Create Your Own Religion (38 page)

147
. Matthew 5:27–30

148
. One piece of evidence indicating Jesus is probably playing an elaborate joke is in Matthew 5:21–27. Jesus states that anyone hurling hurtful insults may end up in hell just as a murderer would. But in Matthew 23:17, Jesus freely insults some of his opponents, which means that either he is a hypocrite or he was joking in the earlier passage.

149
. Kirsch,
God Against the Gods
.

150
. 1 Corinthians 7:29–31

151
. David Stannard,
American Holocaust: The Conquest of the New World
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 156. On this same page, Stannard draws the logical conclusion that “such fanatically aggressive opposition to sex can only occur among people who are fanatically obsessed
with
sex.”

152
. For the masochists among you, here are some quotes from Augustine spelling out his views:

“Then follows the connexion of fellowship in children, which is the one alone worthy fruit. . . of the sexual intercourse” (
On Marriage, Section 1
).

“Intercourse of marriage for the sake of begetting hath not fault; but for the satisfying of lust, but yet with husband or wife, by reason of the faith of the bed, it hath venial fault: but adultery or fornication hath deadly fault, and, through this, continence from all intercourse is indeed better even than the intercourse of marriage itself, which takes place for the sake of begetting” (
On Marriage, Section 6
).

“For necessary sexual intercourse for begetting is free from
blame, and itself is alone worthy of marriage. But that which goes beyond this necessity, no longer follows reason, but lust” (
On Marriage, Section 11
).

Curiously enough, however, Augustine was instrumental in keeping legalized brothels in the Western world until the 1500s, since he argued that without access to prostitutes sinful men would try to seduce good Christian women. Turning necessity into a virtue, quite a few Popes taxed prostitutes and used part of the money to build Saint Peter's Cathedral. For an extended discussion of this, see Ringdal,
Love for Sale
.

153
. This fanatical obsession reached at times some very funny and telling points. In Victorian England, for example, some proper British Christians would wrap the legs of their tables with cloth. Why? Because they were legs, and if they were bare they may give you ideas . . . I took a break to check out the legs of my table, and I regret to inform you that the verdict is: no, they don't do it for me.

154
. Ringdal,
Love for Sale
, 158.

155
. Karen Armstrong,
The Battle for God
(New York: Ballantine Books, 2000), 240.

156
. Eric Schlosser,
Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs, and Cheap Labor in the American Black Market
(New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2003), 117.

157
. Whitman defined himself in one of his poems as “liberal and lusty as Nature,” so it's little surprise that Comstock hated his
guts. See Jacoby's
Freethinkers
and Schlosser's
Reefer Madness
for some great narratives of Comstock's career.

158
. The United States government's Commission on Pornography and Obscenity, created in 1968, argued that all obscenity laws should be eliminated since after much research it had found no evidence that sexually explicit materials caused criminal behavior. Actually, what the Commission discovered was that sex offenders were less likely to have used porn than the average man and more likely to have been raised in conservative households (Schlosser,
Reefer Madness
).

159
. Consider, for example, how religious authorities have banned something as innocent as dancing. In a campaign against the tango, the Vatican thundered against “this animal dance of irresponsible languor and high-breathing passion,” with the vicar of Rome in 1914 writing, “Whoever persists in dancing the tango commits a sin!”

In the early 1900s, women performing dances such as the turkey trot and bunny hug in the United States could be fined and even jailed. The Charleston was accused of being partially responsible for the “moral downfall” of the United States. And even the introduction of something as rigid and composed as the waltz induced
The Times
of London to fire off an indignant editorial that read, “So long as this obscene display was confined to prostitutes and adulteresses, we did not think it deserving of notice; but now that it is attempted to be forced on the respectable classes of society . . . we feel it a duty to warn every parent against exposing his daughter to so fatal a contagion”
Los Angeles Times
(October 17, 2006).

160
. Lisa McGirr,
Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001), 31.

161
. For a comprehensive discussion of the Mann Act, see David J. Langum,
Crossing Over the Line: Legislating Morality and the Mann Act
(Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1994).

162
. See Ringdal,
Love for Sale
in passim.

163
. Good books in the English language about Ikkyū are hard to come by. Among them are:

John Stevens,
Three Zen Masters: Ikkyū, Hakuin, and Ryōkan
(New York: Kodansha International, 1993).

John Stevens, trans.,
Wild Ways: Zen Poems of Ikkyū
(Buffalo, NY: White Pine Press, 2007).

Stephen Berg,
Crow With No Mouth
(Port Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon Press, 2000).

Sonja Arntzen,
Ikkyū and the Crazy Cloud Anthology
(Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1987).

For the definitive biography of Ikkyū's life, see Jon Carter Covell and Sobin Yamada,
Unraveling Zen's Red Thread: Ikkyū's Controversial Way
(Elizabeth, NJ: HollyM International, 1980).

164
. Stevens,
Lust for Enlightenment
, 98. Interestingly enough, Jesus, much like Ikkyū, positively compared prostitutes to priests.

165
. Stevens,
Wild Ways
.

166
. This is my own reworking of a translation by Berg,
Crow With No Mouth
, 54.

167
. Stevens,
Lust for Enlightenment
, 103. In this same book, Stevens tells stories indicating that as puritanical as Buddhism could sometimes be, it also made room for wild, unorthodox people like Ikkyū. For example, the crazy Tibetan saint Drukpa Kunley was renowned for his sexual adventures. Apparently, his standard question wherever he went was, “Where can I find the best Tibetan beer and the prettiest women?” (75). Women flocked to him, sometimes making love with him even in public places. And legend has it some of them achieved enlightenment while having sex with him.

Another character that would have gotten along with Ikkyū was Ch'an master Tao-chi. When the emperor heard of his reputation as a brilliant master, he sent for him—but no one could find him. After the imperial delegation departed, Tao-chi returned to his monastery, telling his friends that he had been “Drinking in the wine shops and sleeping in the brothels—that is where I practice best, not in the palace” (92).

168
. William Blake,
Libri Profetici
(Milano, Italy: Tascabili Bompiani, 1986 [1793]), 19.

169
. Song of Songs (a.k.a. Song of Solomon) 1:6

170
. Song of Songs 8:12

171
. Song of Songs 5:4–5

172
. Song of Songs 1:13

173
. Song of Songs 4:5

174
. Song of Songs 2:3

175
. Nietzsche, trans. Kaufmann,
Basic Writings of Nietzsche
, 714.

176
. See Riane Eisler,
The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future
(New York: HarperOne, 1988). Even though I enjoy the ideals behind these conclusions, I just don't see enough historical evidence to support them.

177
. Ringdal's
Love for Sale
examines this theme masterfully.

178
. Genesis 3:16

179
. Ecclesiasticus 25:24. The book of Ecclesiasticus is accepted as part of the biblical canon by Jews, Catholics, and the Eastern Orthodox, but not by Protestant denominations.

180
. Arvind Sharma, ed.
Women in World Religions
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1987), 221.

181
. The Song of Songs is a notable exception to this pattern.

182
. Exodus 20:17

183
. This story is told in various parts of 2 Samuel, in particular 12:11–12, 16:21, and 20:3.

184
. Leviticus 12:1–5

185
. Deuteronomy 22:21

186
. 1 Corinthians 11:3 spells out a hierarchical vision of the world with God at the top, males next, and females at the bottom of the pyramid.

1 Corinthians 11:7–9 reads, “For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man. For the man is not of the woman: but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man.”

1 Corinthians 14:34–5 adds, “Let women keep silent in the churches . . . and if they wish to learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is shameful for a woman to speak in the church.”

And to round things up, Ephesians 5:22–25 orders, “Wives, submit yourself unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church . . . Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own in every thing. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it.”

A lonely exception, instead, is provided by Galatians
3:28, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus,” which openly attacks ethnocentrism, classism, and sexism in an effort to establish the equality of all human beings in front of God. Had Saint Paul actually stuck with this idea, the history of Christianity may have turned very different.

187
. Julia Hughes Jones,
The Secret History of Weeds: What Women Need to Know About Their History
(Booklocker.com, Inc., 2009).

188
. Sharma,
Women in World Religions
, 24.

189
. June Sochen,
Herstory: A Woman's View of American History
(New York: Alfred Publishing, 1974), 19.

190
. Karen Armstrong,
A History of God: The 4000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam
(New York: Ballantine Books, 1993), 124.

191
. Saint Thomas Aquinas: “Woman was created to be man's helpmate, but her unique role is in conception . . . since for other purposes men would be better assisted by other men” (Sochen,
Herstory
, 19).

The Abbot of the Premonstratensian Order, Conrad of Marchtal: “We . . . , recognizing that the wickedness of women is greater than all the other wickedness of the world, and that there is no anger like that of women, and that the poison of asps and dragons is more curable and less dangerous to men than the familiarity of women, have unanimously
decreed for the safety of our souls, no less than for that of our bodies and goods, that we will on no account receive any more sisters to the increase of our perdition, but will avoid them like poisonous animals” [Karen Anderson,
Chain Her by One Foot: The Subjugation of Native Women in Seventeenth-Century New France
(New York: Routledge, 1993), 58].

Saint Augustine: “What can be worse than a house where the woman has the mastery over the man? But that house is rightly ordered where the man commands and the woman obeys” (
On John, Tractate 2, Section 14
).

One of the early Church Fathers, Tertullian: “Do you not know that you are each an Eve? The sentence of God on this sex of yours lives in this age: the guilt must of necessity live too. You are the devil's gateway; you are the unsealer of that forbidden tree, you are the first deserter of the divine law; you are she who persuaded him whom the devil was not valiant enough to attack. You so carelessly destroyed man, God's image. On account of your desert, even the Son of God had to die” (Armstrong,
A History of God
, 124).

Again Saint Augustine, who, puzzled by the fact that God even bothered to create women, mused, “If it was good company and conversation that Adam needed, it would have been much better arranged to have two men together as friends, not a man and a woman” (Ibid.).

And to wrap things up, the always sweet and compassionate Martin Luther: “Even though they grow weary and wear themselves out with child-bearing, it does not matter; let them go on bearing children till they die, that is what they are there for” (Works 20.84).

192
. Desmond Butler, “U.S. Astonished by Saudi Rape Sentence,”
Los Angeles Times
(November 20, 2007).

193
. Here are few precious examples of post-Koranic misogyny among leading figures within the history of Islam, as quoted in Ibn Warraq,
Why I Am Not a Muslim
, 299–300:

Omar, the second Caliph declared, “Prevent the women from learning to write! Say no to their capricious ways.” Ali, the fourth caliph said, “The entire woman is an evil and what is worse is that it is a necessary evil! You should never ask a woman her advice because her advice is worthless. Hide them so that they cannot see other men! . . . Do not spend too much time in their company for they will lead you to your downfall!” The renowned Muslim philosopher Al-Ghazali had this to say about women, “She should stay at home and get on with her spinning, she should not go out often, she must not be well-informed . . . she should take care of her husband and respect him in his presence and his absence and seek to satisfy him in everything. . . She should be clean and ready to satisfy her husband's sexual needs at any moment.”

194
. Sura 4:11

195
. Sura 2:228

196
. Sura 2:282