Thought Leaders Series:2018
By way of context, anthropomorphism is the attribution of human traits, emotions, or intentions to non-human entities. A behaviour which psychologists describe as innate to humans.
For example, in religion and mythology, anthropomorphism is the perception of a divine being or beings in human form, or the recognition of human qualities in these beings.
In Christianity, we are told that we are replicas of God (Gen. 1:27). Thus we find descriptive use of human features for God in Judaism and Christianity. These include references like: “The finger of the lord’ (Gen. 8:19), ‘The eyes of the lord, (2 Chronicles 16:19), ‘The hand of the lord’ (1 Peter 5:6-7) etc.
Jewish scholars tried to do away with this idea once they realised its shortcoming and implications. So they wrote commentaries to shift this perspective, but once the oral tradition had been translated to written text, it was near impossible to convince followers otherwise.
The idea was already branded into their psyche and no amount of enlightened thought could change it. Even today, scholarship is often dismissed as secondary information, as audiences fail to not understand that Bible is not a primary source either. But rather, a collection of commentaries by enlightened thinkers in their era. In fact there is no primary source.
That aside, thinking of the Divine in anthropomorphic terms also means the attribution of human emotions and actions. This is common in most cultures, perhaps more apparent in Greek mythology.
In Christianity for instance: love, anger, vengeance, hatred, justice, jealousy etc., are often used to describe God’s emotion. In Exodus 15:3, Isaiah 42:13, we see examples of human actions. In these two examples, God’s involvement in the killing and destruction of non-compliant nations or people through active warfare.
Thus in Christianity we have an angry God, who holds grudges. One who requires human sacrifice as Atonement for the sin of Adam and Eve – humanity.
But even if we agree that this was Truth, there are plethora of positions with this doctrine. Theologians like Julian of Norwich (1342-1430) believes that Jesus’ sacrifice was once, and for all of humanity (regardless of belief or unbelief). In other circles, in-spite of Jesus’ sacrifice, there are other complicated doctrinal subsets, like the Rapture and Judgement Day, which some believers are likely to fall short of, leading to everlasting condemnation in hell fire🔥with non-believers.
In fact, there is a whole industry built on this premise, with some Christians even having a preview of who might, or has ended up in hell already.
At any rate, except the definition of love as we know and understand it is wrong. Because If it is right, then the Christian God could not be described as loving.
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