Our New Hubble God

Well...? Where is he???

If we could take our current level of science back to when I was a child (10 years old-ish, circa early 60's) and I was able to see the first complete set of pictures sent back from the Hubble telescope, that's what I would have said...

Well, where is He??

Where's the Big Chair??? The Big Staff?? The face the size of the sun watching my every move??? Where are the Gates?...and my friends??... And where is my image and likeness??? Back then, there were no ands, ifs, or buts about it... when I was a child, God was a man, sitting in a chair, looking down from the sky. Literally.

This, to me, is one of our greatest cultural opportunities from the last century (although the 60's triumvirate ... equal rights for woman, the 'end' of discrimination against blacks, and no more 'boys will be boys' are contenders). We can now allow ourselves to know that God clearly does not look human, or breathe oxygen. Actually, I suppose God could breath oxygen, just not near by. Not even close. The next closest oxygen breathing atmosphere is at least 500 million miles away. Maybe He is human looking, just really, really large. So large we can't make out His characteristics. Sorry, that just doesn't get it...we may be in His image and likeness, but He's definitely not in ours. (My friend says we just got that saying wrong. Should be 'He imagined us and liked us')

I often wonder if the missing quality in our understanding of God is humility. If God is not humble, then we don't have to be. It's really just a convenient oversight which allows our religious leaders to take the meaning of God into their own hands and express it through their own interpretation. Lacking humility, they can speak for God, thus becoming God-like themselves. The farthest thing from humble.

It's not the lack of understanding that bothers me, it's the knowing and the telling. So many of our religious leaders know they're right without question, and they know that's wrong. They should not be telling others how to be, who to be, which way to be...they should be leading them to knowing and finding God within themselves. That God is everyone, and everything. Not just humans, but animals, plants, minerals, cells, elements. To treat all of God's creatures with respect, and humility.

I believe we all know and be God