Pen Tivokeish recently wrote a great post describing his idea of what god is like in his mind. It reminded me of how I used to think about god years ago. When I was old enough to articulate it, I realized that my perception of God was akin to how I thought of all my principals in yeshiva: If you were a good kid who did what you were supposed to, followed the rules, got decent grades, and stayed on his good side, then he was always happy with you, and you'd probably even get some sort of reward every once in a while. But if you were the sort of kid who didn't always do as he was expected to, then the relationship was totally different. You always had to be on the lookout to make sure he wasn't around the corner, looking to catch you doing something you weren't allowed to. If he busted you messing around, you knew that you were in some serious trouble. You probably were often called to his office every once in a while for some infraction that he would berate you for. Usually when that happened, you knew you had broken some rule, but oftentimes you probably really had no idea what the big deal was that you had done. And of course, between all the reprimands, there would be a punishment or two meted out.That's pretty much how I thought of god. The Principal in the Sky. Who was going to eventually bust you for every single violation of the rules you ever committed.
What persona was your god?
15 comments:
The God you imagined is the loving and caring side of God that He shows to His chosen only in Jewish theology. We find this relationship with His chosen people, Israel, and with His chosen royal house, David.
רק אתכם ידעתי, מכל משפחות האדמה; על-כן אפקד עליכם, את כל-עונתיכם. משל למה"ד לאדם שנושה משני בנ"א אחד אוהבו ואחד שונאו אוהבו נפרע ממנו מעט מעט שונאו נפרע ממנו בבת אחת
אני אהיה-לו לאב, והוא יהיה-לי לבן--אשר, בהעותו, והכחתיו בשבט אנשים, ובנגעי בני אדם.
yep, God is a pain in the butt. Aren't you glad you got rid of him?
You mean, got rid of the illusion?
Yes.
The persona of my God was much simpler. He would sign people like my grandpa into the Book of Life, people like Hitler into the Book of Death, and people like me into -- hmmm, do I smell dinner? Gotta run!
But then I finally matured and got a more mature understanding of God. I'm sure glad I didn't "drop" God after having such an immature understanding.
Matured?
I can't remember a time when I ever considered God to be any kind of person. Even as a child if I tried to picture God, I thought of a black misty cloud against a dark backdrop or of my standing before a focused yet endless expanse of white presence. God was the moral imperative that without words communicated approval or disappointment for my behavior.
The Hedyot wrote "matured?"
Was that a correction to some grammar I used, a challenge to my claim that I matured, or was it a claim that all perceptions about God are by definition childish?
Try this. Rather than conceiving of God as an entity, try seeing him as a reality (ok yeah you don't believe in God, but I hope you get what I'm saying here).
Rather than trying to define God, let God define himself for you through the attributes he reveals with which you can get to know him
He expresses this in eight positive metaphysical attributes and eight negative ones. The positive attributes are Qadir, the Almighty; Aalim, the All-Knowing; Mudrik, the EverPerceiving; Hai, the Ever-Living; Mureed, the All Independent in will and action; Mutakallim, the Creator of Speech; and Sadiq, the Ever-Truthful.
The negative attributes are Murakkab, compound; Makan, accommodation; Holool, incarnation; Maryee, visibility; Ehtiyaj, need; Shirkat, association; Mahaile hawadis or Tagha'iyyar, change; and Sifate-zaid, addition of qualities.
The negative attributes cannot be attributed to God. The final negative attribute, addition of qualities, forbids conceiving of the positive attributes as separable from the essence of God. Finally, according to All, God is a being consistent and not arbitrary, whose essential attribute is justice.
some of those words sound Hebrew, but others sound Sanskrit or something. Are you writing in Hebrew, shlom? Or is this "murqab" of Jewish, Sufi, and Buddhist wisdom?
"But then I finally matured and got a more mature understanding of God. I'm sure glad I didn't "drop" God after having such an immature understanding."
Hedyot,
I'm with you on this one. Having a more mature sense of "god" is like saying you have a more sophisticated understanding of a fairy tale, or Greek mythology.
(did you know that libraries put books on religion and books on mythology in the same section?)
e:
"some of those words sound Hebrew, but others sound Sanskrit or something. Are you writing in Hebrew, shlom? Or is this "murqab" of Jewish, Sufi, and Buddhist wisdom?"
Those words are arabic, and this stuff comes from islamic metaphysics
My point was that rather than perceiving of God as a person, flying spagetti monster, etc etc like the idolators of old, look at at God through his attributes. Use those attributes to define him for yourself (that is if you are even open to the possibility that he exists)
what do those arab kofrim know about god?
> Rather than trying to define God, let God define himself for you through the attributes he reveals with which you can get to know him.
How do you think I formed the picture I had in the first place? It was specifically through the attributes that were "revealed" to me. Granted, nothing was ever actually revealed to me (or anyone else for that matter), but the events of my life (and the world in general) were interpreted and understood in such a way so as to encourage such a view of him to be formed.
Funny how i don't even remember now what i thought of god as a kid, because I sure prayed to him a lot.
e :
"what do those arab kofrim know about god?"
-http://www.al-islam.org/GodAttributes/
-http://www.al-islam.org/concept/
-http://www.al-islam.org/knowinggod/
-http://www.al-islam.org/adl_ilahi/
The Hedyot:
"How do you think I formed the picture I had in the first place? It was specifically through the attributes that were "revealed" to me. Granted, nothing was ever actually revealed to me (or anyone else for that matter), but the events of my life (and the world in general) were interpreted and understood in such a way so as to encourage such a view of him to be formed."
Try the first link I showed above, it resolves the know-how of understanding God through his attributes, or at least that's what I can offer from my perspective.
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