It seems to me that if there is a god, it must be a she-god, a goddess. By the way, if this kind of discussion offends your religious sensibilities, please stop reading right here. We know that god created man in his (her) own image, or so we’re told by at least three major religions. This makes sense. When we create, we impart our own character to our creations. Why shouldn’t any other creator do the same? Therefore, assuming that we are created in god’s image, then we have two choices: god or goddess! There are no true hermaphrodites in humans, meaning one individual who can function as both female and male, so that choice is out. I will give four different perspectives as to why it’s goddess and not god.
One – the biologist’s perspective
You may know from your biology class that in humans two X chromosomes make a female (XX) and an X and a Y chromosome make a male (XY). Well, that’s only part of the story. Female is actually the main pathway for sexual development. And, it’s not just in humans. It’s in all species that have two sexes. The main pathway leads to female development, unless and internal (genetic), or external (temperature, ratio of male to female in the group, etc) signal triggers an alternate pathway leading to male or hermaphrodite development. If you take away the Y chromosome from a fertilized XY cell (a genetic male), the embryo will become female. This actually does happen sometimes. It’s an XO female instead of an XX female. Incidentally, what happens if you take a way the X? The embryo can’t survive! There is so much information on the X chromosome that without the cell can not function. In effect, men are missing a huge chunk of genetic information and they have to compensate for it by making the genes on their single X chromosome work twice as hard (a process known as dosage compensation). Ladies you should pity us for our mistakes. We’re operating on less information than you have!
Interestingly, there are some amphibians that have a single sex: all female. They still have to get together and go through a sort of sexual mating dance (as sexual as a lizard can get) in order to self-fertilize their eggs, but no males are involved. There are no all male single sex species. Such thing is impossible. In fact, males seem to be an extra cost for the species. To give you an analogy, suppose you own a factory that makes a single car model. In order for your factory to make two models, you need to spend extra capital developing and maintaining the second model. So, why did nature/creator decide to make a second model (males)? Because, it allows better shuffling of the genes and hence gives the species better odds at surviving environmental changes and specially disease. It’s the difference between shuffling a deck of cards with one hand versus two hands! And, theoretically it’s possible to make an organism out of an egg, but not a sperm. Thin of it this way: an egg is a computer, plus the software to run it. A sperm is just the software! So, to go back to the original in-the-image-of-god assumption, it would make more sense that a goddess created us in her own image. Hence, she gave more emphasis to the female sex in nature.
Two: the physicist’s perspective
The universe is huge. You already know that, but really, it’s HUGE! Yet despite its size, the universe possesses internal mechanisms for organization, which could only have originated from a female mind. For example, gravity! It’s an elegant solution to the problem of astronomical amounts of matter and energy existing in a practically infinite space. It brings things together, yet it gives them a random beauty. If it was a male design, most likely there would be no gravity! Things would just fly a part and smash into each other. Or if he would have thought of gravity, you would have a small universe like a handyman’s garage. All stars would be lined up on a two dimensional grid around the walls, with each star having a set number of planets (say 300), and each planet would have a set number of moons (200), like one of those guys that has every tool that he will never use! And, the universe itself seems to be like a beautiful and intelligent lady. Just when the astrophysicists think they have figured her out, she throws a curve ball. They thought they had figured out how gravity works but then the curve ball came along. The gravitational forces and the movement of stars didn’t exactly add up to what the equations predicted. So, now the astrophysicists are chasing after what they call “dark matter” and “dark energy” (or Nokhod Syiah). And, that brings me to another point, relativity. In the theory of relativity, everything is relative to the constant speed of light c (stands for celeritas). Women may drive fast. But, they get into one lane and go at a constant speed. Men weave in and out of traffic, slow down, speed up and never ask for direction. When energy or matter travel through space, they go where they’re supposed to go at a constant, put-the-pedal-to-the-metal speed. Why? Because gravity tells them! So, the physical characteristics of the universe point to the hands of a goddess at work.
Three: the naturalist’s perspective
The degree of variety in nature is truly amazing. There are bacteria, plants, animals, insects, fungi, and …there are organisms that thrive in boiling water next to thermal vents in the deep ocean, and life forms that thrive in frozen arctic tundra! There is even an organism that can survive the vacuum of space. And supposedly, the creator made all of this in six days, and then rested. Well, a male creator would procrastinate for six day, watching the angels play football, soccer, basketball, etc, then on the seventh day he would hurriedly make one thing and that would be it! Again, this is assuming some degree of correlation between the characters of man and the creator. Men don’t remake the same thing a gazillion times, slightly different every time. Women have patience enough to do something like that. Then there is the matter of garbage! Every ecosystem has an internal method for taking out the garbage. Whether it’s dung beetles, Tasmanian devils, Pihranas, or just plane old bacteria and fungi, someone is taking out the trash. That’s why these organisms are there. Remove them and the ecosystem dies. Now, when was the last time that the average man was eager to take out the trash!? The household of nature is organized by an efficient, experienced ‘Kadbanoo’ (if you don’t know what that means, google it). If it was a man, you’d still see left over dinosaur corpses lying everywhere.
There is also a practicality that does not ring true of the average man. Let’s face it, if a male god created us in his own image, he must possess the practicality of the average man! What would that look like? Take something like locomotion. How many modes of locomotion are there? There are two, four, six, eight, and multi-legged, but always an even number of legs. There is hopping, flying, slithering, swimming, and …but all are wonderfully adapted to their environment and practical. The male version would probably be only one uniform way of movement, and then something like seven-legged plus one wing! Or, look at all the colors in nature. It’s known that women’s eyes have a higher capacity for detection of shades and hues than men’s eyes. The reason goes back to the whole two X chromosome thing, but I won’t get into it. Well, there are definitely shades in nature that men could not even differentiate, much less create. A male created nature would probably have been some uniform and horrendous shade of brown!
Four: the theologian’s perspective
Religion tells us that god created man and gave man certain rules and guidelines to live by. At times, angels were sent or prophets were used by the almighty to give guidance. Man being obstinate deviates from god’s words and sins. Then god wipes out everyone on earth except the few righteous by some horrible method. And, the righteous repopulate the earth. In some religions including the major three, this cycle has been repeated several times.
Ask yourself honestly, does that sound more like a man or a woman!? In the realm of human relationships, it seems that men screw up. Women wipe them out (via fire, court order, or right through the window). And if the men are smart enough to see the error of their ways, they are forgiven. Right or wrong, that seems to be the general format, a perfect mirror for what religion tells us is the history of the relationship between god and man. Plus, there is again the creativity part. The punishments dished out for man’s errors are varied. The world has been wiped out by water, fire, earthquakes, locust, etc. The goddess is creative in her punishments and she is patient! A creator with the male temperament would be very uniform. He would basically use one standard punishment every time. And, it would be something totally crazy, like using a massive vacuum cleaner to suck everyone into the sun! Also, he would not be so patient. The biblical account tells us that man has been punished after numerous chances to repent and return to the laws of the almighty. No male god would do that. The very fist time that man would have only slightly deviated would have been the beginning and the end of the story of creation. And as a final proof, when the creator finally has had it, all hell breaks loose! I remember when I was a kid; my mom was very patient with me. But, those few times that I made her mad enough to chase after me have been chiseled into my head. As the old adage goes, hell hath no fury like a woman’s wrath.
What’s the moral of the story? If you’re one of those people (man or woman) who don’t believe in women’s rights …say you think it’s okay to arrest women and throw them in jail because they’re demanding equal rights. And, GODDESS forbid (dur az junetun) one day you croak (happens to the best of us), you better be careful. When you end up in front of the all mighty, SHE may not be all that merciful or companionate!
