Is God a Woman?

Emmeline Pankhurst once said “Trust in God – she will provide.” Pankhurst was a political activist in Great Britain who helped women win the right to vote. This really brings us to the question on whether God is a woman?

I will try not to dwell into the religious interpretations of this subject matter for three reasons. The first reason which is of primary importance is that most (if not all) religions, in spite of the fact that they have both men and women followers have subjected their own women to great cruelty. The witch hunts in the middle part of this millennium had accounted for about a hundred thousand deaths in cold blood effected by followers of Christianity. Pope John Paul II has in his open letter to all women in 1995 expressed deep regret on behalf of the Church’s actions. Indians will be much aware of the shameful practices of ‘Sati’ and exploitation over dowry over centuries in both the first and second millennium of the Common Era. And last but not the least are the still occurring violations of basic human rights against women in the name of the Islamic religion. One thing that is clear from this is that the so called ‘followers’ of none of these religions have held women in high respect. Hence in order to be unbiased in forming our opinion we will try to keep religion out of this debate.

The second reason as to not go into the religious interpretations is because they are just that - interpretations, the correct word would be ‘exegesis’. Exegesis is the interpretation of textual material. Different exegets might interpret the same material differently. That is, they might each claim a different meaning from the same text or passage. This allows for the subsequent drawing out of sometimes very different implications from the same core source.

I’d tell you the third reason, but then I will have to kill you. Actually I’m not Tom Cruize and this is not Top Gun so let me give you  some clue. Its an old Spanish proverb “una onza de madre vale una libra de clérigos”.

I would also like to keep Philosophy out of this debate. To discuss any idea of Philosophy, one would first have to understand Ontology. Ontology is concerned with ‘Being’. It is about what is really ‘out there’. Ontology crudely explained is like a base. Is everyone made of up 5 bases (Ether, Air, Fire, Water, Earth) or just 2 bases (Matter and Spirit) or just 1 base (Illusion). Initially I found it very similar to the Logarithmic base. (The point of similarity being that I could not understand either).

Galileo once said “The great book of nature lies before our eyes and the true philosophy is written in it...” So to nature we shall turn.

Let us consider some biological facts. We are all present in this world today because of reproduction. Reproduction is the only way any living thing can move forward. As we all know that reproduction can be asexual as well as sexual. Species that reproduce by the former means do not have a gender classification. There is no male and female. Some people I know would die to be in their shoes. Imagine not having to go through commitment and marriage.

Not having a man and woman basically means that there is no sex involved. This form of reproduction is mainly found in bacteria or single-celled organisms (prokaryotes), which basically do not have any nucleus. (Just to clarify that not having a nucleus is very different from not having a soul, or else most of our politicians would have made it to this classification.)  We now know that in the beginning, right at the beginning, the only living beings that existed were all asexual prokaryotes.

In other words, in the asexual prokaryotes we have the mother and then we have the child, who then becomes a mother only to asexually have another child and so on.

Under the above arrangement the mother is a free being. There is no man in her life. She is the master of her destiny. She can wear skimpy clothes and does not have to worry about eve-teasers and rapists. No fighting for rights. The President, the leader of the ruling party, the leader of the opposition and the speaker would all be women. Just like the Indian parliament.

One cannot but wonder as to why the prokaryotes had to evolve into eukaryotes – organisms with a nucleus (and a soul preferably). The corollary of evolving into these  eukaryotes is that now they need to have sex. So they had to get some of them to evolve into a man. Why did the woman (asexual) who was her own master go through all this trouble. Now, she has a man to deal with (and a headache).

Richard Dawkins in his book ‘The Selfish Gene’, Matt Ridley in his book ‘The Red Queen’ and Nick Lane in his book ‘Life Ascending’ have very well explained the most probable reason. It would be much better if you’ll read the books yourselves rather than try to understand it from me. The gist of these books (I just got to understand the gist, as most of the matter was not for minds like mine) is that genes (the prokaryotic bacteria also have genes) would be able to mix and match with others (a man’s genes with a woman’s genes) and put their best product forward only when they had sex. A mix-and-match of various combinations of genes raises the chances of the child surviving against various parasites. The good mixtures (of genes) will survive successfully and try for a still better match whereas the poorer cousins will just be dispensed with in time. On the other hand, asexually the organism would just copy her own self. The genius Picasso couldn’t have explained it better, albeit in a different context, “...to copy oneself... leads to sterility.”#

A gene does not die with the body. It remains alive in the next generation and then in the generation after and after and after. If we think of a gene as being ‘immortal’, nothing could describe the above process of gaining immunity and evolving better than the words of Nietzsche (Americans pronounce his name as Neechee) – “What does not kill me makes me stronger.”

Sophia Loren can help us put all this in context; “A mother has to think twice, once for herself and once for her child.” The woman (asexual) having the best interest of her child in mind evolved into a sexual organism and got the men up (pun not intended). As Nick Lane says “Men are woman’s insurance policy against her children being wiped out by influenza or small pox.”

We are here today immune from the zillions of parasites because of our Mother. She will go to any extent to see the well-being of her child, even if that amounts to getting a man in her life. At the microscopic level we all have our Mother whom we are indebted to. At the cosmic level there is another Mother we are indebted to, that is, our Mother Earth. And what the Spanish (or Mexican) guys wanted to say was that “An ounce of mother is worth a pound of priests.”

Is God a woman? The mathematician Poincare once said “There are questions that one chooses to ask and other questions that ask themselves.” And then there are some questions which just should not be asked.                                                                                                                                                                                          

Back in the USSR

“All I know is that I am not a Marxist”. Perhaps few people know that this is what Karl Marx (1818-1883) said when he was soupset with the various misinterpretations of his ideas. This was in the 19^th century when most of the world was still under feudalism and colonialism.

Subsequently, much after his death, during the 20^th century many countries declared themselves as communist, Marxist or socialist; some after revolution, some after coups and some after neither of the two.

Instead of studying and analysing the theories, intentions and the background behind what Karl said or meant, much of what we came across in history and education about Marxism was as defined by USSR and China, by the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Cold War, by Vietnam and North Korea and more recently in India the brash interviews of the Karat duo of the Communist Party of India. In fact in our school education, it was clubbed in History in the same year as fascism and dictatorship (something which becomes difficult for our innocent young (not so intelligent – in my case) minds to distinguish between). I will use his first name henceforth not out of lack of respect, but because the use of his last name Marx inadvertently gives rise to preconceived notions and emotions thereby closing our minds. As a wise man has said “If you already know what you are looking for, then that is all you will find”.

Karl was of the view that Communism will come about through the natural progress of society and the disintegration of the capitalist system, due to its internal flaws. Of course he did not completely rule out revolution and violence as a means to effect that change, but that is not the point of debate in this essay.

The two main so called Communist economies USSR and China did not progress in this manner at all. Russian Communism was brought about by the Bolsheviks led by Lenin against the autocratic leader Tsar Nicholas II. And when Stalin took over in 1953 and ran his dictatorship it was assumed to be just another level of Communism. The Chinese Maoist Communism was the effect of fighting by the PLA (People’s Liberation Army) under the leadership of Chairman Mao against the leadership of the warlord class. One of Mao’s famous sayings that “political power comes from the barrel of a gun” is perhaps ideologically opposite to what Karl believed that “ideas that rule any country must be the ideas of the working class”. Karl had believed that for Communism would eventually flow after the extremism of Capitalism, the latter was not present in both USSR and China.

An important tenet of Karl was his belief in False Consciousness. Because the way that people actually think is influenced by the society around them, people find it difficult to develop entirely new ideas. They can only think in the way that their language and concepts handed down to them allow. When people cannot see the way their beliefs are artificially constructed by society they are said to be in a state of False Consciousness.

Human nature is a not a fixed thing but alters with social and economic conditions. This means that society can be changed by altering the economic system (although I would personally prefer that we change Chairman Ben before he changes the society).

Karl believed art and culture were important parts of our society. Both art and culture are meant for people to enjoy. “Capitalist society tends to see everything in financial terms. Everything is given a financial value.” Karl believed that “nobody should have one exclusive sphere of activity.....to hunt in the morning (since there were no endangered species back then), fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner (not the cooking),...., without ever becoming a hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic”.

Although the largest democracies emphasise and boast of their essential rights of freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of the press (especially to broadcast breaking news) and equality under the law, Karl did not agree with any of these rights. He believed that as long as the base of society was still capitalist, the people were never free in the true sense. For example, although in the eyes of the law everybody is equal, those who are better off can afford better representation in court; although there may be freedom of press, but the rich control the flow of news. We appear to be free but our economic conditions and thereby our societies control our work, religion, politics and ideas. What do we control?

What nations started off on principles of Capitalism have quite some ago progressed (deteriorated) into Imperialism or as Lenin would have called it “financial oligarchy” (oligarchy is not to be confused with the word orgy, although in the current context they could mean the same).

Post-modern thinkers do not see the relevance of Karl’s theories as we now live in a post-modern world which bears no resemblance to the 19^th century. Karl predicted that large corporations would dominate world markets. Today with large conglomerates, world-wide banking corporations and large super-market chains it is only for time to tell the relevance of his theories. Are we really more satisfied than our parents and grand-parents, despite an increase in material possessions (I was going to say – despite having more money – but looking at the food inflation here and the money printing of the US FED I really don’t know what more money means). As long as 10% people hold 99% of the wealth Karl’ theories will have a chance to prove its relevance. The question is not ‘if’, but ‘when’. One thing is for sure that the capitalist economy cannot guarantee the prospective development of humanity because it does not take into account the cultural and human losses that result from its own expansion.

“Religion is the Opium of the people” was Karl’s more famous quotations. Opium is an addictive drug that dulls the senses. Would you say he is wrong after looking at the wars and terrorism and deaths of the last three decades fought in the name of religion? Here I do not justify either side at conflict, because both are taking advantage in the name of Religion and Nationalism (something which another great thinker Rabindranath Tagore was strongly against).

Even if Karl’s theories are adopted conflicts will always be part of society and society will always be unstable and changeable. Capitalism would try to fight back (some would say that it is the other way round). It may not be easy to create a state of equals, but inequalities even in Communism do not mean that Karl’s vision was entirely wrong. Karl might have said some instigative statements and proposed a lot of disputable theories, but that should not take away the merits in his approach and intention.

A wise man (second one) has said “In Capitalism man-exploits-man; in Communism it is just the opposite”. As the Latin saying goes - Mundus vult decipi – ergo decipitatur; meaning the world wants to be deceived, let it therefore be deceived. The purpose here is for us as thinking and educated individuals to select the good theories and the merits within the not-so-good theories to help us live a happy satisfied life and also a life where we can work for mankind. For like every journey has to come to an end, our modern civilization (Vedic Kali-yuga) will in the end meet our equivalence of the Vedic deluge, the destruction of the Atlantis or the Biblical Flood (that discussion will be left for another time). But as a wise man (third one) said “Fear not that thy life shall come to an end, but rather that it shall never have a beginning”.

Karl’s intentions can be summed up in a line from one of his letters “If we have chosen the position in life in which we can most of all work for mankind, no burdens can bow us down, because they are sacrifices for the benefit of all; then we shall experience no petty, limited, selfish joy, but our happiness will belong to millions, our deeds will live on quietly but perpetually at work, and over our ashes will be shed the hot tears of noble people”.

Notes:

All statements in Italics are attributed to Karl Marx, but I could not get him to personally verify this.

Efforts are being made to find the identity of the three wise men.

Summer of '69

So it was a fine sunny day. As children we used to play out in the gardens next to our home on such fine days. Those days there were no air conditioners to keep our homes cool throughout the day. In summers we used to feel hot and in winters we felt the cold. When it poured, the roads got flooded and that day was the best of the week, as we got a holiday from school and got to swim in the waist high waters.

Now things are a bit different. Playing in the sun gives us dehydration and dark spots. Floods interfere with our schedules. Basically the weather needs to meet our expectations and should not be a source of inconvenience. Never mind the fact that it is common knowledge that weather is always erratic and difficult to predict, especially as you get in the tropics and closer to the equator, but what the hell, since we are now in the iAge whether supply precedes our demands, how can we have any inconvenience from this thing called “Climate”.

Informed experts say that the weather now has become erratic. Just then, there was a huge volcano blast somewhere in Iceland inconveniencing perhaps the whole of Europe and anyone passing by. This is really crazy. That volcano was supposed to be dormant. And there wasn’t any dormant volcano which had blasted since I was born. Are they supposed to do that? Or is it because of Global Warming.

I do lose my line of thought now-a-days. Maybe it’s the heat. Anyway, everyone is concerned about GW. Let’s call it GW. Anything with a G* sounds very important. The developed nations want to do something about it. They are forcing the developing nations to do something about it. All the people in power, basically people who have money, want to do something about it. The best thing to do is to have a meeting and discuss about the possible solution. So a meeting was held on a boat. It was decided that boat should not be docked but should be sailing in the water. Off the Florida coast seems good enough. I happened to be on the boat. The story about I got to be there is for a later time. Unfortunately, I could not take my phone and camera. So, I couldn’t get you a video. But I can repeat what the powerful men had to say.

There were too many of them. Let me make it easy for you and me. Let us group all heads of state as one. We will call that group the Leaders of the Free World (LFW). LFW doesn’t only stand for London Fashion Week. Then we had an Economist, a Military Strategist and the Head of the World Reserve Bank. Finally we had a Scientist. We got to have a Scientist. Don’t you get it; GW has something to do with Science.

So that is where I started writing. It was a fine sunny day. I got lost in my thoughts again. It does happen a lot with this heat. But now I’m back where I started. It was a fine sunny day. The boat started sailing. The guys had a good breakfast. I didn’t like any of it. You see, I am from India. I shifted here to study and then got this job. So I prefer Idli in the morning. It’s light on the stomach. They had some 27 types of breads and so many different fruit juices. And I never went to the other side where they had a lot of non-vegetarian food. Sorry, I got lost again. After the breakfast we got in the conference room. Here starts the conference. I did promise to tell you what happened.

Me: Good Morning, brothers and sisters. (There were some at the table who starred at me when I said ‘sisters’. I bet those pretty stewardesses were not exactly their sisters.)

Me: Let me welcome the LFW. May I respectfully ask one of them to start this conference.

LFW: The last few years have been very very difficult for our people. Never before has any species had such a difficult time on our planet before.

Me: But sir, the Dinosaurs went extinct 60 million years back.

LFW: Rubbish boy, Steve is going to get them back. He is already in talks with that guy from India for his new movie. Don’t interrupt me again. We have gathered here to prevent our planet from GW. We have to find some solutions quickly. Never before has the earth faced so serious a problem. The scale is unprecedented. We need to outline points today so that we can save our planet. The destiny of our planet is now in our hands. Com’on boy, list out. What’s first on the agenda?

Me: Sir, the ma... (interrupted)

LFW: You guys. Don’t sit on that side of the table. I got a terrible sprain in my neck. You all move to the right side. I cannot move Left. Continue son.

Me: Sir, the main reason why we are so much of a burden to the planet is that because we are so many. At last count we were 9 billion people. In the history of 4.5 billion years of our planet, the planet has never had to handle such a burden.

Economist: That incorrect. We are just 7 billion people.

Me: Sir, That’s official. But if you would come to my country and the neighbouring one above me and also see the African nations, then the actual count will be around 9 billion. It pretty much like your unemployment rate. Understated by about 25%.

LFW: So does that mean that we are growing at the rate of 2 billion people every billion years?

Me: No sir. The first Homo, that is, the Hominids family came about 4 million years ago. (I don’t know why, but everyone started blushing at that time).

LFW: So, it’s about 2 billion people every million years.

Me: No sir, these Homos’ is not us people. Our first ancestors were the Homosapiens which came about less than half a million year ago.

LFW: So, it’s about 2 billion people every hundred thousand years.

Me: Sir, you could say so. But you see there is something called exponential growth. It’s a mathematical term. Basically, until the beginning of this Inter-glacial era there were less than 10 million people and until the beginning of this just concluded Age of the Pisces there were less than half a billion people in this world.

LFW: Boy, you are a very confused person. We are talking about people and you have got mathematics and geology and sun signs into all this. If I really understood all this I would not be in politics.

Me: Sorry sir, the last inter-glacial age started at around 10000 BC. And... (interrupted)

Economist: Like the movie 10000 BC.

Me: Sir, just the name matched.

BankHead: And why the Sun signs. How does it matter which month I was born?

Me: Briefly sir, the earth does not move exactly round its axis. Its motion is more like a spinning top. I know a lot about spinning tops. When I was a young boy this was my favourite sport. I never had an Xbox. Sorry, I got lost again. So the earth moves like a top. Round and wobbling. Just like the equator runs through the centre, we have an ecliptical plane which is at a tilt, like the top. So every 2100 years the equinoxes (Vernal and Autumnal) change their corresponding constellation. Since about 200 BCE/200 CE till 2000/2400 CE we were in the Age of the Pisces (Virgo for Autumnal Equinoxes). You may have heard of the Mayan Calendar ending in 2012. Now any moment (relatively) we are going to start the Age of the Aquarius. So, coming back to our point, at about 100 BCE, just before Christ was born we were about less than half a billion people and now we are almost 9 billion. In the next 2100 years by the time the next Age ends we might really have about 200 billion people (200,000,000,000 people). Actually I am speaking quite conservatively sir. Maybe we could reach a trillion people.

BankHead: That is still too slow, if you really compare to the money I am printing my son. Just too bloody slow. It’s just typical of the developing countries. They are just too slow.

LFW: So will we now have to print more money to save this planet?

Me: No sir. The real point here is that we need to control our population growth sir. Immediately, sir. Maybe a one child policy would be correct. And, if any one chooses not to have children then we can give them a tax exemption for life. Maybe if we do this right away, then in the next 100 years we might just reach equilibrium where we will not have any growth.

Economist: What do you mean no Growth? How can we have no Growth?

Me: And after that we can aim at reducing the population, that is, if the planet gives us a second chance sir.

BankHead: Did you say negative growth? Son, do you know what deflation means? The earth will come crashing down.

LFW: Son, there must be another way out.

Me: Either that or we might have to wait for the planet to take care of itself. Maybe natural catastrophes which will wipe out millions of people at one go. And we must hope that these are repeated very often.

LFW: What are you talking about son? You there, science man. Why aren’t you saying something? I have got you on board to make some suggestions.

Scientist: Sir, but I am a physicist sir. I am trying to make the God particle. I do not know anything about GW.

LFW: What do you mean? Haven’t you studied science? Are we not talking about science?

Scientist: Sir, there are many forms of sciences.

LFW: Just give me another solution. I am the LFW. I don’t want to hear a NO.

Me: Sir, in order to reduce the carbon footprint, we should stop cross border trades, especially for luxury items. Intercountry trade contributes to the largest percentage in carbon footprints.

Economist: This is utter rubbish. We need to make things economically. The strongest will survive. We need Mergers and Acquisitions. Investment Banking is the key to today’s world.

Me: Sir, don’t get me wrong. Most of items being imported in the developing countries are for the urban rich whereas, the rural poor have to bear the brunt of their luxuries. How does it matter if the rich do not get to eat a Kiwi in India? Besides, the clothes you wear are made of American cotton, but this cotton was imported by Pakistan to spin yarn and woven in India and stitched in Vietnam before coming into your stores in New York. Wouldn’t it be better to have all the processes there itself. Maybe it would be a tad expensive but look at the saving in carbon footprint. So, no cross border trades, except absolute necessities like food grains or energy requirements for those in need of relief.

Military Strategist: Can we export arms and ammunitions or will that add to the footprint?

BankHead: Let’s give a credit to someone who saves the chemical footprint.

Me: Sir, Carbon footprint.

Bankhead: Yes exactly. We can call these the Carbon Credits. And we can trade in them. Cross border trading in Carbon credits will not add to Carbon footprints, will it?

Military Strategist: But we need to export security. Free will has to be protected. We need to fight for Rights.

Me: Sir, Right to Live and Right to Eat are the foremost rights. We need to ensure that all people are treated equally (walking to the Left to drink some water)

LFW: Son, come to the right. You know, I can’t look Left. Stop all these jargons. Science, mathematics, exponential!! Just tell me when the Oxygen is going to get over.

Me: Not really. The Oxygen is not getting over. Sir, you see, the earth has had 21% Oxygen for tens of millions of years. If you must attach a value for the change, then the level of oxygen has changed by 0.001%. And, that figure too does not have any statistical significance. Ever since we started the “fire” about 2 million years back, the oxygen level has not come down. Today even after 9 billion people are burning so much energy, Oxygen levels are still at 21%.

Scientist: Isn’t it true that at the time the Dinosaurs went extinct Oxygen had dipped to below 15% levels. I read that somewhere.

Me: Maybe that is true. But they were not burning anything.

Bankhead: We know that.

Me: We do not know the real reason for their extinction. What you say is the most likely. But that could have been caused by an unprecedented volcano or something like that.

LFW: So you say that we should do nothing about the ozone layer.

Me: Sir maybe not bursting bombs might help. Sorry sir for that tongue-in-cheek remark. But the truth is that building fuel-efficient cars and eco-friendly refrigerators is not going to help.

LFW: So who said that this was an unprecedented crisis?

Me: Sir that was you. And you are right. But the problem is not the oxygen. The problem is us.

LFW: Are we going to die?

Bankhead: Yes Sir, ofcourse. We are human after all.

Scientist: That is not what he meant. Will Homopeople be extinct?

Me: Since the Cambrian explosion.... (interrupted)

Military Strategist: Did someone say bomb?

Me: No sir. The Cambrian explosion was 550 million years ago, which initiated the birth of millions of species. Since then there have been mass extinctions approximately every 26 million years. Also there have been approximately eight to nine dominant species which have lasted for 50 to 80 million years. Reasons are not really known for their extinction. And although we would like to believe that the reasons were extra-terrestrial like meteorites the extinctions have been mostly local factors, not clearly known as yet. Maybe, they are as simple in most cases as Darwin’s theory of Natural Selection. (Looking at the economist) Something like what they showed in the X-men.

Economist: Brilliant movie. And now they are coming with the fourth version.

Bankhead: So we are safe for another 20 million years. That settles it.

Me: But sir, the population.... (interrupted)

BankHead: Enough boy. What about the population? How can we stop screwing each other? Let nature play its part. We will do ours by issuing carbon credits.

LFW: Next time, I want the agenda clearly outlined, just like the lunch buffet. We need to discuss the cooling of the Earth’s core.

(Lunch begins)

Scientist: Why don’t you eat the non-vegetarian stuff?

Me: I feel we should not be killing someone. We are lucky enough to be on this planet. We should behave responsibly. We are already the reason for the extinction of a billion species on this planet.

Scientist: Man is also an animal. The strong will kill the weak. It is the Law of the Jungle.

Me: After 300,000 years since Homosapiens came about I would like to think of myself as having evolved to more than an animal. And if I have to be classified as an animal, then I would prefer to be of the herbivorous kind. It is a philosophy some of us follow. But like they say “To each his own”.

(LFW walks up to me)

LFW: I am glad we gave you people the Visas to come here and make a living. You should thank us for that opportunity. Tell me, isn’t it a bit chilly here for this time of the year?

Me: Sir, that’s actually because the Atlantic Miticadal Oscillators.......(interrupted)

LFW: Forget I asked you that. Can someone turn down the air conditioner?