In a message dated 2/15/01 8:35:03 AM Eastern Standard Time, stephend999@yahoo.co.uk writes:

<< > Actually, we're on that subject, can anybody think of a god who isn't either male or female? I can't, off the top of my head, except a vague recollection that the Hebrew word translated as "God" in the King James Version of Genesis I is actually plural (which still doesn't make it neuter, and my

recollection may not be > accurate...)<<

Your recollection is accurate. "Elohim", the Hebrew word for god, is actually plural, which for many anthropologists and historians is evidence of the multi-diety origin of Judaism/Christianity. A lot of long-suppressed evidence is starting to surface in the Middle East that the Yawah of the ancient Jews had a female counterpart, without whom he could not function; Ashera. The later turn of the faith toward domination by the patriarchs demonized and eradicated her, reducing her presence down to nothing more than the feminine 'aspect' of God as a whole, the "Shechina."

An intermittant movement or two arose through the subsequent 3 millennia to restore the presence of Ashera (sometimes through arcane Kaballah interpretation), but were always suppressed; by then, both Christianity and Judaism were solidly entrenched in their Patriarchal domination.

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You could make a very respectable case for the Christian deity !

Certainly, once you start envisaging God as having "neither body, parts nor passions" it tends to militate against God having any sex/gender. This hasn't of course stopped people referring to God as "he". I think feminist theologians would argue that this is a hangover from patriarchy rather than saying anything about God's nature.<<

Unfortunately, Judeao-Christian theologians have historically used the strict characterization of God as a literal male to turn the female half of their number into second-class members of the faith, still unworthy of clerical priesthood and needing to yeild obedience to a man because he does not carry the burden of that nasty sin with the apple, back in the Garden of Eden. What amazes me is our continued compliance with these ideas, 3 THOUSAND years later. Sometimes, I don't think the dark ages actually ended.

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I would guess that most deities are given personal

attributes which would include sex/ gender. As always I am open to correction from anyone who knows different. (Did Plato refer to God as "He", I can't remember off the top of my head).<<

Patriarchal religion began to replace the almost universal Goddess religions when agriculture and city-states kicked in big time, about 3,000 years ago. In multi-god cultures like Greece and Rome, the 'chief' diety became an all-powerful male one. It's no coincidence that this was around about the time that it became general knowledge, for the first time, that the male had a part in the procreation process.

Leah