Pimping God

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Deities have been around for the whole history of humanity. This seems to have two fundamental motivations. The first is to make some sort of sense of what occurs in our lives. What makes lightning and thunder and floods and what actually are the stars and the Sun and the Moon etc. and how they relate to humanity. The second stems from the established social systems of humanity and how to set standards of behavior and see that they are observed.

The original of the first motivation resulted in the creation, in several religious constructions, of individual super human like beings with specific powers. The collections of Roman and Greek and Norse gods specified the areas in which each of the gods was effective and permitted some sort of relationship to each through priestly intermediaries to promote beneficial results through some sort of sacrifice of animals or wealth or specific behavior. Since each of these gods had attributions of specific personalities which were culturally similar to that of humans within that society, the religious hierarchy used that formulation to augment the second motivation in cooperative efforts with the secular politics of their society.

These general principles more or less hold today but the primary motivation of explanation of the structure and functioning of the universe has changed radically since the advent of intensive exploration and reconstruction of the theoretical paradigms out of science. These have deeply fractured and to a very large degree destroyed the ancient concepts of the nature of the universe.

And the nature of God itself has suffered greatly out of the obvious contradictions of the ancient ideas with modern and deeper understanding of physical reality. So there comes about much conflict about the nature of God and how it fits into current perceptions. Many, like myself, see God as superfluous but a huge number of humans are fiercely entangled with a deity and subject to all sorts of difficulties as to how this assumed being interlocks with reality. And of course the various hierarchies of formal religions have much at stake in preserving this faith in God, both administratively and financially.

I use the verb “pimping” not in a pejorative sense but merely as a current term to bring something up to date with a bit of pizzazz and perhaps even acceptable to the scientific community. The ancient gods reflected the people of their age in appearance and temperament. So what would a modernized God look like?

Einstein frequently referred to God but also reiterated repeatedly that his concept had little if anything to do with the God of Christianity or any other formal religion. Einstein’s God was the sum of the architecture and dynamic of the universe, a kind of spooky totality that preserved order and perceivable rationality that was, hopefully, available to the inquiring intellect.

On the other hand, modern popular conceptions are variations of the ancient embodiment of a deity in human form. Morgan Freeman has done a respectable job of representing, not only the US president, but also God. Whether his efforts have aided in the election of Obama is questionable but if so perhaps a black God would be more up to date. I doubt a black Christ is acceptable but since some people from Ethiopia have been accepted by Israel as genuine Jews the possibility remains. The Catholic Church seems to be looking forward to conquests in Africa so that may have some indication of change although the hierarchy at present displays a stodginess that is daunting.

Anyway, it seems worthwhile to wonder what a more up to date God might be like. The film “Men in Black” portrays characters with godlike powers and that may give a hint.

Children play with toys. When they grow up they put the toys away.

The more we understand the Cosmos in natural terms the less we need our gods. God was our imaginary playmate when we were kids.

ruveyn

This is a misperception of both humanity and the nature of play. Humanity in general throughout he world still clings to its ancient gods. And all mature creative minds spend a good deal of time and effort in play.

"If there were no gods, some idiot would invent one." -- Anonymous

Do we need an imaginary playmate who loves us unconditionally?

Along with God comes a denial of death. This is very unhealthy.

ruveyn

The Tao

I don't and evidently you don't but it seems a lot of people do. I was just wondering about an up to date model.

Complete fear of death is a rather problematic thing as well. Since we sometimes need people to take highly dangerous risks in order for society to advance.

As for me. I think there might very well be a being that could be described as "God", however no one has the complete picture of what this being truly is. But the key to it all is human sentience, being truly self-aware. After all the only thing a person can ever be sure of with 100% certainty of is that they exist.

Unfortunately, "exist" is one of those odd words that glisten like a rainbow filled soap bubble and just as suddenly pop off to nothing when probed. Oliver Sacks describes just how fragile the self can be in several of his books. As a complex mass of organized cells I do have the illusion of a self but this can vanish in an instant in a chaotic firing of my component nerve cells.

I have to admit, if I die, and there is a God, and he's not Morgan Freeman, I'll be rather disappointed.

Maybe this disappointment is the foundation of hell.

What if he or ... well, turns out to be Alanis Morissette?

I actually like mythologies and reading whatever these little humans can come up with ^^ It's amusing sometimes. One needs only read Greek myths to be entertained for hours ~.~ .

Considering His behavior as described in the Bible it's more likely He's Donald Duck.

...with some of the shortcomings of Josef Fritzl?

Goodness, I finally found a board in which God is dismissed intelligently, rather than with inane statements typed with capslock on.

As for me, I'm a Christian, so I view God as the Bible portrays Him. Yes, I see paradoxes in God, , but even natural science has paradoxes. I can ascribe a paradox in the portrayal of God to the utter lack of perspective combined with poor wording. In addition, I can only perceive God in the way I perceive other humans: with flaws.

How does an atheist explain the gravity paradox? For it to be strong enough tofunction on a stellar scale, it would crush flat anything on the surface of Earth. For it to not crush us, it would have to be weak enough that the planets wouldn't hold orbit.