do all religions foster misogyny?

Recently, the Egyptian born self-styled Mufti of Australia, Sheikh Taj al-Din al-Hilaly, raised hackles around the world by describing women as pieces of meat inviting rapists if they did not wear the hijab. As much as this comment drew increased antagonism towards Islam, many women are convinced that the leaders of all religions are, basically, misogynists and that's why, perhaps, none of them voiced their horror at the implications of the Mufti's message.

What's more horrible, they claim, is that this misogyny -- this hatred of women -- is also expressed by women towards women. The more devout a woman becomes the more she reveres a male-centered universe and becomes denigrating towards her own gender.

When a young woman rebels against the faith in which she was raised it is usually her mother and her aunts - on both sides of the family - who show more horror at the rebellion than the men-folk in the family. The rebellious young women living in a free and secular society are far more fortunate than those living in another type of society in that their fate would not be death by stoning or forcible submission to some barbaric operation or - at the very least - a good thrashing.

Without devout women, men would not be able to retain power. They use the matriarchs as enforcers and in doing so appear less cruel and victimizing than the women. Women just don't 'count' as significant human beings in most religions and when a young girl rebels the men don't interfere in the 'enforcing' process. It is women's work.

Males have less reason than girls to rebel or question their religion because they are in charge of it. It is all about them, and all for them. There are no women priests in most Christian churches - no women altar attendants - no women having any role in the church other than as subservient devotees; and it's the same, or even worse, in other faiths.

The absence of women in positions of power in religions does not in itself indicate misogyny - but it is an inequitable situation that needs to be addressed if the religions are to evolve into institutions responsive and relevant to the 21st century. It is downright cruel and unjust that half the world's population - women - are not only excluded from leadership roles in the churches but are also denigrated by their religion as being inferior to the other half of the world's population - men.

Islam, as it is practiced, is very clear about women being inferior to men, but in other religions it is inferred rather than written in stone. In Christianity, for instance, Jesus had twelve disciples but not one of them was a woman - what does that tell you about what He believed?

Cleopatra and her cats were ruling Egypt prior to Christianity gaining momentum, so it is no coincidence that misogyny and cat-hatred were related with Christianity. For centuries after, strong women - especially those with cats - were seen as witches and destroyed by horrible means.

There would appear to be only two types of women in the major religions - the madonnas who give birth by immaculate conception, and the harlots. There's no room for enlightened women in these misogynistic religions. It is no wonder that boys turn against their mothers at the age of 13 or 14 when they find out that they were conceived by sex. It disgusts them. Their mothers disgust them. All women disgust them - except, of course, the harlots for whom they have respect for being what women should be.

In worshipping the Madonna, it is not the real mother of Jesus who is being worshipped. The real mother of Jesus was a thirteen year old Jewish girl who had sex with (or was raped by) an unknown man, while betrothed to Joseph, and gave birth with the normal amount of blood and guts, not just to Jesus but to his brothers, James, Joses, Simon and Judas - and probably just as many sisters, but they, of course were not worthy of mention.

Instead, it is the unreal mother - the virginal, the immaculate conception mother - that men, especially those of the Catholic faith, worship. Catholic theologians claim that Mary remained a virgin all of her life, and that not even the birth of Jesus spoiled her virginity. How misogynistic!

Before the tentacles of organized misogynistic religion reached into every nook and cranny of the world there existed simple faiths that revered women and fertility. These faiths existed for thousands of years - long before all the other faiths came into being. And they continued to exist for centuries until the Christians and Moslems went on the march and forced conversions. Yet some of these simple faiths revering women and fertility still exist despite organized religion.

Misogynistic men and the subservient, deluded women who revere them cannot wipe out what is natural to the human soul - both male and female. There is already a swing back to the natural faiths, and it will grow in strength as more men and women become enlightened.

religion, homosexuality and pedophilia

With recent news that Pastor Ted Haggard had been outed by a male prostitute whose services he had been using for three years, another gross religious hypocrisy assaults our senses. Pastor Haggard runs one of the largest churches in the US -- the New Life Church in Colorado Springs --and is president of the American Association of Evangelicals as well as being a White House adviser and a father of five.

It's not his homosexual lusts that offend. It's his blatant hypocrisy.

Although all religions rail against the evils of homosexuality and pedophilia, no other type of institution attracts more perverts than the so-called temples of God. For centuries children have been abused by the holy men who set themselves up as paragons of virtue, and it is only in the latter part of the 20th century that the victims found the courage to speak up.

And, along with pedophilia and misogyny, there's a long tradition of homosexuality in all religions, especially Christianity.

When the vestal virgins and the priestesses in the ancient feminine friendly polytheistic religions were replaced with altar boys and choir boys, the purpose of both was sexual but now the preference was for boys not girls .

Sexuality -- straight or otherwise -- has always been a feature of religions. The Covenant of circumcision that Abraham performed on himself was the start of a phallic-centric male culture that has lasted for over 3,000 years and done untold damage to young boys. These days, enlightened men are reclaiming their foreskins, but that, in itself, is just another unhealthy obsession on a body part that should receive no more attention than any other.

Homosexuality as misogyny -- disgust for women, rather than attraction for men -- is something that Christianity particularly fosters. Even straight men of religious convictions are more likely to be into anal sex than vaginal sex. Sure, it's a good contraceptive method, and allows lots of girls to claim to be virginal madonnas when they're not, but it is yet another manifestation of homosexual practices fostered by religious indoctrination.

Historically, women have always been too busy creating life and nurturing it to have had time to sit around contemplating their navels, inventing the wheel or causing mischief but civilization gave men a luxury they never have before. Time to think, time to wonder about what life is all about, and time to obsess over their body parts!

Biologically, most men are redundant for the survival of the human race. In primitive times -- as evident in the animal kingdom -- only the fittest males got selected for procreation. The rest got killed off by the alpha males or wandered off to join 'rogue' male communities that banded together for raping and pillaging expeditions.

As the human race evolved, homosexuality became widespread among redundant 'rogue' males and once they were no longer a threat they became absorbed into mainstream society and found their niche in political, religious or military pursuits -- pursuits which neither the women nor the alpha males had time for because they were too busy procreating.

The 'interesting' roles in human society were thus usurped by biologically redundant men who then entrenched their power in laws, religious and secular, which effectively robbed women of all of their natural rights. These biologically redundant men -- most of whom had scant interest in women or procreating -- invented themselves as a superior and exclusive class of males. Among this exclusive class of males are the modern day priests, rabbis and the mullahs. Not all, of course, are homosexuals or pedophiles -- far from it -- but their exclusive and exalted positions in society do provide easy access to and satisfaction of their desires.

The laws of these exclusive men show that they had scant respect for women. In primitive religions, there were male and female gods. In so-called civilized religions, 'god' became a man and women and female children were scorned as worthless and sacrificed on altars. Only men and male children were worthy. Love of men and love of boys is a beacon in religious books, passed down from generation to generation.

It suited the alpha males and those redundant men not interested in homosexuality to have their 'maleness' given a superior status. Rather than accepting biological imperatives--that nature endowed women with the power to select whom they wished to procreate with--all men were now given laws that effectively made women and children their property.

Any man who wished to have a woman -- or child -- was empowered by man-made law to take what he wanted. By virtue of legal and religious dogma, it was his 'god-given' right to do so.

Because the overthrowing of natural laws by man-made laws took many centuries to take hold, women were oblivious of what was happening until it was too late. Their natural lives were devoted to creating life and nurturing it. The only difference was that now they had no natural right of selection.

In the natural world, only the fittest of men are selected for procreation. In the man-made world --defined by men, for men -- men who are diseased, deformed, ugly, old, vile and deranged get a slice of the action.

Once the biologically redundant men had gained power as priests, warriors and lawmakers they used the fear of God, war and torture to manipulate human society -- most particularly women -- and most of their cruel, stupid and evil beliefs continue to hold sway today, particularly in some parts of the Islamic world where the abominably low status of women and children has not changed for thousands of years and homosexuality is even more widely practiced than it is in the Judaic-Christian world, but not, of course, blatantly.

Obsession by men of men in religious training can only foster homosexuality and general sexual perversity. That gay liberation and gay marriage is now mainstream -- and increasingly accepted by enlightened churches -- is, in many respects, the logical conclusion of religious training. Pedophilia, of course, is still a crime--as homosexuality once was--but because it means 'love of children' there may come a day when it, too, becomes mainstream.

And that's a frightening thought.

When men are coming out and openly flaunting the fact that they prefer men to women -- and some of the churches applaud them -- it is only a matter of time before men come out and openly flaunt the fact that they prefer children to adults and some churches will applaud them, too.

Rather than reconciling the sexes as equal in all respects, religions are drawing them further and further apart. Women have to act in a subservient manner if they want to marry and have children, and most western women are loathe to do this. And when men do want to marry, they often prefer small, child-like, vulnerable Asian women--preferably ones they can buy from overseas who haven’t been tainted by feminism.

If more and more women are forced into a childless existence by the lack of straight men -- or the fear of their children being molested by perverts -- then what will happen to the human race?

All religions outwardly preach the sanctity of marriage and procreation, but with so much hypocrisy and downright evil going on behind the holy doors who in their right mind would belief anything they say?