The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #110662   Message #2869288
Posted By: Little Hawk
22-Mar-10 - 11:57 AM
Thread Name: BS: Theology question
Subject: RE: BS: Theology question
We don't all agree on who "God" is, Mousethief. You may think so, but it's probably because you've only been around sort of conventional-minded people...more or less. I would agree that there's a sort of general kind of really vague idea about what "God" is in the minds of most members of the public, and probably most churchgoers, and I think that's what you mean, but it's a very vague idea.

It presupposes some kind of fatherly divine figure who exists
"out there" in some kind of other spiritual reality, who created the world (and presumably the Universe), who exists separately from us (in the sense that we can direct prayers from us to "him" and he can respond), who is somehow all-powerful (whatever the heck that means), etc.....

I call that a very vague mental notion, and one that's a lot like a fairy tale or like the story of Santa Claus, for example. I would agree that that's the notion of "God" that's in a lot of people's heads (including atheists who object to the very idea of such a God existing...that very notion is the windmill against which they tilt!)...

But it's NOT the only idea of God that's out there! Not by far. ;-D There are a vast number of other ways of thinking about something one would choose to call "God".

It doesn't have to be male.
It doesn't have to resemble a man in any way.
It doesn't have to be "somewhere else" in some other reality.
It doesn't have to reward or punish.
It doesn't have to lay down any rules.
It could be female...or it could be genderless.
It might be everywhere...as opposed to "out there somewhere".
It might be a principle of existence, as opposed to a personal being.
It might be something no one here has any conception of whatsoever, and that no religion has even begun to succeed in describing.

There are a million possibilities outside of the primitive conventional view of the average churchgoer, and the equally primitive conventional view of the average atheist.