A strange trend has been ongoing among "believers" for centuries where the prodigious figure of God becomes a "big idiot." Suddenly, the word "transcendent" which believers ascribe to this powerful figure means "He who is dumber than thyself, rather than greater." God, in a sense, becomes our little beloved "ego" pet where he languishes in our biases and becomes our support partner. Next time,a biologist elaborately explains the complicated theory of evolution, we are to ignore his insane babble and sic our "ego" God on him. Envision this pugnacious dog drooling like someone who has rabies and readying himself to tear apart the evil scientific theory while the owner stands back and chants his vacuous interpretations of scripture madly. "God created the world in six days. Eve, that spiteful women, ate the accursed fruit that made her smarter than our "stupid, primeval" God. Now she must submit to God once again because this God cannot be insulted in this way. He (or I) is/am smarter than anyone, that is that..."
Why do some Christians recklessly drop God on his head when they are introduced to him when younger? It does not help that some Sunday School teachers unwisely teach their kids how to keep God fixed in this infantile mode of behavior. That is why children's minds are flooded with doctrines that seem incontestable to other evil unbelievers. Our little God often is indoctrinated with all the same stereotypes that we learn during our formative years. These are this God's formative years as well. When he grows up, he will keep reiterating the same vile ideas that we goad him into believing. Thus if my parents instructed me that "their" stupid God doesn't like those pesky lesbian neighbors next door. Your God will soon learn to accept that belief without doubt as well which effectively makes you believe those things unquestionably as well.
Now, the true story made be that your neighbors aren't even lesbians yet your father finds that their practice of Buddhism or some other heathen religion might be abhorrent. Once you debase someone once in your mind, you then find other negative traits to further devolve them into your mind. Your hatred is warranted because your stupid God minion justifies it without any inkling of guilt.
Remarkably, we condition ourselves into enslaving God. To enslave someone, we must insure that they are inferior and obedient to our "beck and call." They must take take upon the different characteristics that we affix to them. This profoundly idiotic "God" is the literal God of the Old Testament who was often the "pet God" to various Old Testament patriarchs. When the Bible is read as literature, we can see that these "God's" are often hypothetical Gods that the different mythical figures in the Old Testament converse with. In the realm of mythology, things that are intangible become "tangible." Within Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings, none of us "believe" that the mystical elements are real. They're part of an imagined world where magic is manifested and is something that intercedes in the affairs of this fictitious reality.
The Bible works the same way. We've lost the art of reading mythology. In essence, we're illiterate readers of mythology. Yet, we're smart when it comes to reading other texts. None of us readily believe that the Greek myths contain real distinct deities that engage with us in conversation. Why do we think differently when it comes to Christianity. How come reading the Bible requires eschewing reason and nearly all the intellectual gifts that God bestowed upon us?
Why do we forcefully make God "a ridiculous being swathed with diaphanous smoke who has also a fuzzy beard that looks like billowy clouds? Within the Genesis myth, this God takes seven days to create the Earth and then appoints Sunday as "his" day of rest. Realistically, a being that is transcendent would not expend his energy and need to act like mundane mortals. Culturally, the story of creation was stylistically set up much like how a holy week works within Judaism.
Of course, some Christians fail to understand the cultural elements that naturally exist within any mythological text and take this creation account as a literal seven-day schedule for a deity who looks kinda like Santa Clause in their minds. Santa Clause within Christmas folklore can deliver gifts miraculously to children of all shapes and sizes in one evening. God can do everything instantaneously within the Bible except create the entire world. He takes a short hiatus on Sunday because behaving like a mortal for one week is tiring. More importantly, trying to live up to some Christian's superficial ideas of him can be very disillusioning.
Seriously, the man even has to pretend that he has male reproductive organs thus earning him the lovely pronoun "He." Its important to note that in other languages, gender specific pronouns are used for inanimate objects and do not necessarily denote one as having male or female reproductive organs. This concept of God as an "old man" is a quirky invention within our modern world. Yet, it sort of matches the concept of a God whom many view as being very idiotic and subservient to our will and theological doctrines. Masculine God is a bemusing idea as it only proves that this idea of God is subject to human manipulation. Having God be a man exclusively makes "masculinity" and all of its stereotypical implications become a graven image in Christianity: a golden idol. How important is this brawny-man God to Christians?
Recently, droves of irate Christians were positively enraged that a new translation of the Bible had less gender specific pronouns used for God. Suddenly, these Christians forcefully braced themselves and grabbed the leashes of their fickle "ego" Gods. If God doesn't have a male reproductive organ, we cannot believe in God anymore. Some churches that believe their holy leaders are a "model" for God insist that this leader must be masculine because isn't God himself definably masculine? "Come on you heathens and evil feminists, the "he" pronoun is always attributed to God because God is male and has to use the little boy's room time to time. Perhaps, he needed Sunday off from creation to take care of such health problems related to holding it over the course of six literal days."
Why do some Christians obstinately insist that God is a little ineffectual old man with a dunce cap? When it comes to Judgement Day, why does he lack so much discernment when it comes to heinously judging people for not being a member of a certain church? Could this entire idea of God be one huge conspiracy? Have people just depended upon this God as some sort of way to prevent them from taking responsibility for hating people and hurting others? Is this God just our "complacency" that keeps us from being compassionate or intellectually humble? Humanity, even before the introduction of the curmudgeonly masculine God, has never liked inquisitive individuals or anyone that discerns past their silly categories, labels and stereotypes.
Socrates was killed unmercifully because people could not stand the fact that he may them go through a process of self-examination. We don't like to take responsibility for our actions or to truly admit that some of our ideas may be erroneous. I have to admit freely that like all other humans even I stubbornly dismiss ideas and refuse to examine them because its certainly more comfortable remain within Plato's Cave and remain sealed in our fallible concepts of a world that no one has perfectly understood. Hence, Socrates characteristically states that he truly knows nothing which is very unpopular in a world that reveres stubborn certainty. We often hear it describes humorously as "holding to your guns" which could mean to some people that they'll righteously defend their unproven ideas of "the male God" who created the world in six days and then find his plans foiled by a defiant female.
For me, God can only be "infallible" if we stop giving him so many fallible qualifications. It makes no sense to enshrine our feeble ideas of something that is "ineffable," and grant them the power to be above our reasoning. Yet, these weak ideas of a stupid God were the sole product of our reasoning so we are only deluding ourselves into thinking otherwise when we pretend that they are "inerrant." Perhaps, unbelievers like myself refuse to think of God in such a linear way. God should be more respectfully placed in the "throes of the unknown," "the cloud of unknowing," or the nihilistic nothingness that our human reasoning can only restrictively view as "absent of meaning." That is why I'm not an atheist because I don't like any kind of certainty be forced upon something that truly beyond our reasoning powers. Then again, the atheists might be a bit more reverent by just declaring God as nonexistent as he really isn't some being that "exists" anyways. Etymologically, the word "exists" implies a limited life span therefore God neither exists or does exist. This notion of the supernatural really is a way to artfully express the mystery inherent within our lives.
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