Wednesday, April 11, 2012

God and pubic hair

Modern times are choke-full with scientific, medical, psychological, sociological information about human beings. With the exponential growth of information about humans there is also a multitude of fundamentally differing understandings who we are. The views vary from various traditional religious to science-fiction futuristic, from materialistic to spirit bodies in the global setting of cultures and nations.

Evolutionism is characterized by theories and views that try to explain the origins of man from the functional point of view, what mechanism in the survival of the fittest world caused this or that feature in our genetic heritage. The current function of a feature is in this point of view also the key to the explanation and a plausible causal chain of actions must be established in carefully designed environments to produce racial differences, variations in body structure and so on.

Pubic hair is very difficult to explain from a strictly evolutionist point of view where natural selection is the only allowed guiding principle.

Age of Innocence
Because the Garden of Eden story uses mythological language it is able to convey a very rich package of messages to very different times and societies. Literal sources, art and other documents from theological treaties to folklore contain a rich repertoire of how people in the past have understood the powerful story in Genesis 2 and 3.

The Garden of Eden is described as the habitat of man and woman and it has powerful messages about the relation between God and Man, Adam. To this relationship is added the relation between Man and other creatures in the Garden and then, most importantly, the relation between Man and Woman, Adam and Eve.

The habitat of Adam and Eve is described as something truly wonderful. Very pointedly the story tells, that this was an era of sexual activity and innocence - they were man and wife, naked and did not feel the shame that we often feel when without clothes in the wrong place in the wrong time.

And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof. [first anesthesia!]
And the rib which the LORD God had taken from man, made He a woman and brought her unto the man.
And Adam said, "This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man."
Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife; and they shall be one flesh.
And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.
Genesis 2:21-25 KJ21


Age of Shame
The breaking of God's single command - do not eat from the Tree of Knowledge - led to the loss of the Age of Innocence and the Paradise was gone even they were still in there.

Their "eyes opened" to see something they had not seen before and they noticed that they are naked, without clothes.

Adam and Eve made their first clothing of fig leaves but still, when Lord was strolling in the Garden refreshed by late afternoon wind, they hid from him into the bushes.


And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof and ate, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he ate.
And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves things to gird about.
And they heard the voice of the LORD God, walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden.
And the LORD God called unto Adam and said unto him, "Where art thou?"
And he said, "I heard Thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself."
And He said, "Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?"
Genesis 3:6-11 KJ21


Pubic hair

Two red dots and a black triangle  is an immediately recognisable and very powerful sexual signal hitting the backbone of men.The removal of female pubic hair required in some cultures and done for aesthetic or other reasons in others thus has many symbolic and sexual meanings in the complex relationship between men and women.

Many lucky children live naturally in the Age of Innocence, naked without shame (not all children are so lucky). God has so made us that only after several years period of innocence the bodies of boys and girls start to go through physical changes during which the genital areas are modestly covered by pubic hair.

The hair growing on human skin varies in different locations on the body. Hair is not like eye brows or the hair on our legs and arms. Pubic hair is different in quality and design, one of the wonders of Nature.



Explanation?
Of course, the Biblical myth is not a scientific explanation to the growth of pubic hair. It does not even try to be such as it comes to us from ancient Near East.

But in a very powerful and beautiful way the story of the Garden of Eden introduces some very central concepts of humanity, that make the world go around today - man and woman, sexuality, innocence and shame.

This fundamental view can be applied to the growth of human children, development psychology, Freudian theory and many other things in scientifically oriented research or in art and so on.

Evolutionism would reduce all this richness and colours, lights and shades, the wonderful garden with fruits and birds, into mere fight for survival. It may be that someone figures out why cruel nature shows modesty by covering the genitals with special kind of pubic hair. Personally, I think that scientific exploration should be broader, made free of the shackles of by natural selection only, and find new more convincing theories about the sexuality in the nature, including modesty!

1 comment:

  1. and yet, I find it difficult to imagine modern Psychology without physics, chemistry and other natural sciences. Brain functions (Neurobiology), hormones (Organic Chemistry), social interaction in a group like mass hysteria (Sociology), Anthropology, Comparative Science of Religion, Literature...

    High expertise in a single branch of objective experimental science sometimes creates specialists who know very little or nothing about other branches of science - no time simply.

    Integration of knowledge from independently working branches of research has reached a new level with the entry of the Web with powerful psychological ramifications, as well (global brain).

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