Thursday, January 22, 2009

Understanding god

How do you define God? Like this. A God I could understand, at least potentially, was infinitely more interesting and relevant than one that defied comprehension.
-- Robert J. Sawyer, "Calculating God", 2000

I can understand that sentiment, but is it really the function of god to be "interesting" to humans? Also, does one really expect god to fit, even conceptually, into the puny human mind?
Sure, one should try, absolutely. But lord, even just astronomical numbers boggles our tiny minds, and god must be almost infinitely bigger than those.

Sorry for not capitalizing "god". It's a feeble attempt to use it in a more abstract way than the personal, Christian, God.

Don't get me wrong, I don't consider god to be forever beyond our reach. I just don't think we'll stay human, really.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Call me crazy but I think we should have to prove the existence of something before we can begin to understand it.

So many people start with belief and go from there.

Of course, you also have to go from the simple to the complex. So godlike beings might exist, but they didn't come first.