Quote:
Originally Posted by eumesmo
Your god, is he anything like Gaia? or Tao? a principle like gravity that makes life possible? a universe that wishes to understand itself? or Plato's "The Good"? or just that Jewish god of war that at some point or another proclaimed himself "the god"? How is he better than Zeus or Athena or Ares for that matter? Please don't tell me the Jewish gods were "the chosen gods" too. Did he just come with the best manual? choose his Lieutenants right? were petty enough so common people could relate? condescend to bestow on humans his image?
Of what interest could we as individuals, as a group, as a nation, as humanity could be to a god? Entertainment, the immense opera written by the devil, in honor and staged for god, where each of us at one time or another sings an aria and then return to the chorus?
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I wasn't going to respond in this thread, but these are interesting questions, so what the heck. As a reference point, I'm a Quaker Universalist. So with regards to whether my god is like Gaea, the Tao, gravity, Plato's "The Good," I would answer yes, all of these. (And also like some aspects ascribed to Zeus, Athena, and I suppose even Ares.) I go with the metaphor of the blind people and the elephant - we've each got a perspective on a small part of the divine, and it's tempting to try to draw conclusions about the whole, but I think the whole is too vast for any of us to perceive in its entirety. (That's where the "universalist" part of my belief comes from.)
As for what interest humans (or other sentient beings) might hold for a deity, I don't know, of course, but my working theory is that we're "gods in training" in some way -- meant to grow and mature as souls until we're able to do god-like things ourselves. Meanwhile, we should be taking care of our planet, each other, and ourselves, in approximately that order. I actually don't think god cares if we believe in god, or "worship" god. I wouldn't try to defend this theory to anyone who didn't believe it, I'm just offering it as a suggestion.
The times when I find god helpful are when I need to be better than I know how to be-- more patient, for example, or more forgiving, or more brave. I pray, I get help. Call it a psychological trick, if you like that metaphor better. To me, it feels like I'm getting extra help when I need it, and that's what counts, I think. (I
don't ask god to make it rain or not rain, or to make me win the lottery, or whatever. I don't know if god ever intervened in human affairs to that extent, but even if so, I think we're supposed to be growing past that point.)
Ok, that's my 2 jiao.