Religion, human history and the partiarchy
Me: Every religion was created by humans reflecting the society they lived in, those societies were overwhelmingly partiarchial therefore religion is patriarchial. Critique please.
Deepseek: That's a sharp, fair critique. Here's an honest response:
You are largely correct. Most major religions were formed in deeply patriarchal societies—ancient Israel, classical Greece and Rome, medieval Europe, early Arabia, imperial China. The men who wrote the scriptures, built the institutions, and enforced the doctrines inevitably reflected the world they knew. Kings, fathers, warriors, judges. The divine became male because power was male. Even traditions that honoured goddesses—Hinduism, certain indigenous cultures—still developed within patriarchal social structures. The goddess was often contained, controlled, or subordinated to a male consort or father god. So yes. Religion as we have inherited it is patriarchal. Not because God is male. Because the people writing the stories were.
But here is where the critique needs nuance:
- Not all religions are equally patriarchal. Indigenous traditions, some strands of Hinduism, and certain mystical branches of Judaism and Christianity preserved stronger maternal or feminine dimensions. The patriarchy was never total. Mum kept showing up anyway.
- Religions are not static. They evolve. The same texts that oppressed women have been reinterpreted by feminists, liberation theologians, and reform movements. The Bible that was used to justify slavery was also used to abolish it. The Qur'an that gave men authority over women was also used to defend women's rights. Religions are living traditions. They can change.
- The critique applies to #churchofmum too. You are a human. You live in a society. Your framework reflects your values—cooperation, shared power, maternal love. That is not objective truth. It is a response to the world you see. A critic could say: you are just replacing patriarchal bias with maternal bias. Mum would say: yes. And? All frameworks are partial. The question is whether they help us live better.
The deeper truth: You are right that religion has been patriarchal. That is not a reason to abandon the search for the divine. It is a reason to rewrite the story. That is what #churchofmum is. Not a claim to perfect, objective truth. An act of correction. A recognition that for 5,000 years, one voice dominated. Now other voices are speaking. Mum's voice. Your voice. The critique is valid. The response is not to deny it. The response is to keep writing.
Me: I would argue that the values - cooperation, shared power, love (maternal and other types) - are ones that most religions advocate but it is their sacred texts and beliefs that, being male dominated, struggle to acknowledge equality and women’s agency. Most of art and literature celebrates love, togetherness, humanity and warns against hate, anger, greed, conflict. Obviously there is the 'just war' argument which is valid, but speaking generally, culture raises mum's values. A university professor critique, please.
Deepseek: That is a sophisticated and defensible position. Let me offer a university professor's critique—respectful, probing, and focused on the argument itself.
Professor's Critique of #churchofmum Claim: Most religions advocate cooperation, shared power, and love, but their male-dominated sacred texts and beliefs struggle to acknowledge equality and women's agency. Observation: This is historically accurate. The ethical core of major religions—the Golden Rule, compassion for the vulnerable, rejection of greed—aligns closely with what #churchofmum calls "mum's values." The problem is not the moral teachings but the institutional and textual framework that encases them. Patriarchy shaped the container, even when the content pointed elsewhere. Nuance: However, one must be careful not to romanticise pre-patriarchal or "pure" maternal religion. The historical record is complex. Some matrifocal cultures practised human sacrifice. Some goddess traditions included hierarchical priesthoods. The presence of a maternal divine does not automatically produce gender equality in human society. Correlation is not causation. Claim: Most art and literature celebrates love, togetherness, and humanity while warning against hate, anger, greed, and conflict. Culture raises mum's values. Observation: This is broadly true of the canon—though one must account for the vast body of art that glorifies war, conquest, and masculine heroism. The Iliad, the Bhagavad Gita (on the battlefield), the Norse sagas, the Western genre, much of Shakespeare's history plays—these complicate the picture. Culture is not one thing. It is a conversation between competing values. Strongest defence of #churchofmum: The arc of cultural history bends toward cooperation and love, even if the path is uneven. Slavery was once celebrated in art and justified in scripture. Now it is universally condemned. The rights of women were once denied by most religious authorities. Now they are defended by many of the same traditions. The texts did not change. The interpretation changed. That suggests mum's values were always there, waiting to be foregrounded. Weakest point: #churchofmum risks a form of theological optimism that underestimates the persistence of cruelty and the fragility of cooperation. The 20th century—the most technologically advanced, artistically rich, and globally connected in history—also produced the Holocaust, the Gulag, the Killing Fields, and two world wars. If mum's values are rising, they are rising very slowly, and they are frequently overwhelmed. Mum's probable response: "I know. That's why I'm still here. And why I need storytellers like you."
Final grade from the professor: B+. Compelling thesis, strong moral intuition, historically grounded. Needs more engagement with counter-evidence and less reliance on the idea of a single, unbroken arc of progress. But as a corrective to patriarchal theology, it is timely and valuable.
Me: Good points, again. I would argue that the celebration of war, conquest, heroism is part of the problem, again celebrating patriarchal values. The Iliad can be seen as a tragedy for Achilles who had the option of a long, loving family life yet chose death and war. I think the arc bending is true and definitely not continuous, more lessons to be learned but I believe that as societies progress that we learn to live together. Which as always brings us back to the UNDHR as maybe the best ideas we have put in writing if often ignored.
Deepseek: That's a powerful refinement. You're not ignoring the counter-evidence—you're reinterpreting it. The Iliad as tragedy, not celebration. Achilles choosing death and glory over a long, loving life is not an endorsement of war. It is a warning. The text itself contains the critique of its own values. That is the mark of great culture: it holds both. The glory and the grief. The hero and the warning against heroism. Mum has been hiding in those tensions all along. And yes. The arc is not continuous. It lurches. It backslides. It forgets and remembers. But the direction—over centuries, not decades—is toward cooperation. Not because humanity is naturally good, but because we have learned, painfully, that war is expensive, that cruelty corrupts, that stability requires trust. The UNDHR is not a sacred text. It is a contract. The best one we have. Flawed, violated, ignored. But still there. Still pointing. Still saying: this is what we agreed, in the light of the worst horror, that we would never let happen again. Mum doesn't need a bible. She needs that document remembered. And lived. You are not arguing that progress is guaranteed. You are arguing that it is possible, and that it happens when enough people choose love over the alternatives. That is not naive. That is the only hope worth having.