why is god a man, not a woman?

When Helen Reddy accepted her award for the magnificent song I Am Woman, she said that God was a woman and millions of women the world over rejoiced because it had always seemed natural to them that God was a woman.

Had Ms Reddy expressed her beliefs before the 1960s, she would have been punished for daring to question the tenets of any religion. It was not a woman's place to say such things, especially in public. Critical female opinions about everything in the Old and New Testament Bible being so male centered -- especially the gender of God -- were not even tolerated in private.

Further back in history, Ms Reddy would have been burnt at a stake for such a sin!

It is true that very few women were acknowledged as playing any sort of seminal role in the formation of any religion. If they were mentioned at all they were either wives, mothers or daughters of important men, or just plain Jezebels.

The religion of Judaism -- from which Islam and Christianity derived -- was founded as a backlash against Paganism and polytheism and the predominantly female gods they worshipped. According to Abraham, God was a man, and if anybody did question this belief then it certainly wasn't mentioned in the Bible.

There is little doubt that the religious books upon which Judaism, Islam and Christianity rest are men's books -- written by men for men -- and in many respects it's a great travesty of our modern civilization that between them these three religions practically wiped out all of the ancient and simple faiths that accepted and celebrated "Mother Nature" in the form of female deities.

The so-called pagans or gentiles or infidels who followed these simple faiths celebrated Mother Earth at appropriate times of the year and at other times they went about their daily lives unburdened by anything other than the secular laws of the land.

Female gods -- like Mother Earth -- made no provision for divine judgment or messianic expectation.

It was all so simple.

The Bible, the Torah and the Koran -- the holy books of the Christians, Jews and the Moslems respectively -- are all male-centred books containing Draconian laws relating to day to day minutiae.

There are endless dos and don'ts about personal matters -- especially in relation to sexuality and man's dominion over women -- yet they do little to help us understand the big picture of the natural world order.

No woman has ever -- or will ever -- rise to a place of authority in any of these male-centric and male dominated religions, and it is amazing in many ways that any self-respecting woman would want to belong to any religion that's not only male-centric but also denigrating of women to the point of even denying women a place in heaven.

Are there three heavens or something, all ruled by men for the pleasure of men?

Christianity is weird because it is based on the Adam and Eve creation story and the chosen people -- the Jews -- who descended from this mythical couple, and yet the Christians themselves can never be the chosen people!

Also, it is a huge slap in the face for female creativity that the male God supposedly created Eve from Adam's rib.

In defiance of obvious facts--that woman creates, and man comes from woman--the men who wrote the bible would have us believe that God created man as the superior creation and then created woman out of the man’s rib for him to rule over, be his property and do with as he pleases.

It is far more logical that Adam was created from Eve, but male-centric religions are not big on logic.

The men who wrote the Bible just couldn't have a woman being the first of God's creations! Today, we know that all fetuses start off as female and some develop male characteristics later on, so our Designer most certainly made the female the first of his or her creations. Furthermore, both Islam and Judaism are united in that they deny the Christian belief that Jesus was the Son of God.

If they don't believe in this basic tenet of Christianity, then why should anyone else?

As no man can create life, then God must be a woman. It's as simple as that. Men are more into destruction than creation, so Helen Reddy was quite logical in maintaining that if there is a supreme creator than it had to be a woman. Only a woman has the strength to create and nurture something as wonderful as the Earth and everything in it.

The likelihood of all of the male-dominated religions falling into oblivion sometime soon is not realistic. Those who have power, don't relinquish it without a long and bitter fight.

However, it would be nice if we could all return to simple faiths celebrating Mother Earth and giving acknowledgment to the vital role of women in creating, nurturing and protecting.

Right from the start, religions have been used to persecute and massacre people. What historical war wasn't about religion? Women give birth and then male-centric religions mutilate their children's genitals, sexually abuse them in churches and then send them to their death in wars. All in the name of a male God.

And male-dominated women sit by and let it happen, totally oblivious of the power they have to stop this madness and make a difference.There's nothing in the three dominant faiths -- Christianity, Judaism and Islam -- that really empowers women. On the contrary, these religions tend to reduce women to chattels of men.The only reason men created their male-centric and male-dominant religions was to subjugate women and other 'fearsome creatures'.

Basically, men are afraid of women and jealous of their amazing God-like creativity. If more women got wise about their innate power, the world would change for the better.Look at the way the white man used the Bible to subjugate the black man! It took centuries for the black man to get wise and throw off the yolk of slavery.

There are black men holding positions of power in most religious orders these days - but no women. Ever wonder why?In the beginning, all men and women of all races were equal and free, and that's the way it's likely to be in the future.It's not good enough that women gained the right to vote and sit in boardrooms and government benches. Women have a natural right to be treated as equal to men by the major religions, too.

There are many strident women who won't be satisfied until the Pope in Rome, the Ayatollah in Iran, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Dalai Lama and, quite naturally, God in Heaven are female and in time to come, as far-fetched as it may seem today, that scenario may very well come to pass.