Liz Darling

"On women's part, after submitting to patriarchal churches for centuries, they have become disgusted with religion and have forgotten to consider their own divine origins. The patriarchy has separated the human from the divine but it has also deprived women of their goddess or their divinity. In the history of women religion is mixed up with the culture of the earth, the body, life, peace. Religion is the opiate of the people only because it is imposed upon us as the religion of the race of men." -Luce Irigaray

 

Meditative Mother. Watercolor and India Ink. © Liz Darling 2016.

“Because religion has such a compelling hold on the deep psyches of so many people, feminists cannot afford to leave it in the hands of the fathers."

"Even people who no longer "believe in God" or participate in the institutional structure of patriarchal religion still may not be free of the power of the symbolism of God the Father. A symbol's effect does not depend on rational assent, for a symbol also functions on levels of the psyche other than the rational. Symbol systems cannot simply be rejected; they must be replaced. Where there is no replacement, the mind will revert to familiar structures at times of crisis, bafflement, or defeat.”
― Carol P. Christ