The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (770 page)

 
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Feeling
(of absolute dependence, as foundation of religion)
:

see
SCHLEIERMACHER, F.

 
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(1895–1986).
Orthodox Jewish
rabbi
. Feinstein was a leading
halakhic
authority (
posek
). Many of his
responsa
covered questions raised by modern science and technology, and also by the
Holocaust
and by air disasters, which magnified the problems of
agunah
(a woman whose husband's fate is unknown). His responsa are published in
Iggerot Mosheh
(7 vols).

 
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(Chin.). Ascending to heaven in daylight, one of the marks in Taoism of attaining immortality (see
CH'ANG-SHENG PU-SSU
).

 
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(Lat., ‘happy fault’). The Christian sense that sin has at least this to be said for it, that it evoked so great a redeemer. For a more general sense of this theme in Judaism, see
INCLINATION
;
TESHUVA
(repentance).

 
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Fellowship of Isis
.

A
neo-pagan
movement dedicated to the worship of female deities such as Isis, Venus, or Maia.

 
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Feminine symbols and religion
.

Although masculine images reflect the male control of religion for at least the last 2,000 years, the earlier pervasive and dominant importance of feminine imagery has not been entirely lost, persisting as it does in most religions (though less so in the later arrivals such as Islam). Early archaeological evidence is always open to speculation in the absence of text controls, but the abundance of images of the fruitful woman certainly suggests dominant cults of the Goddess rather than the God. But
Tanach
(Jewish scripture) displays the passion and vigour with which the cult of
Yahweh
, under the control increasingly of men, drove out the feminine in the cult, adapting myths to make woman the cause of fault, pain, and sorrow. The cult of the feminine persisted in Christianity in devotion to the Virgin
Mary
(especially in syncretistic assimilation in such countries as Mexico), but even that image was reduced in male interpretations to one of submissive obedience.
In India, the same early reverence for the female as the source of life is evident from the archaeological remains, and here it would seem that the Goddess remained undiminished, with the cult of the Goddess still being of paramount importance, especially for
aktas
(see e.g.
DEV
,
AKTI
,
K
LI
,
DURG
,
R
DHA
,
SARASVAT
,
LAK
M
, GA
G
,
P
RVAT