tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11303103.post114127885099228599..comments2024-03-20T03:12:56.498-05:00Comments on Lou Anders: The Man With the Lightbulb HeadLou Andershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00694362734492222851noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11303103.post-1141295312317522102006-03-02T04:28:00.000-06:002006-03-02T04:28:00.000-06:00To me, "God" is a concept, an abstraction -- the k...To <I>me</I>, "God" is a <I>concept</I>, an abstraction -- the kind of notion you can hold late-night debates about at a party, but not something to wrap your whole life's meaning around -- nor an adequate "existential security blanket". I can imagine a creator god who is utterly indifferent to life on Planet Earth -- or even a malicious creator, or a trickster god who made the universe as a joke.<BR/><BR/>Now, my theory about religion's appeal is less cynical -- it's <I>not</I> just about money, though obviously there are leaders and demagogues who use religions for financial and political gain. <BR/><BR/>There are many "roles" of God, but the strongest role is as "Dad" or "Mom".<BR/><BR/>To most believers, God is simply a <I>parental figure</I> inflated beyond all proportion.<BR/>Note how God is called "Father" and "Him" in so many religions! It's the <I>patriarch of the clan culture</I> writ large.<BR/><BR/>To the mystics and Gnostics, God is that-which-cannot-be-named, the word for the unknowable. <BR/>But the majority of believers do <I>not</I> want a mystery. They <I>want</I> the security blanket, the parental figure, the symbol of the authoritarian clan patriarch.<BR/> <BR/>This god-symbol does not work on the frontal lobes, but on the earliest part of the human mind -- the little infant in us that looks up at a physically larger mother/father-figure with awe and fear.<BR/><BR/>And if infants are brought up with threats, beatings and inscrutable commands, they will be more vulnerable to the "god-as-parent" idea. Again and again I hear people tell the same story about a stern devoutly religious father who beat and abused them during their childhood.<BR/><BR/>This most common version of God can be neatly summed up in the classic phrase: <I>"Just you wait until Father comes home and hears what you've done!</I><BR/><BR/>That's what the preachers' sermons about Hell really are -- when Father comes home and hears what you've done, there'll be hell to pay.A.R.Yngvehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03972668378286177600noreply@blogger.com