Talk:Goddess

message: I see others have already noticed the articles lack of neutrality... or the errors in statement.  I am far from an expert on the subject.  However, I am personally aware that "Goddess" can be and used in monotheism, instead of exclusively as goddess of the polytheistic belief.  Thus I find the very first statement the article makes to be... well simply wrong.
The Flower of Life
The convergence is that both Judaism and Christianity view God as an omnigender entity.  It is both male and female, and neither at the same time.
However, especially with Christianity, it is equally as valid to see God, instead as the Goddess.  Using the book I linked as an example, the theory is the following.
We see 'God' or 'Goddess', or a Prana/Force/Holy Spirit as separate because we are riding our bodies through our life.  Everything around us is essentially transient and insubstantiel.  However, we 'perceive' this realm as 'real'.  That reason in reverse is why we see the Goddess as three separate entities.
Anyhow, I will end at that because this isn't the time or place.  Yet, I felt a want to offer more than a single line statement.  Thank you for sharing your time, and Force.
Witkh13 (talk) 09:17, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Goddess

message: The section on the 'sacred feminine' is both vague and disconnected. The only information provided is when and who popularized the term, without any definition or context. (A hint of definition exists in the beginning of the article, far away from its respective section.) As far as I can gather, it's an Americanized term that refers to a central importance of a feminine figure in worship.   — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.247.117.154 (talk) 16:37, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Lack of Information on Sacred Feminine

message: Article's intro is so rife with jargon and POV I cannot read the rest now, but I have to comment on second and third paragraphs. ("As the concept of monotheism and polytheism can be relativistic, so too can related concepts be culturally misunderstood. The concept of gender as applied to a god and goddess, may connote deeper tendencies of patriarchy and matriarchy, which may have equivalence to the rift between monotheism and polytheism. The Goddess concept is advocated by modern matriarchs and pantheists as a female version of, or analogue to God, (i.e. the Abrahamic god) who in feminist and other circles is perceived as being rooted in patriarchal concept of dominance— much to the exclusion of feminine concepts.
Use of parallel language such as "patriarchy" and "matriarchy" to indicate gender tendencies can add to the misunderstanding of the social organizational preferences of women and men, as evidenced in archaeological and cultural anthropological findings.)What the heck does this mean? Run on sentence plus jargon = confusion, but I think the writer's point and POV is that insinuating gender distinction into religion is, well, dumb. Now, I happen to disagree, in that I think it may not even be possible for human beings to de-genderize concepts of deity - so why not get it out into the open? And in discussing gender and religion, why not seek NPOV in the finest Wikipedia tradition?  People believe in Goddesses; that's a fact, and shouldn't that fact and its various expressions in human culture and history be the subject of this essay? SC 04:31, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I am in total agreement with you on that.  The introduction is not very comprehensible and seems lacking in understanding of the theology of polytheism, and the article as a whole seems to be focused on a few apparently arbitrarily selected topics while completely ignoring many others (what about the goddesses of various ancient polytheistic religions? the "Great Mother/Mother Goddess" myth? goddesses in other forms of Neopaganism besides Wicca? goddesses in literature? women as goddesses as a part of feminist self-empowerment rather than a recognition of sex appeal - for example, the Go Goddess! board game?) - AdelaMae (talk - contribs) 18:40, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Jargon

message: I have to ask here one particular cited source may be invalid. It comes from the The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets By Barabara Walker. The problem is she has much critizism in the area of historical accuracy. >  Some of Barbara's sources are outdated, not cited(at all), or says something completely diffrent than what she says. Could someone either fix this (in the Arabia sec) or confirm it's authenticity with an outside source? Xuchilbara 00:56, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I would have to agree that Barbara Walker is not the best source to use. Academic ones are preferred. If you have the information required to fix that part, I encourage you to do so.  ~ Kathryn NicDhàna ♫♦♫ 04:49, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Some cited source(s)

message: I like the Hindu and Devi references... but not because "most Wiccan and 'neo-pagan' rituals are often derived" from them; FYI that statement is probably as accurate (and offensive) as saying most Moslem and Christian rituals are probably derived from Judaic devotional practices. The statement causes more need for clarification than clarity. SC 04:31, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Rituals

message: Pre-Islamic Arabia, and indeed in parts of Persia, there was dozens, if not hundreds of Goddesses.  This Sub-Sectin does not deal with these Goddesses, but with 3 mentioned in the 'Satanic Veses', and about the novel by Salman Rushdie with the same name.  The Section was, thus, poorly names, and I renamed it. --195.7.55.146 12:38, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I see. But clearly the scope of the paragraph is wider, and more goddesses should be added, or at least the fact that there were more should be explained. Don't change the title, fix the paragraph! dab (ᛏ) 14:21, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Most of it is arguments too and fro, that should more likely be located be the article Satanic Verses. There is little information about actual worship or anything such, it should probably be pre-islamic arabia with a footnote about their cameo in islam. Unless something more substantial can be found.--Tigeroo 19:42, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Satanic Verses

message: It is not immediatey obvious to me that this section is encyclopedic.  Jkelly 23:38, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It is a little more fleshed out now, with several examples in Shakespeare. I think there's literary and sociological interest in references to goddess as metaphor, which this section briefly touches on. - Reaverdrop (talk/nl) 00:53, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That is a bit better.  "Goddess as metaphor" seems like a perfectly reasonable section.  It's the danger of a "List of women called goddesses by news reporters" that I am concerned about.  Jkelly 00:56, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Without looking, I'm sure someone has already created such a list for an entry on Maxim magazine. - Reaverdrop (talk/nl) 00:59, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Secular use" section 

message: Section 4.4 Religious Feminism was marked as a "stub" that needed more material in it. So I wrote a couple of paragraphs. I also added references for this material to the References section. Hope it's okay.Judith Laura 21:04, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  4.4 Religious Feminism Section

message: Re: the inclusion of the early Islamic historians. If a further citation is needed and their pages on Wikipedia are not adequate then I suggest you may need to remove the unsubstantiated claim that their writings were forgeries.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.135.200.247 (talk • contribs • WHOIS) 
:I suggest that the section really needs a copyedit -- we introduce the two scholars in question twice now. Jkelly 23:50, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It seems more like things that should be moved to the Satanic verses page where it is more relevant, with a short cameo mention about its featuring in an Islamic controversy and re-focus on the actual pre-arabian goddesses and that area in general.--Tigeroo 19:44, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Early Islamic historians referencing 

message: Oh dear Goddesses, does this article need work.  I made a start.  The only way I could avoid deleting even more of the opening was to place *citation needed* tags.  I can source some of that, but don't have time tonight.  I only glanced at other sections, but saw a lot of problems.  If we don't overhaul this ourselves, and pretty soon, I think we'll need to place a general cleanup flag on it.  ~ Kathryn NicDhàna ♫♦♫ 05:16, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Urgh. I have to agree the article is a shambles. It lacks overarching cohesion and focus. It's one of the more randomly constructed articles I've seen. I'm tempted to just start anew. (thinking hard). We'll see what can be done with this mess. --PigmanTalk to me 02:17, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

text: OK, just as a point of comparison, take a look at what the article was like in July of 2004.  Yes, there were plenty of problems as well but it had a bit more readability and cohesion. I'm particularly looking at the listcruft of the various cultures' goddesses which has crept into the current version of the article. I feel like scrapping all of that stuff, particularly since a sizable portion of it is wrong. Still thinking but I'm leaning toward being bold about this. Comments? --PigmanTalk to me 00:06, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Do it while the inspiration's hot. I've struggled with this article a little too; I ended up just contenting myself with trying to get the Wicca section working, because the whole thing was too much to bite off. I'm in favour of being bold. Fuzzypeg☻ 20:26, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Cleanup

message: First of all, what the hell is a "pentabarf"?
Second, as with a few other entries on Sikhism I've seen on wikipedia, the one here looks like it was written by a devotee and sounds preachy, it stands out from the rest of the article and doesn't sound objective.Rglong 06:18, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Wow, okay, apparently there really is such a thing as the pentabarf.  However it comes from what seems to be a parodic religion.  That should be mentioned.Rglong 06:21, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  More Cleanup 

message: From the article: 
"Some people believe that the example of Jesus and the tradition of centuries has Christians refer to and address God as "Father", not "Mother". However, this is not the real meaning of the words Jesus used to describe the deity. The original words have a meaning of both mother and father."
There's no source for this that's cited, and I think it's a pretty big thing to say without a source. If there's a valid source, I think that information would be very interesting. Without one, though, it seems not so believable.JamisonK 09:39, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  A valid source? (under Christianity) 

message: While I won't try to deny that a Prime Goddess is a widespread belief, this article seems to push its argument (which it shouldn't actually have) in a few odd places - for example, the Sikhism or some of the Abrahamic sections, where the belief that the prime god is not defined by physical gender like humans allows it to be interpreted as a Goddess - when gender neutral would actually place it farther from Goddess than even God (male) would be.
It also has a woeful lack of sources in places where they are badly needed - I'm sure you all know the opening, but other sections seem more like someone trying to post their own reasoning, and less like synthesis from available sources.Not even Mr. Lister's Koromon survived intact. 23:44, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Also, the tone is rather woeful, telling us "some people believe this", "some people believe that". Sure it has been common practice to depict and describe God as masculine, and that's fair to say, but dwelling on what people believe and how wrong they are, rather than cutting to the chase and just stating facts gives this section a polemical tone. Fuzzypeg☻ 23:29, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citations and POV-pushing 

message: In the section under "Judaism", there are some statements made about the grammatical gender of Hebrew terms for God that are not referenced in the original laguage (e.g., merely to say that YHWH is feminine is insufficient--what verb-derived form is it specifically?) and which have no citations.  I don't have a problem with the statements as long as they are properly cited and referenced.  I would also point out that the translation of "El Shaddai" as "breasted" or "many-breasted god" is not uncontroversial.  From what I understand, shaddai could also be construed as "god of the mountains", since the root from which shaddai comes is ambiguous.  I'm not an expert on this, and I don't mind the contentions--I just think it should be made clear that there are different perspectives on this in order to avoid POV problems, and that grammatical claims should be specific and properly referenced. Turmarion (talk) 17:01, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Grammar

message: Pop singer Madonna often deals with the theme of the Goddess in her work, for example the song "Oh Father" and "Papa Don't Preach", and on the American Life album she sings a song called "Mother and Father" which contains the lines: "My father had to go to work/ I used to think he was a jerk." And in an episode of Family Guy, a show fittingly about the importance of fathers, the father, Peter Griffin, discusses Madonna with his own father, saying, "With Madonna, it's all just about getting back at daddy." So, I think this article would be much improved to include a section about the importance of Madonna's relationship with her father Silvio Ciccone, and perhaps her relationship with brother Christopher Ciccone who has commented on the importance the Goddess plays in Madonna's work. Thank you. -- Copy Editor (talk) 07:12, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Section about Madonna and the Goddess

message: I just reverted some miscellaneous vandalism that had accumulated in this article over the last few weeks. If you're reading this, please take a moment to look over the article and make sure I didn't miss anything! Also, please keep an eye on this article, since vandalism is obviously slipping through the cracks. - AdelaMae (t - c - wpn) 16:59, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vandalism 

message: The Section on Hinduism is incomplete, it seems to ignore that not all branches of Hindusim believe that all the gods and goddesses come from one being the Brahman, for example the Dvaita seems to view god (in that case Vishnu), as being seperate, but supreme to all other gods and goddesses (with Lakshmi) as well as the souls of living beings, Samkhya for example doesn't even believe in Brahman or Ishvara.  The section in this article seems to focus only some of the branches of the Vedanta tradition.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.207.208.6 (talk) 10:55, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Section on Hindusim seems incomplete 

message: Where has it gone?
*
:Austerlitz -- 88.75.203.240 (talk) 07:51, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  So 

message: I just wanted to know what are the jewish sources for the lilith being the 'ahsera' and 'Ishtar'. I also looked for the 'original' story of lilith as adams    supposed wife but i didnt find it anywhere in the talmud and the midrash. I think that it'll be a good idea to check this paragraph and see if these arent myths about jewish folklore.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.86.64.85 (talk) 21:12, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  judaism 

message: ...Like Shinto for example.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.72.219.104 (talk) 02:14, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Other religions w/ females goddesses need to be mentioned 

message: Shouldn't there be a section on the religion of Collyridianism, a Christian sect that worshipped the Virgin Mary? Information found here:  --Willthacheerleader18 (talk) 03:35, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Christian Goddesses

message: This paragraph is just plain odd and needs to be edited...
...The primacy of a monotheistic or near-monotheistic "Great Goddess" is advocated by some modern matriarchists as a female version of, preceding, or analogue to, the Abrahamic God associated with the historical rise of monotheism in the Mediterranean Axis Age.
The existence of a monotheistic Goddess religion is hardly the imaginary creation of modern matriarchists (whatever those are.) The archaeology and historical evidence is quite abundant of a monotheistic Goddess religion practiced in the fertile crescent (Mesopotamia to Anatolia) prior to Babylon and certainly prior to the Abrahamic God.  The religion lasted in some areas into historic time (in other words, there is written evidence) and last temple was shut down in Ephesus in 380 A.D.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.141.254.254 (talk) 00:59, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Highly unlikely, since monotheism was practically nonexistent at the time. You're thinking of Henotheism. Bataaf van Oranje (Prinsgezinde) (talk) 12:53, 14 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Monotheistic "Great Goddess" is historic, not imaginary 

message: There appears to be a contradiction between the lines:
Judaism is a Patriarchal religion, with emphasis being placed on God as having creating Adam is his own image. Eve is a secondary addition to creation, having been created from Adam's rib. God is referred to as "He" and family lines through Abraham are followed in a Patrilinear fashion. The concept of a Goddess seems to be absent from all but the original Creation myth which some scholars say appears have roots in the nearby Babylonian creation myth, Enuma Elis. 
in the Judaism section.
and
(Judaism never recognized any gender for God) 
in the Goddess Movement section
This should not be too difficult or controversial to resolve.
Robertcurrey (talk) 11:39, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Gender of the God of Judaism

message: This needs a WP:ENGVAR cleanup, with the spellings of "honor" and "honour" both appearing in normal text (as opposed to quotations, for example), and a quick scan of the article didn't help me to find other spellings that are clearly in favo(u)r of using US or using UK spellings.  Someone more familiar with the article needs to do a good copyedit, also fixing numerous non-spelling mistakes such as "Hinduism also worships multitude of goddesses".  Nyttend (talk) 04:41, 19 January 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spelling 

message: It says in the subcategory of Shinto, that Amaterasu is the chief among the Shintogods. Actually, I believe that her parents, Izanagi and Izanamiare the chief Shinto gods & goddesses.--Splashen (talk) 17:08, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Shinto 

message: — Assignment last updated by Bag0hchipz (talk) 02:07, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
thread_title: Wiki Education assignment: Honors World Religions

message: Greetings, This article has failed the B-class criteria (#1) since being admitted to the "Articles with unsourced statements from December 2009" and "Articles with unsourced statements from October 2010" club. --  Otr500 (talk) 02:44, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article issues and classification