No more bullshit

I promised to give my assessment of Communism and the transcendentalism of Thoreau's Walden Pond -- and I will. Both of these philosophies avoid relying on the concept of what we commonly think of as "God". So maybe now is the optimal time for considering this idea.

What do you think of when you hear the word "God"?

Does it bring a feeling of fear, love, anger, joy? Do you think that God has feelings like humans? Does God need to be worshipped? Is there more than one God? Does God have helpers or intermediate deities that perform godly duties? Is God a male, female, both... or perhaps nothing like that at all?

What follows is my own attempt at understanding the idea of God. It's taken me a while to confront these insights, but my own mortality salience has made it all the more timely and meaningful. Of course, I'm just one man but, even if you disagree with me, I hope these ideas stimulate and expand your world view.

Here goes. [inhale]

One God or Many?

When I think of "God" it is not some 30-ish Hebrew with a beard, dressed in robes or nailed to a bloody wooden cross. It's also not some old man floating on a cloud or sitting on a throne with books of laws and covenants with subordinates kowtowing at his feet. But I will confess that I did once.

Whom we cry out to when we fear death is largely a cultural acquisition. Since my prayers are in words I instinctively assume that the recipient is a person like me, albeit all powerful and capable of saving my life. But my bar for what God should be was raised high by those Hubble Telescope images revealing the vast universe.

Each of those bright spots is a galaxy with billions of stars, planets and likely inhabitants. It's hard to get your head around the size and scale of things that the Creator God has to manage, all the while responding to desperate prayers and intervening with that newest pimple that is about to ruin a teenager's date. (Yes, I remember praying for that.)

Here, look at a hi-res image of a small portion of our galactic neighbor, Andromeda.

Words fall hopelessly short of representing whoever or whatever is responsible for all this. Because our consciousness is based upon our acquired vocabulary, it will forever be impossible for us to "know" this God or fully understand the motives or purpose of this vast creation we are a part of. Whatever ideas or concepts we entertain in our minds must always fall short of the real thing and be confounded by our ignorance and limited experience.

In addition to this there is the question of origins. As we understand time and causation, if some entity designed, created and sustains the universe then it obviously existed before the universe was created. With no "thing" to compare it to, we have absolutely no chance of approaching that pre-universe God with our minds.

But all hope is not lost. Perhaps we can learn about the Creator, the God, from the thing that it created... It's kind of like knowing the artist through the art.

Self-Distributive

The universe, as we know it today, is homogenous and isotropic. There is no apparent central control or focal point. As a general rule, energy (and matter) are self-distributed and locally controlled. Planets are part of a solar system which is part of a star group or constellation. Constellations form galaxies and these form galaxy clusters which form filaments in a network of plasma clouds that look like Swiss cheese [See below].

Wow. Not only was this kind of universe unimaginable to the ancients but we can hardly grasp it today, even with the hard evidence. But before I draw my conclusions, let me take you to the opposite end of the universal spectrum... to the most studied elementary particle, the electron. Here, at this most fundamental level we can discern something quite revealing about the way the universe is created and, by analogy, the style of the Creator.

That's next. Please keep sending feedback. Maybe you have ideas about where I am going with this? I'll bet you are wrong. There IS a prize at the end. Stick with me. But for now, a brief respite.