god again...

recently, i have been talking to some friends about god. and this topic came out cos recently thomas felt rather agitated cos he has a friend who recently converted to christianity becos he felt that guan yin (the goddess of mercy) has not given him anything tangible. and so, hopefully by now changing is faith, christ can now grant him tangible things... and thomas was very very irked by this attitude. and as we talked, i thought - wa... this guy is a very practical person! and his attitude towards god is very chinese lor... he believes that god is out there. that it is an entity that conducts transactions with human beings like the way a businessman does his business, ie, i give something, i must get something back. so, i shared my views about the whole concept of god. and i started by being controversial. i started by first stating the anti-thesis - what if there is no such thing as god (as most people believed it to be). that it is a divine being somewhere out there that helps people by making things happen. by creating miracles. that god is shiny (think zeus hahaha). that god is big, it has a size. that god speaks with a thunderous voice. la la la... nope. i think all these are what people created god to be based on what people wanted to hear and to believe. in short, god is a human construct, modelled after himself. my views is this - the human species is an insecure one. being the only species in the animal kingdom that can think, have a conscience and make sense of their surroundings, they have, since time memorial, tried to make sense of this gift of theirs. and it was from this that god started to exist. it was a concept created to explain things they cannot explain. a concept used to represent things unknown (fire, water, lightning...). and later, as men began to get smarter and philosophical, the concept of god evolved. it was used to represent things they feel, things that move them, their values, virtues they deemed important, and which they consider virtuous (good, kind, respect...). concommitantly, the concept of the anti-god, the devil, satan, mara etc came to represent things opposite (lust, crave, anger, greed...). and as man continue to grow, their numbers grew. things got chaotic. and man needed a tool to help him maintain order. again, man, being manipulative creatures, began to make use of `god' to manipulate their own kind. god became a convenient entity to be feared. god can get angry if you do not obey him. god punishes. god kills. and to gain legitimacy over his own kind, man declared himself as extensions of god. they call themselves kings, emperors, son of god, etc... they demand absolute obeisance. they are to be feared. they are to be loved. they are not to be questioned. the concept of god had evolved to suit men's needs. for knowledge. for answers. for order... and it will continue to evolve i am sure. but back to the fundamentals. god was, and still is, a human construct. god is modelled after the human being. and to protect this concept, some men chose to make themselves believe that god had in fact modelled men after him. every single god we know has some sort of human form. name it and you have it. it is common through all civilisation, societies... etc. but despite all these superficial physical representations, i ask - what the concept of god is something more abstract? that god is the crux of what defines the human being itself? off hand, i cannot find the correct term to describe it. but it points towards something deep inside the human being. it represents his pure innermost soul. i thought deeper, and i begin to get more convinced about it. let's look at some commonly said phrases about god and try to make sense of it. and i shall not mention specific faith when i discuss the definition here... god is all around us. god is omnipotent, they exist everywhere. god exist in the nature, in the people, in the good deeds... god is the air you breath, god is the baby's smile you see, god is the mist of the water as it falls from the mountain, god is the rainbow that peeks at you after the rain, god is the hand that guides you when you are down, god help those who helps themselves... doesn't all these point to one thing - that god is somewhere in oneself? other than what i said above, i really cannot pinpoint a specific word that defines god. the closest i could get to is a person's attitude to life. or perhaps, the very core of the human consciousness. his conscience perhaps? whatever it is, it is something that influences and shapes his perception of how he see's things, how he response to things, how he lives his life. and the opposite is true too. let's revisit some common sayings (and prophecies). god would one day destroy the world, god punishes those who commit theft, god punishes those who harms others, la la la. our technology, nuclear energy, money, la la la... all these are neutral manmade entities to facilitate daily lives. but use it wrongly and without a second thought about the morals/ conscience... will one day become the agents of destructions that destroy the very world and human race itself? in short, human destroys the world. not god. or rather... god. for god is... ultimately human themselves. hmmm... what do you think?