With this post I would like to ask all you folks; what do you think God is? Not what religion tells you, or what you've seen on t.v., but rather when someone says the word God, what do you think of? An old man? A woman? A light? A sound? Nothing? The Universe? A tree? A child? An Animal?........
I know that this isn't really a political question, but I'm thinking that the way that one sees God, shapes the way that they see the world. I was actually going to try and put up a poll with this post, but I knew I would not be able to capture the nuance of thought on this one, and I think that's where it could get interesting.
Strangely enough the inspiration for this post came from a movie quote below the fold.
From the movie
Dogma written and directed by Kevin Smith.
Loki: That poem, "The Walrus and the Carpenter," that's an indictment of organized religion. The Walrus, with his girth and his good nature, he obviously represents either Buddha, or with his tusks, the Hindu elephant god Lord Ganesha. Now, that takes care of your Eastern religions. Now, the Carpenter, which is obviously a reference to Jesus Christ, who was raised a carpenter's son. He represents the Western religions. Now, in the poem, what do they do? What do they do? They dupe all these oysters into following them, and then proceed to shuck and devour the helpless creatures en mass. Now, I don't know what that says to you, but to me it says that following; these faiths, based on mythological figures insures the destruction of ones inner-being. Organized religion destroys who we are by inhibiting our actions, by inhibiting our decisions, out of, out of fear of some intangible parent figure that shakes a finger at us from thousands of years ago and says, "Do it . . . do it and I'll fuckin' spank you!"
The way I see it, people are always saying that the two things that one should not discuss in public are politics and religion, yet in this community we spend a lot of time talking about both. I think that this is an interesting question, and one that I don't think we ask ourselves enough. It's not really about religion, but something altogether more personal. What are we even really talking about when we say the word God? Maybe it's a sophomoric question, but I think it's a timely one. It seems to me that the conservative extremists have hijacked the term, and we have yet to successfully layout a more carefully crafted, mature alternative to the vengeful, fire and brimstone, "intangible parent figure that shakes a finger at us from thousands of years ago."
I'm hoping that we can be open and respectful in in this discussion, and maybe even learn something about each other. So alright boys and girls, who, or what, is God?