Anthropomorphism.
That’s a big word. What it refers to, if you don’t already know, is an attempt to explain anything that isn’t human by relating it to human behavior.
It doesn’t take a superior intellect to see that this one, human propensity to analyze an unexplainable power in human terms is at the core of the incredible number of “human” images and attributes that have been assigned to “God” over the eons of time. Very often, the results of this tendency has been disastrous. Let’s face it; if God is human-like, we’re screwed.
Here is a brief list of the human attributes that we have assigned to “God:”
- Vengeful
- Wrathful
- Egotistic (desirous of praise)
- Intolerant (if you do not believe this particular way, you are doomed to eternal suffering)
- Unyielding
- Prejudiced (“He” has “chosen” people)
- Is OK with the butchering of any living thing to appease “His” disappointment…
- Loving (nice that we could fit that in)
- And, depending on who you ask, He doesn’t like Muslims. Or Christians. Or Hindus. Or Buddhists…awww, the heck with it. If you ask enough people, you’ll find that God doesn’t like ANYBODY – so we’re all doomed to an eternity of misery.
Is that your God? No thanks, I’ll pass.
Is there a God? ABSOLUTELY, there is a Supreme power. But It is beyond any human attribute, and certainly beyond what any of us can describe with human intellect. Somehow, that doesn’t seem to matter to a lot of people.
Have you ever made Jello? You take a mix of a particular color, add sugar and hot water, then pour it into a mold, a shape of some sort, then put it in the fridge to “set.” You get to choose the shape…the Jello doesn’t care. It just fills the prescribed space, and becomes the shape that you desired it to be. This is also what we do with “God.”
I suppose that would be OK if we left it at that…if we had our little “God Mold” that we cherished and that fulfilled us – but that isn’t what happens most of the time.
No, what happens most of the time is that we set up an institution devoted to our favorite flavor and color of Jello, and set about attempting to convince the rest of the world to abandon what they believe, and to acknowledge that our Jello mold is the Supreme Jello. That’s when the killing, and the persecution, and the arrogance of our petty egos takes over. And you want God to have human attributes?
“God” is, (thankfully), not human. That energy may well fill up a human form, and overflow to bless many, (as with Jesus, and Buddha, and many, mostly unheralded, others), but that doesn’t make that power “human;” It’s just “passing through,” – literally – a human form.
No. the last thing we need is a “human-like” God…we would all be dead before sunrise. What we need are human forms that allow the power of the non-human power that is the Source of All to flow through them. Then, we shall have peace, and compassion, and Divine love.
Many Blessings To All…
LOTD