June 3, 2013 To everyone who is reading about Stephanie’s new project, Google has directed you to my 2011 post. Stephanie and I are very different women but with so much respect for each other. Please let me refer you to all my writing about the simply splendid Stephanie Nielson family and I will post news of her latest project about women (I think) who have learned to live with physical disfigurement and disability on AOC’s front page tomorrow.

Sexual Politics

America’s Views of the Bible

In US, 3 in 10 Say They Take the Bible Literally GALLUP

Erastus Salisbury Field: The Garden of EdenThe stars have a way of lining up at Anne of Carversville, in serendipity if not from a higher power. Spirituality and sexuality are always intertwined at AOC and today is no different.

We begin with a new GALLUP poll that’s hardly radical in its findings. Three in 10 Americans interpret the Bible, saying it is the actual word of God. A 49% plurality of Americans say the Bible is the inspired word of God but that it should not be taken literally, consistently the most common view in Gallup’s nearly 40-year history of this question. Another 17% consider the Bible an ancient book of stories recorded by man.

I regret that Gallup didn’t publish the answers by gender, because I believe the results would confirm that educated men are the most likely to consider the Bible an ancient book of stories recorded by man.

Gallup has consistently found strong differences in views of the Bible as the “actual word of God” by religiosity and education. The current poll also finds significant income differences, with 50% of lower-income respondents believing the Bible is the actual word of God, compared with 27% of middle-income and 15% of high-income respondents.

These income differences are larger than what Gallup has measured in the past, with a higher percentage of low-income Americans believing the Bible is literally true.

Catholics are very likely to believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God, because the Vatican accepts the theory of evolution, unlike fundamentalist Protestants.

Mormons also tend to accept the theory of evolution and many Mormons as well as Catholic anthropologists have willingly engaged in research that confirms not only evolution but historical myths around the creation myths that are found in many cultural artifacts prior to the writing of the Old Testament.

I’m at a fork in the road here, with two events to pursue in the last 24 hours. I will take the Mormon road to Arizona, to an older article — one of several I’ve written in the last three years about Stephanie Nielson and her husband Christian, a couple that miraculously survived a deadly, firery small plane crash in 2008.

Both Nielsons were seriously injured, but Stephanie has suffered the most, with over 80 percent of her body burned. When AOC suddenly had 1000 page views on a NieNie article in an hour yesterday, I assumed one or both of them had made a TV appearance. This seems not to be the case. Google just put us in a prime spot.

Beauty Revolt

NieNie’s Stephanie Nielson Faces ‘Flawless’ Beauty Head-on AOC Body|Beauty|Culture

A new editorial ‘Beauty Revolt’ was in the queue before Stephanie’s article took off. Without NieNie’s (Stephanie’s blog) intervention, I intended to write about journalists and bloggers and their incessant use of the word ‘flawless’.

No tirades here today. I was able to channel my thoughts in a more positive and inspiring direction, using Stephanie Nielson as my muse.

Stephanie Nielson inspires me in the same way.

It was this brave Arizona-mother’s courageous fight to live and recover from her devastating injuries in a plane crash, that inspired my reflections on the meaning of love, relationships and physical image in America and my own life. via Love to NieNie’s Stephanie & Christian Nielson from New York

I’m well aware that Stephanie Nielson and I are very different women, with different values and beliefs. Stephanie is a devout Mormon woman — although one with inspiring ideas about sex in marriage. And yet, there is a glue that holds us together (at least on my end) and it triumphs politics, religion and ideas about women’s proper roles in the world. We both have empathy for humanity.

Stephanie Nielson has taught me that flaws are not to be feared. In reality, these imperfections are the backbone of strong, articulate, relevant and engaged women.

Biblical Scholars Weigh In on Eve & the Other Woman

‘Mysteries of the Garden of Eden’ | History Channel | In Latin Apple Means Evil AOC Sensuality

After Stephanie’s arrival, a second article roared into the top 5 last night. I wrote ‘Mysteries of the Garden of Eden’ after watching a show of all men scholars, many Catholic but also the president of Pepperdine University, agree that almost identical creation myths to Genesis existed well before the Hebrew Bible was written.

The beauty of the History Channel show ‘Mysteries of the Garden of Eden’ is that it ties many writing here at Anne of Carversville into a patchwork quilt that hangs together effectively. This is hardly the first show I’ve watched about creation myths but it is the most lucid, reaching without restraint into concepts like patriarchy and men rewriting Genesis, creating the second version in which Eve is made of Adam’s rib, destined to lie under him.

Creation Myths & Goddess Power

The History of Modern Women IS the History of Goddesses AOC Sexual Politics

Also scheduled for release today is our first article from Butterfly, a woman also growing and transforming herself. A key focus at AOC is women’s history, understanding our heritage based on archaeology and scientific excavations.

The Torah, the New Testament, the Quaran and other holy books tell a story of women’s evolution that contradicts many of the findings of science.

Devout Christians — many of them Catholics — believe that women played a far more important role at the founding of Christianity and in the life of Jesus Christ. Today the women of Saudi Arabia can’t even drive a car but we know they rode camels when Islam was founded. They were also judges in Muslim courts.

Understanding myths and also the actual lives of early civilization is part of understanding the history of women. Dramatic changes occurred in women’s lives with the advancement of Greek civilization. In a few hundred years women’s lives from the possibiity of being the head of the Greek state, in the writings of Socrates, to a state of being almost animalistic and requiring the chaperoning of men under Aristotle.

In her first essay, Butterfly explores not only creation myths but how she has introduced many ancient rituals into her own life.

These early cultures are called ‘pagan’ cultures by fundamentalist Christians. They are damned as the work of the devil, even though many of modern civilizations greatest accomplishments came from these people.

Our goal is not to get into the debate about paganism and evil. Our goal is to educate and inform, to share discoveries about women’s history with a very diverse group of AOC readers.

With so many stars coming together today, it would be very easy for me to believe that some greater force has blessed AOC because we are devoted to the pursuit of truth and understanding in a staggeringly complex world. That is how I choose to interpret these events, and so we press on even more vigorously in our beliefs. To be continued … Anne