We were told it was sacred. Promised. Ordained by God.
But what if Abraham didn’t hear God?
What if he heard fear—the desperate voice of a people losing their place, their name, their survival?
And so a story was born. A land given. A people chosen. A divine mission.
But beneath that story—like so many others—was a lie.
Not a malicious lie, but a survival story frozen in time, cast in stone by scribes who feared the chaos of not knowing.
Almost every major religion that came to dominate the earth did so on the back of male authority.
God the Father. Prophets as men. Righteous war. Virgin daughters as property. Women as vessels, not voices.
Even when wisdom spoke through the feminine—Sophia, Shekhinah, Shakti—it was silenced, hidden, redefined under masculine rule.
Why?
Because power fears the uncontrolled. And women carry life—the one power no man can claim without her.
So he made rules. He called them holy. And he punished dissent with fire or exile.
This is not faith. This is fear, institutionalized.
Where does the bully come from?
Nature? Perhaps. Nurture? Absolutely. Environment? Without question.
The bully is the child of a system that says:
- Win or be nothing.
- Own or be owned.
- Dominate or be forgotten.
So religions birthed to soothe the soul became tools for bullies in robes and crowns. And stories meant to offer meaning became maps of conquest.
But not all was lost.
Within each tradition is a thread of gold:
- The Golden Rule.
- Compassion over control.
- Wisdom over war.
- Balance over hierarchy.
Let us write a new promise:
- That no person owns another.
- That no God blesses the sword.
- That no child should grow to believe dominance is destiny.
May we listen again—not to the voices of power—but to the whisper that came before the lie:
You are of the earth. You are not above it. You are not above her. And until you live in harmony—you will never be home.
Note on History:
There is often a thousand-year gap between Abraham, estimated around 1800 BCE, and the writing of Genesis, often attributed to Moses. That land promise may have been myth shaped by exile and fear—not by the divine.