http://non-theist.com/on-the-anthropomorphization-of-god/ atheist blog Wed, 28 Jul 2010 10:05:52 -0600 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5 hourly 1 http://non-theist.com/on-the-anthropomorphization-of-god/comment-page-1/#comment-104 raddevon Thu, 11 Dec 2008 03:47:36 +0000 http://non-theist.com/?p=56#comment-104 Something I have been fascinated with along these same lines: How can we pretend to describe a spiritual "experience" like an afterlife? How can we personify the spirit? If the spirit exists, it is surely incapable of experiencing anything without the help of a body chocked full of organs that process and interpret experiences. How could hell be painful with no living brain to feel the pain? To take it one step further, if it is not painful, why fear it? After death, if only our spirit remains, we cannot fear any type of pain because pain is physical and our physical existence has come to a close. On the other hand, if we are to be rewarded in heaven with encounters with long-dead relatives, how will we perceive them detached from the organs that allow all our perceptions? Something I have been fascinated with along these same lines: How can we pretend to describe a spiritual “experience” like an afterlife? How can we personify the spirit? If the spirit exists, it is surely incapable of experiencing anything without the help of a body chocked full of organs that process and interpret experiences. How could hell be painful with no living brain to feel the pain? To take it one step further, if it is not painful, why fear it? After death, if only our spirit remains, we cannot fear any type of pain because pain is physical and our physical existence has come to a close. On the other hand, if we are to be rewarded in heaven with encounters with long-dead relatives, how will we perceive them detached from the organs that allow all our perceptions?

]]> http://non-theist.com/on-the-anthropomorphization-of-god/comment-page-1/#comment-20 Asylum Seeker Mon, 24 Nov 2008 16:58:29 +0000 http://non-theist.com/?p=56#comment-20 It's funny, but the early gods/spirits are just glorified personifications of nature. And, in time, going from the animistic traditions in which deities were just sentient aspects of nature, to polytheism, which was similar, but stressed the relationships of each god to one another more, we get a gradual increase in the level of anthropomorphism. And then you get monotheism, where all those old gods are tossed in a blender, swirled up together, and poured into a human-shaped mold to serve as king of reality with a face to reflect our own due to our own perception of being masters of the known world. Obviously, humans, the best form of life on Earth, could only be subservient to something that was like us, only better in every respect. And that is the deity we know today: all the best human attributes pinned to all the observations of our natural world. And the conflicts that result from contrasting those idealized human attributes with influence over the observably less than ideal realities of nature are obvious. It’s funny, but the early gods/spirits are just glorified personifications of nature. And, in time, going from the animistic traditions in which deities were just sentient aspects of nature, to polytheism, which was similar, but stressed the relationships of each god to one another more, we get a gradual increase in the level of anthropomorphism. And then you get monotheism, where all those old gods are tossed in a blender, swirled up together, and poured into a human-shaped mold to serve as king of reality with a face to reflect our own due to our own perception of being masters of the known world. Obviously, humans, the best form of life on Earth, could only be subservient to something that was like us, only better in every respect. And that is the deity we know today: all the best human attributes pinned to all the observations of our natural world. And the conflicts that result from contrasting those idealized human attributes with influence over the observably less than ideal realities of nature are obvious.

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