Lecture Six
Dr. Stephen Ogden
English 101W
1
The “sacred feminine”
Dan Brown—Ch.28:
 “….the early Christian Church conned the
world by propagating lies that devalued the
female…”
 “…waging a war of propaganda that
demonised the sacred feminine, obliterating
the goddess from modern religion forever.”
 Argumentum ad populam, 55, 103,182
Catholic Church & the Sacred
Feminine: An X-treme restoration
Wild & crazy reclamations of the
Sacred Feminine.
Book of Genesis,
Chapter 1 v.27
 GOD…is equally Female!
 “So God created man in
 GOD, the Supreme
Being,…has a Mother!
 GOD, has his Home,
HEAVEN, and His Creation,
EARTH…ruled by a
QUEEN!
his own image, in the
image of God created
he him; male and
female created he
them.”
Sacred feminine:
Woman—Queen of Heaven & Earth
[Current] Pope—Benedict XVI—
November 2006:
 "God exalted
[Mary] over all
other creatures
and …. crowned
her Queen of
heaven and
earth."
Councils of Nicæa (AD 325) &
Ephesus (AD 431): Theotókos
 “Sacred Feminine”
 Council declaration
 GOD has a mother!
 Mary: Θεοτόκος
(Theotókos)—”Mother
of God,” / “One who
gives birth to God”
Sacred Feminine in Bible—
female foundation of the Earth
Da Vinci Code —
the conclusion – (p.489.)

“…he heard a woman’s voice…the
wisdom of the ages…whispering up
from the chasms of the earth…”

Proverbs 8
“Wisdom's Call”

1 Does not Wisdom call out?
Does not understanding raise her
voice?
 2 On the heights along the way,
where the paths meet, she takes
her stand;

3 beside the gates leading into the
city,
at the entrances, she cries aloud:
 4 "To you, O men, I call out…”
22 GOD brought me forth as the first of his works,
before his deeds of old;
23 I was appointed from eternity, from the
beginning, before the world began.
24 When there were no oceans, I was given birth,
when there were no springs abounding with
water;
25 before the mountains were settled in place,
before the hills, I was given birth,
26 before he made the earth or its fields or any of
the dust of the world.
27 I was there when he set the heavens in place,
when he marked out the horizon on the face of
the deep,
28 when he established the clouds above and fixed
securely the fountains of the deep,
29 when he gave the sea its boundary so that the
waters would not overstep his command, and
when he marked out the foundations of the
earth.
30 Then I was the craftsman at his side. I was filled
with delight day after day, rejoicing always in his
presence,
31 rejoicing in his whole world and delighting in
mankind.
Academic English: Form of Research
 In Academic English, there is a form of research
which makes possible educated understanding of a
work of literature.
 Literature is the dramatisation of ideas and concepts:
turning abstractions (politics, economics, social &
cultural forces, etc.) into character, setting, plot.


Shakespeare’s Macbeth dramatises the problem of
political power, fate, and ambition.
To properly understand the play, we need to know
about Shakespeare, his contemporary political
situation, ideas and analyses of the play by careful and
knowledgeable writers.
Academic English: Form of Research
PRIMARY TEXT: the work of literature being
studied.

E.g. John Milton’s Paradise Lost.
1. SECONDARY TEXTS: Indispensible
authoritative scholarly works for
understanding the primary text.
E.g. standard Biography of Milton; standard
Religious & Political Histories of 17th Century;
The Bible; Greek & Roman Heroic Tales; etc.
2. TERTIARY ARTICLES: Important scholarly
articles and essays on Milton & Paradise Lost.

Academic English: Our Course
 The background to the
literature we are studying in
this course is the existence
in our society of intense
polemic against Religion
and counter-polemic in
defense.
 Our secondary research is
three pairs of short
essays, showing simple
examples of this polemic &
response at work.
 Opposing polemic is not
1.
2.


dialectic :
 WE often have to create
the Dialectic ourselves
Take a critical and
analytical look at two
opposing polemics.
Find what they share (crucial
for Dialectic: dialogue is
possible only with something
in common to move the
argument along.)
Identify and remove Error.
Examine what remains.
ESSAY 1: A.C. Grayling


Genetic Fallacy:




“illiterate peasants living several
thousand years ago” created:

Mistaking an account of origin for a
proof of truth or falsity.


How an idea came to be has
nothing to do with its Truth.
An idea or statement is True or
False no matter where it comes
from.
Belittlement is never pretty:







Peter Hamilton, founding director of
the animal-rights group Life-force on
limited sea-otter hunt in north
Vancouver Island:

”…natives should stop the
traditional practice as they have
done with the taking of slaves."It's
a barbaric past …"
Agriculture
Education
Arithmetic
Justice / Governance
Family & Social Order
Medicine
Shelter / Storage
Fine Art
Etc. etc.

Mathematicians & Scientists from
Pythagoras (sun-god worship) to Isaac
Newton (alchemy, occult and
kabbalism) were religiously-motivated.

Ignoratio Elenchi:

Arguing an irrelevant conclusion

“The reason they do is ….”
Polemic: absolutist language
Sam Harris, Letter to a
Christian Nation
“Can we even conceive of
a project more
intellectually forlorn than
[Christianity]?”
 “How can any educated
person think this
anything but a hilarious,
terrifying, and
unconscionable waste of
time?”
Animal Cruelty: Lab Experiments
Animal Cruelty: Lab Experiments
ESSAY 2: A.N. Wilson
 Type = CONFESSIO:

An account of a inner personal journey.
 Rhetorical appeal: Pathos
 Logical arrangement:

argumentum ad verecundiam
 Faults in logical arrangement of an essay (in the dialectics) can
make effective rhetoric.
 (E.g. argumentum ad hominem)
 Tu quoque: “You Too…”

A failure in the consistency of an opponent’s position is a
statement against the Truth or Validity of that position.