No Blood Sacrifice

I cannot worship, let alone believe in, a divinity that requires a blood sacrifice to be appeased. Therefore, I chose to stop believing in the Christian god decades ago.

When people stop and think about the foundational ideas of Christianity--that a father should be willing to sacrifice his son to appease the divinity demanding such a sacrifice--they should immediately realize how evil that divinity really is.

How could a loving god ask his followers to sacrifice anyone, let alone their own children, to make him happy?

Why would a loving god require his son to die an agonizing death to make up for the "sins" of humanity, if he was not just some sadistic maniac?

According to Evelyn Reed in her important and insightful book, Woman's Evolution, men in the earliest cultures killed other humans because they could not or would not differentiate them from animals. Realizing men, in their blood frenzy from hunting, could easily decide to kill them and their children, women ostracized the men from the original matriarchal clans until they had cleansed themselves of the blood and the blood frenzy from hunting.

Yet the biblical god prefers blood--eschewing Cain's gifts of grains and fruits of the earth in preference for Abel's dead animals. Repeatedly, stories of the bible demonstrate a blood-lusting god who prefers men's offerings over women's--blood over Mother Earth's bounty.

But I believe men have long envied women's ability to bleed for three to five days every month and not die--as magical an act as giving birth, so that some cultures include rituals for men that imitate menstruation or childbirth.

Perhaps, because women gave a monthly "blood sacrifice," men thought they needed to do so, as well, which led to the human sacrifices so common in so many cultures--from Judaic to Mayan cultures.

Isn't it about time we human beings grew up, even if we feel an association with the divine, to acknowledge that we do not have to obey a "god" that demands total obedience and a blood sacrifice to be accepted by him?

Why don't more people realize that, by accepting a blood sacrifice as their pact between the Christian god and themselves, they demonstrate a cold-blooded willingness to sacrifice others for their own selfish ends?

Aren't most Christians who oppose abortion hypocrites, then, willing to allow someone to die for their sins, but not willing to sacrifice a fetus to improve a woman's life?

Are Prayer Beads Ankhs in Disguise?

Are Prayer Beads Ankhs in Disguise?

As a scholar who has studied the world’s major religions and mythologies, I noticed decades ago that many forms of prayer beads, especially the Catholic rosary beads, are shaped like the Egyptian ankh.

The elongated oval, teardrop, or rosebud shape at the top of the ankh has long been known to symbolize Isis, the female creative principle in ancient Egyptian beliefs (also called a yoni, or vagina). The cross shape at the bottom of the ankh and at the bottom of the Catholic rosary beads, symbolizes Osiris, the male creative power (penis and two testicles). According to Eleanor Wiley and Maggie Oman Shannon in their book How to Make and Use Prayer Beads, Egyptians used prayer beads as early as 3200 B.C. (3). Wiley and Shannon do not explain what shape those prayer beads took, but it is quite possible that the ankh was reflected in those early prayer beads, as well, since Egyptian fashion worked the ankh into many forms of jewelry and clothing, possibly to increase their connections to life.



Together, the rosebud representing Isis and the cross representing Osiris symbolize life, believed to spring from the unity of the Nile River (Osiris) with the body of Egypt (Isis), from which the food of life arose. The river delta upon which ancient Egyptian culture grew and spread became the symbol of the female principle of life-giving. The four cardinal directions, which form the basic cross for most cultures of the world, have long been associated with season shifts, something the Egyptians had to keep track of to know when the Nile River would flood, so they would know when to sow their crops. The four sacred powers of the earth (each from a cardinal direction) are also symbolized in the Catholic rosary by the four main “mystery” beads around the oval, with the other sacred directions, up and down or heaven and earth, noted in the two “mystery” beads atop the cross portion of the rosary.

While the origins of the words used to name many kinds of prayer beads similarly reference roses, since many of the original prayer beads, even among the Hindus, were associated with those flowers, some believe, because many of the beads were made from crushed rose petals or rose hips, the rose, especially in bud form, has long been associated—like the lotus flower—with women’s genitalia. In fact, some Catholics object to using rosary prayer beads because the majority of the beads represent prayers to “Mary the Mother of God” than the “Our Father” beads, demonstrating how strongly the beads represent a much older goddess-oriented spiritual system than the Christian patriarchal one.

The ankh, the ancient Egyptian symbol of life, demonstrates their understanding of the balance between male and female creative powers. Pharoahs, in fact, were not descended through a patriarchal line, but through their matrialineal one. A man could not assume the position of demi-god for his people, unless he was born of a royal woman.

Interestingly, some online stores that sell Catholic rosaries, now include an ankh instead of a cross at the “tail” of the rosary—possibly bringing the tradition of prayer beads full circle, back to Egyptian beliefs, where they originated.