By Erich Vieth on December 02nd, 2008
Manger scenes from around the world show that humans create God in their own image and likeness
People create their Gods in their own image and likeness. This is not an argument that God does or does not exist. It’s merely an observation that what people claim to know about God is always a projection.
This thought that God is a projection occurred to me when looking at numerous delightful manger scenes crafted by artists from around the world at a store called Plowsharing Crafts in University City Missouri. “Plowshares,” a non-profit store that promotes “fair trade” is run by the Mennonite Church.
Here is a sampling of the creche scenes I viewed. They clearly can’t all be physiologically accurate.
For a related post, see “What did Jesus Look Like?”
Karl wrote, “The atheist has decided before hand how he will deal with any type of evidence.”
Sorry, Karl, but that’s not only dead, flat, wrong, it also borders on being insulting. It implies all atheists have blindly prejudged all religions, which isn’t correct. While I’m sure some atheists do dismiss all religious doctrines outright, more than a few (myself included) actually do take time to examine religious claims and try to do so with an open mind. For these disbelievers, the inability of religious claims to withstand close scrutiny is apparently what leads them to atheism.
Karl’s statement borders on being insulting because everyone — Karl included — is an atheist; it’s just a question of which god you ask them about.
Karl writes— “The atheist has decided before hand how he will deal with any type of evidence.”
You do realize that most, if not all, atheists start out as theist? And that one of the factors that drove most of us toward atheism is exactly that trait inherent in the religious?
What drives most athiest unbeknownst the them is a consistent refusal to allow the spiritual dimensions of life to mean anything to them.
At some point in their understanding of what or who God was they chose to place a box of limitations around God and when God was suppose to do something which they believed just couldn’t be their box was shattered.
They then successfully (at least to themselves) have created a box around the rest of life that they believe they understand and call it science.
This puts man in control of his own destiny which is in one regards is a purpose for living. i.e. to replace the concept of a creator with their own concepts that eliminates the possibility for a creator.
Karl brain-vomited, after a session of remote-viewing:
“What drives most atheists, unbeknownst to them, is a consistent refusal to allow the spiritual dimensions of life to mean anything to them.”
Oh, good. For a moment there I wasn’t actually aware of what I think or why I think it! Thank you, Karl, ever so much for reading my mind and the minds of everyone else here and clarifying our thoughts for us. Not only do you know what we think and why we think it, you also know that we don’t know our own thoughts - and that we don’t know we don’t know them! We are forever in your debt.
So, enlighten me further: at what point, o great one, did you become omniscient? At what point did you gain extrasensory perception strong enough to be able to guage the precise thoughts (and the reasonings behind them) of every atheist alive today? Got some crazy global mind-readin’ doohickey like Professor Xavier in the X-Men?
But now, seriously: at what point did it become okay for you, in your mind, to behave so f’ing arrogantly and presume to speak for the many, many millions who don’t share your philosophy? What an insult.
Once again you’ve trotted out a tiresome & predictable strawman argument, popular among the arrogant and presumptuous theist, that the atheist is some kind of rebel against spirituality: it’s not that the atheist sees absolutely no reason to accept theists’ extraordinary claims that a supernatural world exists; it’s that he knows it exists but refuses to acknowledge it!
You’ve got us all worked out, have you? Such bloody arrogance. Such mental narcissism! I’m surprised you can tear yourself away from the mirror long enough to put fingers to keyboard.
Karl wrote, “What drives most athiest unbeknownst the them is a consistent refusal to allow the spiritual dimensions of life to mean anything to them.”
Karl imagines himself remarkably insightful concerning the thinking process of atheists — a remarkably arrogant and narrow-minded belief, especially considering that he presumes to know what is “unbeknownst” to the atheists themselves, and also considering that he previously wrote: “The atheist has decided before hand how he will deal with any type of evidence.” Seems to me Karl is the one who has decided beforehand how he will deal with any type of evidence.
In fact, atheism is not a “refusal to allow the spiritual dimensions of life to mean anything,” it is merely a refusal to believe in invisible, supernatural deities. Spirituality need not include a belief in invisible, supernatural deities, and it certainly doesn’t require a belief in the god that Karl believes in. Indeed, the “spiritual dimension” that Karl promotes is so thoroughly pre-packaged that I find very little about it that is spiritual.
Karl,
No. Maybe some, but not all, and not me. So, sorry. But that’s wrong.
Karl, do you really think that telling us that we’ve never read the bible, that we rejected spirituality out of hand, that we are wandering purposeless through life, that we’re close-minded and would otherwise see your point of view, will make it so? Have you established a predetermined number of times you will have to repeat your unsubstantiated claims about us for this to happen, or are you just winging it? If you don’t pay attention to what we have told you about ourselves, how do you expect us to pay attention to you when you tell us about ourselves?
I respect all of your rights to to fling spirituality back in my face. But I just don’t know why it seems on the verge of insulting. I have to smack myself across the face so I don’t find myself worshipping a God of flesh and blood or in the form of a physical man or a physical man’s ideas that would distort the Spiritual Nature of the True God.
However, until you come to grips with what you call spirituality from some scientific definition those who value natural science over matters of the spirit are just compartmentalizing their knowledge about the world and themselves into natural and supposedly clear knowledge versus unscientific and fuzzy matters that must be discounted by a human animal.
I just don’t know why it upsets so many of you when I in essence repeat the same statements you make about yourselves, but from my point of view.
Grumpy says - (about me)- that I am an atheist, (even I think I’m not). He believes because I don’t worship some form of someone else’s God I too am an atheist. In this regard Grumpy is correct for once. Any form of anyone’s God that I believe is God causes me to commit sacriledge and to violate the second commandment. As I have been saying, God is spirit, and those who worship Jesus in the flesh have committed sin as they have worshipped a graven image (exchanging the True God for a part of the creation).
Pray tell how he arrives at such a conclusion logically unless to him there really is no such thing as spirituality in his mind which means to him that no one can be a theist (even if they think they are) because they believe in something called God that has a physical representation which could never be the essence of the true God which is the spirit (i.e. something non-physical or non corporal).
How can I get it across to you that those who worship Jesus as the fullness of God (including the physical manifestation of humanness) are idolaters.
Jesus’ spirit was equal to God’s spirit. Jesus created the very body of the incarnaton (i.e. took on flesh) and in so doing limited the extent of the nature of God by being found in human form. Those who try to understand God (full spirit and full nature of God) and who try to have a spiritual realtionship with God will always be tempted to discount the spiritual nature of God because of the natural world and the way people think in naturalistic/scientific terms.
It occurs to me that Erich’s post is more prescient than in just the way he mentions. Consider the example of Karl — a person with an arrogant and narrow-minded view of spirituality, who worships an arrogant and narrow-minded invisible deity. Coincidence? I think not. Karl has created a god in his own image and likeness.
Grumpy,
Please describe the God you think I have ceated?
Karl said “But I just don’t know why it seems on the verge of insulting.”
What’s insulting is that, after you entered this discussion, you not only failed to comprehend points of view different to yours, you then misrepresented those points of view and even presumed to have crystal-clear insight into the reasoning behind them! It’s insulting to our intelligence that you claim the superior clarity to know all our minds when your head’s stuck in clouds of your own making. Your critique of someone’s position is only as good as your understanding of it and your understanding of the atheist position leaves much to be desired.
http://dangerousintersection.org/2008/09/22/why-i-am-not-an-atheist/
mmmm…. fuzzy… manly chests, fresh peaches, babies’ heads… I like fuzzy. I would never discount it.
Karl asks, “Please describe the God you think I have ceated [sic]?”
I answered that question in my comment. Just as people create manger scenes (and other artwork) that portray their god in their own *physical* image and likeness, so too do people seem to worship deities that reflect their own *temperamental* image and likeness. People who are arrogant and narrow-minded find a deity to worship that is arrogant and narrow-minded. People who hate Jews, homosexuals, women, intemperance, etc., find a deity to worship that condemns Jews, homosexuals, women, intemperance, etc. It’s like the way you can often tell the personality of dog-owners by examining the personality of their dogs. Friendly dogs often have friendly owners, while hostile dogs often have hostile owners.
I see you missed my question altogether by still assuming how you believe people create a god (imaginary yet with characteristics comfortable for the creator) mentally from their thoughts, ideas, opinions, attitudes, likes, dislikes, and their “temperaments.”
Why then do so many people make graven images of their “god.”
The Second of the Ten Commandments in Judeo-Christian heritage deals directly with the futility of this.
You keep referring to arrogant and narrowminded as if they were some kind of quantifiable scientific measurement scale based on a scale from one to ten. Your ideas of arrogant and narrowmindedness are mental constructs as well.
So you are saying that any and every conceivable existence of god exists only in the imaginations of people?
Um, I think Grumpy’s been pretty clear about being an atheist, or at least strong agnostic. It seems like you are still struggling with what that really means.
I think because the Christian version of God is so central in your life, you make the mistake of thinking that it is also central to others. I think that’s what Grumpy was trying to convey with the idea of your being an atheist in regard to Zeus. To you Grumpy is an atheist because he doesn’t believe in your god, but to him Yahweh is on the same shelf with Zeus - a historical artifact, a potential source of insight into the human psyche but not a concept to base one’s life on.
I hope you don’t mind my putting words in your mouth Grumpy. It’s based on my interpretation of your past comments so please feel free to tell me if I’ve got it wrong.
I would still like to have Grumpy describe the God he thinks I’ve created.
I can only get him to decribe how he thinks I created him.
[...] . . as well as Santa giving homage to a Caucasian Baby Jesus, or is that Baby Jesus giving homage to [...]
The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster has added its own version of the manger scene.
http://www.venganza.org/2008/12/08/fsm-nativity-scene/
Karl writes, “…you believe people create a god (imaginary yet with characteristics comfortable for the creator) mentally from their thoughts, ideas, opinions, attitudes, likes, dislikes, and their “temperaments.” Why then do so many people make graven images of their “god.””
Obviously, Karl, some people worship purely invisible deities, while others worship visible ones that have physical traits. Erich’s post deals with the latter group — people whose mental image of their deity has physical traits that match their own. My comment dealt with the former group — people whose mental image of their deity has personality traits that match their own.