The Ever Retreating Notions of the Western View of God
Western believers used to claim God (or Zeus) lived on Mt. Olympus, pictured below. But then someone climbed up there and he wasn't to be found.
Then they claimed God lived just beyond the sky dome that supported the water, called the firmament, argued for here. But we flew planes and space ships up there and found he wasn't there either. Believers now claim God exists in a spiritual sense everywhere. What best explains this continual retreat? Doesn't it sound more like the attempt to defend what one already believes rather than progressively understanding what God is like?
Now contrast this retreating notion of the Occidental God with the Oriental notion of God. Oriental notions of God did not start by affirming an embodied deity in the first place, as I understand them. Their God was indescribable and inscrutable...the ONE. So they have not experienced a retreating notion of God because their starting point was different.
What best explains the current Western notion of God? I think it's because Western notions began by affirming God was embodied and such a notion continually retreated in the face of the arguments and evidence. It sure sounds like the progression of human thought (not divine revelation) beginning with one falsely stated assumption.
Then they claimed God lived just beyond the sky dome that supported the water, called the firmament, argued for here. But we flew planes and space ships up there and found he wasn't there either. Believers now claim God exists in a spiritual sense everywhere. What best explains this continual retreat? Doesn't it sound more like the attempt to defend what one already believes rather than progressively understanding what God is like?Now contrast this retreating notion of the Occidental God with the Oriental notion of God. Oriental notions of God did not start by affirming an embodied deity in the first place, as I understand them. Their God was indescribable and inscrutable...the ONE. So they have not experienced a retreating notion of God because their starting point was different.
What best explains the current Western notion of God? I think it's because Western notions began by affirming God was embodied and such a notion continually retreated in the face of the arguments and evidence. It sure sounds like the progression of human thought (not divine revelation) beginning with one falsely stated assumption.