This also gives rise to what I tend to see as the central paradox of religion: we start with the unknown, give it a name and (sometimes) a face, and then treat it as if it were a powerful person to be placated and beseeched. But, at least in religions such as Christianity, the essential unknowability is maintained dogmatically (and used as a universal rebuttal for criticism, among other things). So we get a god that is first unknown and unknowable, but second given various attributes and assumed to be responsive to various actions.

Patrick

I’ve often seen it expressed that everyone’s gods are ultimately the same god, with many faces. It’s the same god because ultimately it’s just a culture’s way of understanding the survival equation of the world around them. If you eat rotted pig, you die, god must be trying to tell me something. If you take the land for granted, you die; if you fight amongst yourselves with no resolution, you die; if you leave the clan, you die; if you piss off the rain god, you die; if you let the Other have the fertile land, you die. Different cultures have learned different lessons from these basic interactions with That Which Decides Life And Death (TWDLAD).

Now we know that TWDLAD is essentially a pile of principles acting over time which we call evolution. That doesn’t mean that these faces don’t exist anymore, or that they aren’t useful ways to interact with TWDLAD. TWDLAD is still important, TWDLAD is still something worth respect and thanks.

So what I’m getting at is that the underlying god that all religious worldviews have in common, the only possible key to world peace (besides armageddon), is exactly what is termed here “scientific humanism.” It is not in conflict with religion, it is the common center of all religions.

That concludes this lesson in pantheism, tune in next week! :)