Grokking God

[talktooloose]

I've been trying to understand this God thing that people go on and on about. As far as I can tell, the more diffuse and unmeasurable the deity is ("God is everywhere, God is all" as opposed to God is that bearded guy on Olympus, or the clay thing above your stove) the more potent and important it is.

It's sort of like homeopathy.

Comments

[briseur.livejournal.com]

to wit, when they started doing mass in a language people could understand, the churches emptied out. People who feel powerless to be whom/what they want to be, are attracted to Mystery.

[lux-apollo.livejournal.com]

This.

[talktooloose.livejournal.com]

And I think that the attraction to mystery is a good thing, related as it is to curiosity. The troubling part is the desire to stay within the fog of mystery instead of mapping the terrain.

[briseur.livejournal.com]

Yeah I don't think attraction to mystery is about curiosity.

[painglass.livejournal.com]

indeed! Hammer on nail head, as it were!

[redknot.livejournal.com]

Hah! That's a good point.

[talktooloose.livejournal.com]

Or at least a glib comparison. But, yes, the two irrationalities might have the same origin.

[redknot.livejournal.com]

I'd disagree a bit, though, because some of the people I've met who feel the closest to God also feel they have a personal, conversational, almost mundane relationship with their deity (they chat back and forth, they ask God to make good things happen, etc.) I think that both a vague notion and a personal friend are potent ideas. The more I learn about the insane complexity of nature, the more I think that a God who created things like quantum mechanics or DNA replication would have to be just as unfathomable and counter-intuitive as these things -- but I and many of the people I know who share this idea also don't attend church and are pretty skeptical.

I definitely think that you could replace "God" up there with any number of controversial new academic disciplines :)

[toodamnloud.livejournal.com]

Depends. Spinozan deism results in a God that experienced one moment of omnipotence, the moment of creation, and has since retreated into a quiet impotence, content to be the laws that govern the universe without interference in the actual universe.

Move instead toward the guy on Olympus or the clay idol, and you get potency without consistency. You have a capricious god that's more akin to Lindsey Lohan on a bender with superpowers, always fucking this and breaking that.

Take the view of the Ari, and you have a God that's powerful, but absent, but at least struggling to enter the universe he created and was then locked out of.

[talktooloose.livejournal.com]

These are all good constructs for stories, though the Lindsay Lohan one has the biggest effects budget.

[briseur.livejournal.com]

I really like the idea of higher power as hot mess.

[quirkstreet.livejournal.com]

The homeopathy line made me LOL this morning when I was in a bad mood.

[lux-apollo.livejournal.com]

*hugs*

[talktooloose.livejournal.com]

*received with thanks*

[snowmit.livejournal.com]

Nothing to add, except to say that this is a great post followed by a great comment thread. Kudos to all.

[painglass.livejournal.com]

I second this!