoun, when I’ve used one at all, for God for years, and certainly pretty well always on this site. I tend to avoid the use of a pronoun at all if I can, but when I do use one, I use she.
Obviously I wouldn’t use “she” for a specifically male deity, such as Zeus, any more than I’d use “he” for Hera.
But when we are talking about a putative deity that we are supposed to be inferring (or not) from evidence of design in biological organisms, why on earth should we hypothesise a gender?
Even within Christianity there’s a long tradition of theology of “the motherhood of God”.
geez louise
Well, he can use the pronoun he thinks appropriate, then.
Can we have the discussion on female pronouns for deities here, please.
And also, please note, that the discussion was started by Gregory, not William, in reference to something I’d written to Mung, about purpose, it was not specific to the Abrahamic God.
Whose gender, it seems to me, is moot, anyway.
Jesus, however, was unambiguously male.
To whom would he be referring, but the people who might come from UD, or other largely Xian creationists? With this:
WJM’s first post on this matter (above).
What’s your point, that you don’t care about their usage? If so, well done.
But you would go ahead and directly substitute your own term of address rather than to use that of most Christians. To be sure, if it’s not the “Christian God” to whom one is referring, I wouldn’t see why your own preferences shouldn’t prevail, without anyone calling it rude or what-not.
Well, I don’t pretend that what IDists claim to be doing is what they’re actually doing, and I don’t see that anyone here does consistently. That it is apologetics for the Bible, and that many at UD don’t really pretend otherwise, should be well understood.
Not a long tradition of using the pronoun “She” for God, however.
Yes.
Glen Davidson
Well, it’s not a secret here that I was born a girl. I think that’s been mentioned a couple of times on this site; never on other sites (because I don’t like the treatment male names dish out to female names in most of the world).
I’m absolutely thrilled with your regular usage of “she” for god, for your stated reasons.
The only reasons I can think of for scolding you are underlain by sexist thuggery. It’s not as if any halfway-sensible christian actually thinks god has a penis or any other male part, so if they could just stop sputtering for a moment and think past their unconscious response, they would know that “he” is not a particular term of respect and “she” is not a particular term of dis-respect.
I make a different choice, even though calling god “it” sounds awkward in a gendered language because of the connotation of inanimate thingy-ness. But in my mind, if god can be said to exist at all, it exists in a continuum far beyond the divisions of gender. I refuse to kowtow to the conventions of gendered speech which reinforce theists seeing their own god as a divided reflection of “mankind”. Calling god “she” is certainly better than calling god “he” — “he” is part of a feedback loop of toxic masculinity, a destructive male god which validates a man’s bigotry towards women, homosexuality, single motherhood … using “he” is worse but using “she” doesn’t seem to me to be enough more better to do the job I want to do.
So even though I’m in favor of giving the “feminine side” of god a few thousand years of reverence to even up the balance with the past two thousand, and even though I’m in favor of giving a boost to feminism every day in all ways possible, I’ll probably stick with calling god “it”. I can genuinely hope that it startles some theists into thinking past gender. And if not, I can take satisfaction that it probably does irritate some of them. That’s a positive good.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_many_angels_can_dance_on_the_head_of_a_pin%3F
In the beginning was a point. And the point grew … and grew … and grew …
Until it became pointless.
This is strange coming from William (I’m-not-a-Christian) Murray. Does William Murray’s personal deity possess descended testicles? What for?,
I rather agree.
Irritation evolved for good reasons 🙂
To whom would he likely be referring, but the theists found in these discussions?
That seems not to be much of a reason to refuse to use their terms of address, unless you wish to show little or no respect for them and their practices.
Elizabeth uses female pronouns when referring to theoretical scientists as well. Why should that be a problem? After all, she is female.
But I have always wondered why a gender distinction would be applied to a monotheistic god. Gender, biologically, is needed for reproduction. What need does a monotheistic god for reproduction?
Damn, I didn’t expect to see such an irrational response from a non-theist like you.
Why the hell do you think you have the right to scold Elizabeth, a woman, for choosing to refer to a god as “she” ?
How on god’s green Earth are you planning to justify your implication that either we’re too cowardly to do it to Allah or that we would be racist Islamophobes if we did it to Allah?
And your stupid stupid strawman about “telling” theists? That’s truly stenchy of you. No one has proposed that atheists get to tell theists what to call their gods. Not at all. What we get to do, as individual humans, is choose for ourselves how we will refer to whatever god we personally have in mind. Which is a universal right.
I think you owe Elizabeth a major apology.
Who is “he” in the above? Mung?
I was, in the abstract, talking about the difference between creating something for your own purposes as a putative deity (e.g. a goddess) might create me, or I might breed a llama, and that something having its own purposes (finding stuff out; eating the hedge).
There was no reason to assume even a Christian god for the purposes of that discussion, let alone one with man-parts.
And in most discussions about “whether God exists” e.g. discussions about theism, the god in question is often unspecified – in my case, deliberately. The case for a creator deity is not the same as the case for some specific deity.
And, in any case, it’s not as though there isn’t, as I said, a long tradition of the motherhood of God, even within the Jewish and Christian traditions. And an increasing move to using ungendered, and sometimes female-gendered, pronouns for God.
My small son coined the usage “Our FatherMum”, which I rather liked, and went down well at our Sunday school. Better than “Our Parent….”
And here is Dame Julian of Norwich:
Glen,
Suppose you believe the Easter Bunny is male. Am I being disrespectful to you if I refer to the Easter Bunny as “she”?
Yes, I do. And I guess William is right that it’s a small political act, but it’s so habitual, I don’t even notice any more. When nobody else does, the point will be won.
Where William is wrong is to think that using pronouns in this way renders my points “not argument”.
It does not.
I disagree.
Why would any rational woman wish to show respect for them and their practices? Abrahamic men and their religious practices which directly underlay the destructive anti-female world we’ve had for the past two millennia. Thanks but no thanks.
You should be on Elizabeth’s side and it’s painful to think that arbitrary “respect” for some arbitrary theist’s “terms of address” means more to you than standing up for a woman who should be your friend.
Elizabeth:
The irony is that William’s peeved response is purely political and not an actual argument regarding God’s gender (or lack thereof).
Well, my interest is attracted. I’m probably not as easily outraged as you.
EL said:
See, keiths? I was right. 🙂
Are you a mind reader now? I certainly didn’t write anything like that.
Well gee, how about Santa Claus, who actually is considered male?
Do you think there’s no difference between one person thinking something, and there being a traditional, shared set of addresses and terms? Or that I’m dull enough to fall for such a disanalogy?
Glen Davidson
The thing is, all my life, as a theist, I thought of God as real. I thought that the religions of the world had discovered God, although they had different theories about him/her.
That’s why I wrote the story – it’s just a story, one that said something about my own response as to what God might be like, given what we know about science, and predicated on the idea that what God would want, in creation, would be creatures (literally) capable of knowing her – and indeed of experiencing, with her, the substance of her created reality.
To some extent, it’s the theism I still have – a monist theism, a sort of pantheism, I guess – in which the universe itself, including the part of it that is us, IS the body – and mind- of God. Not so far from William’s “intention field” perhaps.
And for that concept, a feminine pronoun seemed more apt.
You wrote something very like that, William:
I notice. I love it every time I see the use of “she” precisely because everyone else, even people who should know better, still automatically default to “he” when discussing a non-specific scientist. (Or citizen, or political leader, or boss, or worker, or …) It’s a small and valuable political act when referring to scientists, because we have data that indicates how much harder it is to get bright girls interested in science when they never hear about existing female scientists. We want the next generations to have it easier, not harder, to see themselves contributing to our collective enterprise of science.
When it no longer matters because everyone is equal, then I’ll stop noticing.
Glen,
I didn’t ask about Santa Claus. And remember, Lizzie said she refers to Jesus as “he”, for obvious reasons.
To insist that Jesus be referred to as “he” is reasonable. To insist that God be referred to as “he” is not, particularly when the God being discussed is a generic creator-deity, not the Abrahamic God.
It isn’t disrespectful to disagree with someone’s assumptions regarding God’s gender. And why should we respect those assumptions merely because they’re “traditional”?
Because you shouldn’t be stepping on the “little people.” Your power ideology, including considerable intolerance of those who disagree with you, exists to take from those “below you.”
There, the ideological cant of the privileged.
Sure, Christianity took over and things got worse for women. Except that it mostly didn’t, and in the Roman Empire it was often an improvement (and, quite arguably, Nietzsche’s at least partly right about the Xian basis for the equality claims of the yapping bourgeoisie), you’re just blowing ill-considered ideological rhetoric.
I should be on the side of skepticism and not of ideology, with its (poorly-)hidden agenda of power.
That this really is all about a political agenda (power), and not about discussing matters of this kind, becomes ever more obvious. Discussion is actively discouraged via the moral denunciations of anyone who would dare to disagree. It is thoroughly disreputable and anti-intellectual (in the better sense of the word “intellectual”).
Glen Davidson
Just don’t draw an Image of hoppity-who-shall-not-be-named or I’ll [wont actually write such deeds on the interwebs].
The gender of god is as important as its proper Capitalisation.
EL:
No, I didn’t. I said absolutely nothing about any of your points. I made a point about a lot of what I read here – at TSZ.
Yes, I know, you asked a completely unreasonable question as if it pertained to the issue.
Well, actually she doesn’t refer to Jesus as “he” when it is the Jesus who is the Word who created life. Then it’s “she,” even though Jesus is supposed to be a part of the Trinity (whatever that is).
Yes, well, it’s clearly the Abrahamic God much of the time, and there’s no shift in gender used at that time.
Of course it is, especially when you say you don’t believe in that God. It’s their fiction, not yours.
Because you should respect people, rather than dissing them. And of course it’s not just because they’re traditional, it’s because it’s their “God.”
Glen Davidson
hotshoe_,
It’s only fair after they wrote Asherah out of their holy books.
hotshoe_,
My meditation practice includes both Shiva and Shakti. The divine feminine is very important within it.
Just another variant of religious bollocks, frankly, but the metaphors are powerful. Don’t get me started on the misuse of “energy”.
William,
Says the guy who revealed just how “attracted” his “interest” was by writing this:
Prompting Rich to respond:
I’m feeling a lot of negative energy from you, Patrick.
OK, fine. In that case I retract my point.