More alien Gods...

I think the primary weakness in religion, and in our view of aliens, is that we constantly anthromorphize them - we make them too much like us!

When thinking about religion, the biggest thing I struggle with is how human God seems to be - as in kill us all, punish us all if we don't conform, act arbitrarily, be prejudiced, grab power, etc. etc. If God is really advanced in His thinking, WHY does he need a bunch of lesser beings WORSHIPPING Him? Wouldn't that be annoying rather than desirable? And as far as I'm concerned, I want God to be a whole lot better than we are! I'm not sure I'd want to be anywhere around a human type person who has total and complete absolute power, if you know what I mean.

And why are there so MANY Gods - one for every culture?

I think that's the same weakness we have when we try to sensibly discuss aliens - we make them too human. We give them actions, thoughts, and motivations that are human when they are not human.

In the most technical sense, since God is not a human being born on Earth, He is an alien.

The question is how does one understand an alien God?

They say that man is made in God's image, but what does that mean exactly?

I believe that SOMETHING exists - I'm just not quite sure what.

In fact there's one additional question - could God really BE an alien?

Actually I would say you have it backwards: we create gods in our own image in the first place we do not change them later.

They are us, literally, and serve to illustrate normal human ideas in bigger ways. Stories about carrying the Earth on your back are not intended to impress us with the power of the gods, they are to help us carry the load we have.

There are so many gods because different cultures have different needs.

In a way I agree that too often we try to understand alien motovations by applying human rules which is generally wrong. But what else can we do? Until we get to know them we cannot even guess at what differences there are and how that affects their thinking.

And really, it is just as possible that beings from another planet are very much like ourself, perhaps much the same way that 2 humans from different Countries share many basic things.

Perhaps, just perhaps, years from now it will turn out that the biggest lie told during this time is that Aliens are wierd creatures. We meet, and it turns out that they are not so different after all.


A.T
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