SEX BEGOT RELIGION

Religion appears to be as old as humanity itself. Artifacts recovered from late Paleolithic burial sites show indisputable evidence of religious practice. Neanderthal man, who died out around 32,000 years ago, buried his dead with some kind of relatively sophisticated ceremony. The one thing that all primitive people seem to have possessed regardless of their ethnic, lingual, cultural, or geographic separation is some kind of religion.

Just when, where and how did religion begin? A tantalizing clue, is a direct connection between religion and sexuality. More evident in primitive peoples, it is also present in more advanced societies, although great effort has been made to ignore or disguise it. Maybe that answer lies in our unique sexuality. Although the mechanisms of human reproduction are essentially the same as those of all other species of the class mammalia, and there are about 15,000 of them, the way in which the sex drive manifests itself in humans is unique and extremely more complex.

It's almost impossible to imagine the sort of life the earliest humans lived. But on the basis of what knowledge we do have it was anything but the earthly paradise described so naively in the Bible. In all probability it was, a short, meager life of relatively low expectations lived out in comparative isolation. The world of our earliest ancestors probably encompassed no more than a few square miles at most. They appear to have mostly lived in fenced in, or walled in, compounds probably not much larger than an average city block. Outside of this compound lay an unknown and hostile world full of danger and full of death.

Hunting and food gathering parties would routinely venture out and return safely, but on occasion some individual, a child fetching water perhaps, would stray too far never to be seen again. Just what had become of them was, I’m sure, the subject of much creative speculation. Humans were rare in those days, and our early ancestors knew only a few other individuals. Their life experiences were limited in range and narrow and scope. Contact with other tribe either planned or accidental, usually meant a fight to the death.

Although they did not fully understand the human reproductive process, they knew full well that it was a crucial factor if the tribe was to survive and prosper. Therefore the issuance of new life was of the utmost importance. They knew very well that there is not only safety but also power in numbers. For example, in Genesis 9:1 following the alleged “great flood” God exhorts Noah and his sons to, "be fruitful and multiply...fill the earth." Therefore, it is not at all difficult to see how the act of giving birth took on a mystical or even reverential quality for the early humans. It surely must have been the cause for great joy and celebration. In this we see the first glimmering of religion.

The fact that religion was present in almost all early human societies has been interpreted by some people as proof of God's existence. This is just wistful thinking because it could just as logically be argued that religion is proof of man's ignorance. One of the most important functions of all religions is to supply answers to questions that people have not been able to answer satisfactorily from experience and/or observation. The irony of the evolution of the human brain is that as intelligence increased so did ignorance. In order to have ignorance it is first necessary to have enough intelligence to understand just what it is that we are ignorant of.

It was not obvious to early humans that the male had anything to do with procreation. They did realize that for some unknown reason females who had not had sexual intercourse with a male did not become pregnant. This realization led eventually to the understanding and appreciation of the necessary male contribution to the process. For many thousands of years procreation was viewed as exclusively a female function, thereby assuring them a special position in early human societies. It was also obvious that after achieving the age at which they could bear children females bled at regular intervals from the same part of the body from which they gave birth. To compound these mysterious occurrences the periodic bleeding stopped whenever pregnancy took place and just as mysteriously resumed following birth.

A connection was made in the minds of early humans between bleeding and giving birth. But bleeding could also result in death. A primitive people with no knowledge of medicine facing tremendous odds against survival, bleeding becomes a risky business indeed. Blood became precious as a carrier of life as well as a harbinger of death. It appeared to have mystical powers.

The fact that a woman's menstrual cycle seemed to parallel the lunar cycle made it easy to assume a relationship existed between the moon and giving birth, thereby enhancing the apparent mystical or supernatural quality. Uterine blood was believed to be the “moon flower” that contained the soul of future generations. This belief survives with the biblical injunction against contact with menstrual blood, the woman's "flower" which of course precedes the fruit of her womb as a flower precedes the fruit of a tree.

The word "adam" for example, derives from the ancient Hebrew word "adoma" which literally translated means "bloody clay", not red earth as some modern theologians would have us believe. In fact, in most ancient languages words for menstruation also meant such things as incomprehensible, supernatural, sacred spirit, and even deity. Like the Latin "sacer", old Arabian words for pure and impure both applied to menstrual blood. In many primitive societies it was believed that human souls were made of menstrual blood which assumed human form when the female became pregnant. The Great philosopher Aristotle subscribed to this view as did Pliny. The supernatural power of the menses were taught as fact in European medical schools as recently as 200 years ago. Religious cults such as Jehovah's Witnesses hold that human blood carries spiritual significance. They go so far as to forbid blood transfusions even in cases where a life might be saved.

It is not surprising that blood red became a sacred color with many people. The Maori of New Zealand, made things sacred by applying the color red to them. The Andaman islanders used red paint to cover the sick in order to heal them. This custom can be traced all the way back to prehistoric times. In ancient tombs the furnishings show definite traces of having been reddened with ochre, as have the remains of their human occupants. This practice was intended to create a closer resemblance to earth mother's womb from which the dead could be born again. We hear the phrase "born again" bantered about by many Christian fundamentalist. I'm sure most of them are naively unaware of its full implications.

Egyptian Pharaohs acquired divinity by imbibing the blood of Isis. The hieroglyphic sign for this ambrosia was the same as the sign for the female sex organ -- the loop which forms the top of the Egyptian cross or ankh. We are familiar with that sign today for we see it on many bumpers as the sign of the fish, practically the same as the Egyptian hieroglyphic sign for the same organ. You may want to tell your Christian friends what they are really displaying on their cars.

Even the gods were dependent on the menstrual blood for sustenance. In ancient Greece it was the supernatural red wine given them by mother Hera. In India the great mother Kali-Maya invited the gods to partake of communion by drinking her menses. In the north the god Thor reached the land of eternal life by bathing in a river of the menstrual blood of the primal matriarchs. Celtic kings became gods by drinking the red mead offered by Queen Mab.

The influence of sex in the origin of religion seems to be clearly delineated by prehistoric fertility figures depicting the female form that emphasizes her sexuality and usually her pregnancy. When we add to these earliest figures the importance of menstrual blood both for living and dying, both for humans and gods, we have a strong case not only for the sexual origin for religion but also for the female origin of deities. We find remnants of this concept even in religions that reject the notion completely. The earliest trinities were three women - one young, one matronly, and one old. In time they were changed to two men and a woman and later, as religion changed along with culture, they became three men, the father, the son and the holy ghost.

It is indeed intriguing that there should be so much evidence of this ancient past still existing in our culture today in spite of the efforts of some religions to hide their sexual origins or propensities. For example, we use the word "venerable" to describe a worshipful or reverential attitude, it comes from the same root as "venereal", their common root is Venus, the Roman love goddess.

The words "testament" and "testicles" derive from a common origin testis which means "witness". The steeple, that "venerated" structure universally recognized as a symbol of Christian churches, is also a phallic symbol as is the minaret from which the faithful are regularly summoned to prayer. The phallus, or penis, gives "testimony" to the embodiment of generative power.

To some people sex is repulsive, which no doubt accounts for the great effort they make to suppress all things sexual. But much of that effort might also be compensation for their own frustration or fear of their own sexual drive, and a powerful drive it is. In the memorable words of Havelock Ellis, one of the pioneers in the study and understanding of human sexuality, "sex is not merely the means of procreation, it is also the solvent of isolation, the experience through which a solitary human being, caged in the prison of himself or herself, comes closest to escaping from this lonely cell through physical and spiritual union with another”.

Among the oldest common terms for sexual intercourse are "knowing" and "having". This suggests that the basic goal of sexual activity is not only procreation or even erotic pleasure, but something else. It is the union with another person and the sharing with oneself - the creating of a bond as in marriage.

People moved from this sort of sexual relationship to a similar relationship with God, thereby uniting with him to achieve some sort of cosmic unity. One example is the song of Solomon, an erotic love song describing sexual union between God and human beings. Many gospel songs are in reality contemporary expressions of the same type of relationship sought with Jesus. Actually, they are love songs from humans to Jesus and vice versa.

Although many people have tried hard to deny the sexual origin of religion, a little research and study, supplemented by a generous dose of common sense, will reveal that religion hasn't progressed very far from its beginnings.