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- Art

A Way to Create a Creator

One of several Biblical concepts is that mankind is created in God’s image, but what is God’s image? Is it possible to make an image of something infinitely vast and complex? It is the general assumption on the part of major religions that God has omni-qualities, i.e. that the Supreme Being is everywhere, knows everything and has total power. As these qualities are infinite, mankind as a finite being can never encompass the nature of the Superior Being, but being a creator in his own right, the human being has the power to create in thought and speech a description of what that Superior Being might be. The small creator can thus determine what the big Creator is simply by establishing his personal image of the Greater Being.
Take the example of showing God as an angry father. People are free to accept or refuse the angry-father image, but how is it that the listening public decides for or against the image? It decides according to the quality and degree of authority that the person in a position of secular or religious leadership projects. If the leader rules by way of anger and intimidation and claims his authority is from God, the followers easily accept the image of God being an angry, intimidating being. So in general terms it stands to reason that God becomes whatever those who hold power wish Him to be. It then becomes an easy matter for the heads of organized religions to issue proclamations such as that women should dress in habits or burkas. As long as leaders have conviction and faith, the followers adopt the same faith and conviction, feeling themselves to be among the chosen. Anyone who challenges the leaders’ authority is accused of “lacking faith.”
So anyone with great faith and conviction can create a Creator simply through the establishment of an image, and if the creator can buttress his image through methods ranging from subtle persuasion and/or intimidation to violent coercion it becomes easier for the followers to believe than not to believe. If the faith is in the context of traditional religion, the believer can have a born-again experience; if the faith is based on a new belief system, the believer simply puts himself under the guidance of the leader who has created his particular image of God.

I agree the “Original Sin” concept is a very effective institutional tool for making members of a faith accept dominion of a church over them. Your question of “who is to blame” is interesting, and I think when you dive into it, you’ll be hard pressed to find anyone to blame (much like in most business crisis, you’ll rarely find one person to blame: http://www.amazon.com/Fifth-Discipline-Peter-M-Senge/dp/0385260954
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Its the nature of human-designed systems that the systems evolve ways to self-perpetuate. We tend to like stability, and therefore invent concepts that help stabilize things. I have no bitter thoughts on the concept of “Original Sin” — I think it’s an entirely rational creation that Catholics foisted on themselves. While the concept itself does give me some heebie jeebies, in general I believe Religions do more good in the world than harm.

P.S. A couple of great documentaries touching on Irish Catholicism are The Magdalen Sisters and Deliver us from Evil

P.P.S. Just for the record, I am all for true spirituality

Thanks for the great (and insightful) comments!

I agree that all religions contribute to some degree to the evils in the world. But I also believe the same can be said of all secular faiths (I know… a contradiction) as well (think 20mm killed in Stalin’s Soviet Union). I’ll talk about that in The Fundamentalist Athiest (in a few weeks).

Now that said, I believe that all religions and all secular faiths contribute to some degree to the good in the world as well. Any human creation I’ve run across has the potential for good or evil, and will likely at some point during its existence be used for both.

- Art