The Image of God

If God made man in his own image, what does that say about God?" -- Tyler Durden in "Fight Club", written by Chuck Palanhiuk

How many Jihads, how many Crusades and Holy Wars must we suffer?

Perhaps God is a cruel comedian; or a disinterested parent. He only appears when we want or need him, and even then seldom.

Is it not more plausible that God was created in humankind's (our forefather's, and adapted to our modern selves) own image? Such a comforting and just father (who turned out to be fickle and alcoholic and brutal and terribly kind every so often just to lead you on).

"Human beings are the only creatures on Earth that claim a God, and the only living things that behave like they haven't got one." -- "The Rum Diaries"

My personal, unasked-for, lightly educated and not fully tempered belief is that God (including all those gods and goddesses, that poor villain Lucifer, all the archangels and the Super Best Friends), the universe and the universal human consciousness are all one--or at least all separate but intertwining parts to some great unknown and humanly unfathomable rhythm (scheme?) upon which we can only wonder at.

God is there because some of us need one: he is brutal because men and women are brutal, as kind as we are, as just, as cruel, as absent, as forgiving, as unforgiving and so forth. He exists to soothe men and women, as a way for them to touch the greater human consciousness. For we, as humans, must have explanations that are somewhat understandable to our proud and nervous brains.

I don't believe in an afterlife because we were only born in flesh from the molecules of the universe. To this universe we will always remain, in many forms of consciousness. Perhaps those who truly believe in heaven will go there when they die, as at peace with the universe as those who do not, and simply return to it.

As long as people live their lives fully and happily and in love, what does it matter what God monitors them, what motivation drives them to goodness?