Just imagine if you will that our God was female, How would the world be different?

Question

Just imagine if you will that our God was female, How would the world be different?
Would the world be a better place, or would it be the same, or even worse off?

Answer

I will try to stay faithful to the spirit of you question. If God were actually female, then yes, the world would be a vastly different sort of place. For one thing, I dont think she would tolerate people worshipping HER as a male, so all of history would vastly change for a lot of different reasons. If nothing else, merely the butterfly effect would change everything. All it would take would be just one person doing one little thing differently a few thousand years ago due to the fact that he or she conceived of God as female, and kazzzam! everything changes.brbrBut aside from that mathematical technicality, the whole female God business would change the way people worship. First of all, a truly female God would not tolerate everybody calling Her quotGod the Fatherquot etc. She would make sure that the scriptures referred to Her as a woman, so therefore everybody would think in terms of God as a woman, so even if She herself were in fact no different in terms of personality, temperament, omniscience, etc than quotGod the Fatherquot, there would still be vast differences in history just because PEOPLE thought of God as a female. The image of God as a male was used by men to help establish patriarchy, so without it, patriarchy might not have dominated in quite the way that it did. But this would take us to a sociological question that I wont get into any further here.brbrGetting back to how an actual female God might actwellhistorically speaking, quotGod the Fatherquot got pretty pissed off by people worshipping goddesses and farm animals and whatnot, so He sent the armies of his chosen people, armed with swords, to do some slicing and dicing. I suppose a female God could have done the same thing if people were worshipping the WRONG Goddess, but I doubt she would send Her thugs to chop up elderly folks, and babies who were still suckling at their mothers breasts I believe this is in Deuteronomy for those of you who like to sing along at home. Somehow I just cant see a female God doing that I mean, if She is actually female, and if She is not a total psycho, then Shed have some maternal instincts wouldnt She?brbrAnyway, a major part of making God MALE was to help establish patriarchy, so that men could control females sexuality so they could keep track of their offspring so that they could be sure that wealth and privilege were passed down through the MANS lineageand I just cant see a female God being cool with that sort of thing.brbrBut of course me REAL answer would be that all of this is just plain silly. Im fairly certain that God if there even is a God is neither male nor female, so if God really were a female, then it is not just quotbeing femalequot that changes everything, but being quotspecifically genderedquot whether male or female would warp reality out of all recognition. Personally, I choose to think of God as a Goddess just because I prefer the female imagery, but I dont really think that God is either male or female. In fact, if you get right down to it, I dont really see God as a quotpersonquot in any ordinary sense at all. For example, I dont really think that God is the sort of being who has a temper tantrum and drowns millions of people not to mention all of their little kitty cats and puppy dogs, and whatever in a flood. So I think the more interesting question would be this quotWhat if the imagery of God as a woman had been the dominant religious image in human history?quot This would be a sociological question dealing with the relationship between the dominant religious imagery and the formation of cultural ethics, etc. I dont really know, of course, but my hope would be that feminine traits and therefore women themselves in such a culture would not be devalued, and perhaps such a culture without the oppression of women would be somewhat more healthy and balanced. At least that would be my hope.