Extracts from A GOD WHO LOOKS LIKE ME. Balantine Books, New York

The myth of an exclusively male God convinced us of women's inherent inferiority... we are appalled that the heavens are inhabited by a male God who has never known the realities of a woman's life.

The myth of Original Sin convinced women that we are bad.

The myth of a male savior convinced women that we are dependent.

Our deepest injuries are reached by a God who looks like us.

In my search for the truth I began to explore the historical and archeological evidence supporting the fact that the most ancient image of the divine was female.

I created personal rituals and meditations in which I imagined a Woman God who looked, felt, and experienced life as I did. Her image reached lovingly into the depths of my self-hatred.

I realized that all the while I was learning to worship the one true God and have no other gods before him, many of the "false" gods referred to were goddesses who looked like me. The Queen of heaven, Asherah, Baalat, Astarte, and Anath.

... women's bodies and natural processes were denigrated through powerful religious and cultural taboos. Long after we have discarded them, we remain silently poisoned by these taboos. They encircle our natural functions: menstruation, childbirth, and menopause.