By Roy Klein
Whoever first decided that God looked like man clearly misconstrued Genesis (the Bible, not the Phil Collins pop group). The truth is that man created God in his own image. Please don't get upset, you fundamentalists out there. I'm not trying to deny the existence of God. I'm just saying that our Supreme Being is not an elderly, white-haired Caucasian male.
Of course, I can't empirically prove this any more than you can prove your opposite view. But I think I do have a logical argument. So, God willing, I hope you kindly hear me out.
When early man first developed the capacity to think, three crucial questions immediately occurred to him: (1) Where did I come from? (2) What is the meaning of life? (3) How do I get everyone to follow the rules? As at least a partial answer, the ancient Greeks and Romans came up with the idea of a de-centralized bureaucracy of deities there were a bunch of gods up in the heavens, each of whom had different responsibilities (kind of like our presidential Cabinet). These gods despite their superhuman powers looked like men and women and even had human frailties. They freely interacted with us and meddled in our affairs, often with tragic results for us and for them.
Having all these gods was inefficient and unwieldy. Kind of like Congress. So the monotheists came along and refined the concept. We were created by one almighty God, they decided. Our purpose on this earth was to live virtuous lives. If we succeeded, we would be rewarded upon our deaths with eternal life in heaven.
But who was this new solo version of our Supreme Being? The Lord apparently was much shyer and more reclusive than the earlier Greek or Roman versions. Didn't meddle nearly as much in our lives. To the contrary, only spoke rarely, and then just to a very few select individuals. Like when Moses received the Ten Commandments (a/k/a the "Bill of Wrongs").
Okay, so now we finally had the answer to those three great questions. God created us, our purpose was to live in accordance with the Ten Commandments so we could spend eternity in heaven and, if we didn't follow these rules, we'd end up in hell instead. But what did God look like?
The Vatican helped clarify things for us during the Renaissance. It commissioned the great painters and sculptors of the day to create artwork that depicted various scenes and stories from the Bible. Of course, the Church hierarchy, the artists and indeed just about all the Christians in Western Europe at the time were Caucasian. And the hierarchy and the artists were male. So it naturally stood to reason that God was shown to be a white man. Since He was wise (all-knowing), it also made sense to portray Him as an older man. And everyone went along with it, so that it became the universally accepted image of God for hundreds of years.
When, as a little kid, I thought about God, I imagined Him up in heaven, hanging out with George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and all my dead ancestors, watching my every move through some unexplained window in the sky (which I now realize was the much-publicized hole in our ozone layer). It was both comforting and scary at the same time.
Now that I'm an adult, though, I've come to this conclusion: How arrogant and presumptuous of those people to depict God in such a way! Why in the world would God be an old white guy? Even at the time of the Renaissance, white males didn't make up a majority of the people on earth. And they've become an increasingly smaller (there's an oxymoron for you) percentage of the world's population ever since. It's far more likely that if God is a being at all He would be black, or Asian, or an animal, or something that looks like E.T., or (God forbid) maybe even a woman!
But If God did depict Her/It/Him-self like that, She/He/It/Them (and please don't make an acronym out of that) would be showing favoritism to one race or gender to the possible prejudice of the others, which would be kind of un-Godly. That's why I prefer to believe that God is not a being (something incarnate) at all. Rather, God is an ephemeral energy force from which we all emanate and to which we all return. Hard for an artist to capture that on a canvas but, when you think about it, it's a lot more spiritual than the traditional view. And it also explains how God can be everywhere at once much more comforting than the thought of some wizened old man watching us through a hole in the sky.
As for you skeptical fundamentalists, this description of God is entirely consistent with the famous line in Genesis. Man was created in God's image. But image doesn't mean physical form. It means a spiritual state of goodness and morality.
And here's the best part: My explanation actually resolves the age-old debate between the Creationists and the Evolutionists. They're both right! God's energy force created our universe by detonating a portion of itself and sending its life-energy everywhere i.e., the Big Bang.
But how is it possible for God to be on both sides at the same time during a crucial contest like a war or a football game? It isn't. The truth is that God isn't on anyone's side. Rather, as Lincoln put it, we're all supposed to be on God's side.
Are any of you traditionalists just a little bit persuaded by this analysis? Thank God!
Whoever first decided that God looked like man clearly misconstrued Genesis (the Bible, not the Phil Collins pop group). The truth is that man created God in his own image. Please don't get upset, you fundamentalists out there. I'm not trying to deny the existence of God. I'm just saying that our Supreme Being is not an elderly, white-haired Caucasian male.
Of course, I can't empirically prove this any more than you can prove your opposite view. But I think I do have a logical argument. So, God willing, I hope you kindly hear me out.
When early man first developed the capacity to think, three crucial questions immediately occurred to him: (1) Where did I come from? (2) What is the meaning of life? (3) How do I get everyone to follow the rules? As at least a partial answer, the ancient Greeks and Romans came up with the idea of a de-centralized bureaucracy of deities there were a bunch of gods up in the heavens, each of whom had different responsibilities (kind of like our presidential Cabinet). These gods despite their superhuman powers looked like men and women and even had human frailties. They freely interacted with us and meddled in our affairs, often with tragic results for us and for them.
Having all these gods was inefficient and unwieldy. Kind of like Congress. So the monotheists came along and refined the concept. We were created by one almighty God, they decided. Our purpose on this earth was to live virtuous lives. If we succeeded, we would be rewarded upon our deaths with eternal life in heaven.
But who was this new solo version of our Supreme Being? The Lord apparently was much shyer and more reclusive than the earlier Greek or Roman versions. Didn't meddle nearly as much in our lives. To the contrary, only spoke rarely, and then just to a very few select individuals. Like when Moses received the Ten Commandments (a/k/a the "Bill of Wrongs").
Okay, so now we finally had the answer to those three great questions. God created us, our purpose was to live in accordance with the Ten Commandments so we could spend eternity in heaven and, if we didn't follow these rules, we'd end up in hell instead. But what did God look like?
The Vatican helped clarify things for us during the Renaissance. It commissioned the great painters and sculptors of the day to create artwork that depicted various scenes and stories from the Bible. Of course, the Church hierarchy, the artists and indeed just about all the Christians in Western Europe at the time were Caucasian. And the hierarchy and the artists were male. So it naturally stood to reason that God was shown to be a white man. Since He was wise (all-knowing), it also made sense to portray Him as an older man. And everyone went along with it, so that it became the universally accepted image of God for hundreds of years.
When, as a little kid, I thought about God, I imagined Him up in heaven, hanging out with George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and all my dead ancestors, watching my every move through some unexplained window in the sky (which I now realize was the much-publicized hole in our ozone layer). It was both comforting and scary at the same time.
Now that I'm an adult, though, I've come to this conclusion: How arrogant and presumptuous of those people to depict God in such a way! Why in the world would God be an old white guy? Even at the time of the Renaissance, white males didn't make up a majority of the people on earth. And they've become an increasingly smaller (there's an oxymoron for you) percentage of the world's population ever since. It's far more likely that if God is a being at all He would be black, or Asian, or an animal, or something that looks like E.T., or (God forbid) maybe even a woman!
But If God did depict Her/It/Him-self like that, She/He/It/Them (and please don't make an acronym out of that) would be showing favoritism to one race or gender to the possible prejudice of the others, which would be kind of un-Godly. That's why I prefer to believe that God is not a being (something incarnate) at all. Rather, God is an ephemeral energy force from which we all emanate and to which we all return. Hard for an artist to capture that on a canvas but, when you think about it, it's a lot more spiritual than the traditional view. And it also explains how God can be everywhere at once much more comforting than the thought of some wizened old man watching us through a hole in the sky.
As for you skeptical fundamentalists, this description of God is entirely consistent with the famous line in Genesis. Man was created in God's image. But image doesn't mean physical form. It means a spiritual state of goodness and morality.
And here's the best part: My explanation actually resolves the age-old debate between the Creationists and the Evolutionists. They're both right! God's energy force created our universe by detonating a portion of itself and sending its life-energy everywhere i.e., the Big Bang.
But how is it possible for God to be on both sides at the same time during a crucial contest like a war or a football game? It isn't. The truth is that God isn't on anyone's side. Rather, as Lincoln put it, we're all supposed to be on God's side.
Are any of you traditionalists just a little bit persuaded by this analysis? Thank God!