A Skeleton Of Truth - Interpretation Of God's Traditional Image?
Ancient History: The traditional elements and stories surrounding God and religion were written a long time ago. They are now, in fact, ancient history. At that time, mans' understanding was perhaps rather childlike and would have presented a challenge as to how to explain things that were beyond our ability to understand in a way that someone with a childlike understanding could perhaps relate to. Of course, our understanding has come a long way since then, especially over the last 200 years. We are now able to observe some of the mechanics behind our creation, and that which drives the engine of life at the heart of our existence. Now is then perhaps good time to apply science and technology to bring our understanding of traditional religious stories and bible elements up to date.
It's Like This: We often use analogies when trying to explain things and will use the expression it's like this, or it's like that to help try and explain something. It obviously helps to relate, or liken a concept to something we are already familiar with in order to help convey its meaning and some understanding. Many of the traditional pictures that have evolved from the ancient religions are not dissimilar in principle to exactly this. For example, the bible and other religious books contain many analogies and parallel principles in their writings. Such stories and religious elements are not always meant to be taken quite so literally, but have to be interpreted in a certain way for a viable meaning to be conveyed. Of course, this also means that such elements can be open to misinterpretation, if not interpreted as perhaps originally intended. Interpretation is something that has caused considerable problems with religions over the years. So, what about the traditional picture of God?
Is That Really God? The traditional picture of God that many of us grow up with, or imagine as children, is that of a very old, wise and loving man with long white hair and a long white beard who sits, or lives, up in the sky. As adults, many people disbelieve in God as a result of this image. However, this childlike interpretation is not meant to be a literal representation. We have to look at the picture in a different light to interpret the true meaning of what the architect was trying to convey and, depending on how you look at it, this picture, or representation of God, can be both accurate and inaccurate at the same time. To imagine God as a single physical human being, a bit like the Wizard Of Oz, would be the wrong interpretation, and no doubt as phoney. In this way, the picture is misleading and appears to lie. However, by applying parallel principles, and observing possible analogies, there is a viable truth there within. So how should we interpret this picture?
Link Of Identity: It is quite clear from the traditional picture that God is very old, however, the long white hair and beard, perhaps try to show that he is extremely old, even timeless. The picture tries to convey that God has lived and experienced a very long life, which has led to a vast knowledge of experience, great wisdom and understanding, much feeling and compassion. A life which has perhaps not been easy. We are given to understand that God is powerful, and perhaps vastly bigger and more powerful than we can imagine, and in control. Therefore, God is often depicted as sitting on a throne, or watching down over his domain, as a King perhaps might do. As for being up in the sky, well we know, in our physical bodies, we are confined to Earth by gravity. However, spirit, conscious energy, quantum life and other life mechanisms, may well have the freedom to move around in the heavens, as fish in our oceans. For life to survive in the heavens, it would have to have the ability to migrate and also to be able to withstand cosmic radiation and extremes of temperature. It's a bit beyond our understanding at the moment, but, our technological understanding of what is achievable and how, has only just begun.
Little Chip, Big Chip: In the traditional picture, God is depicted in human form, however, this can simply show that there is a real link of identity between us and him. The words 'made in his image' in one sense could imply that God looks like we do. However, the word image doesn't have to refer to a physical image. There is another way of looking at this that makes much more sense. Created in his image can refer to his psychological, or emotional image, and can also refer to the fact that we have freewill, just like God. In the same way that computers little and large can use the same operating systems or principles, we are built on the same emotional framework and have the same ability to exercise freewill. In fact, we are now very familiar with the words image and imaging in computing concepts. God may be a vast conscious entity and we may be very tiny compared to God, but there is nothing to say we are not all little chips off of a much bigger and older block. Or, to bring things a little more up to date, we are all little chips, potentially part of a much bigger and older machine.
The Sum Of Smaller Parts: Every bigger and more powerful machine is made of smaller individual parts. Every computer is made up of smaller individual chips, or integrated circuits. The integrated circuits that make up bigger machines are themselves made of millions and billions of tiny components, electronic switches and interconnected pathways. Transistors, cells, neurons, are some of the ones we currently know about and relate to. There's probably a lot more out there that we don't know about. Other life forms in our universe may also be absolutely massive compared to that which we are. We can say for sure that from our planet to our solar system to our galaxy and on, our universe is certainly a very big machine. The questions are, is it conscious, does it have a personality, and can we talk to it!
No Reason To Doubt: This traditional image, or picture of God, is no reason to doubt the possibility of God's existence, as long as it's interpretated in the right perspective. If we think about it, the picture actually makes considerable sense, especially when considering it was intended to convey meaning to people with a very primitive and ancient, childlike understanding. After all, you can't start banging on about quantum physics, electro-magnetic radiation, conscious energy and other universal phenomena, until mankind is ready to understand the science. That means we need to have an understanding of engineering, electronics, chemistry, radio, computer principles, life principles, bio-engineering and the atomic world, yes, well maybe we about ready for the real truth now! We'll see!
* Parallel Principles are principles that remain the same when applied to both micro and macro. That is, the same principle can be observed in action even though the magnitude of the concept or event may vary substantially.