I see God as a placeholder for that which we don't understand. As mortal beings with finite lifespans we do not have the capacity to know everything and so we use this placeholder as a way to balance the equation and account for the unaccountable. We can think of the sum of this placeholder, the sum of our knowledge gaps, as having a net negative result, a vengeful God, or a net positive, a benevolent God. I like the think of the placeholder as reflective, giving back out what we put into it. This isn't universally true, but it's a mindset that helps me to navigate an unknowable world and maintain a level certainty and sanity. As far as Christianity, the dogma I was brought up in, I have had Christ explained to me in a very concise and meaningful way as compassion. In the face of the unknowable, we have the option of acting in our own self interests even if that comes to the detriment of others. The old God could, at times, be very cold and compassionless and was probably a necessity for the times. But as society got more complex that coldness became more detrimental. Christ was a mediator between that cold unknown, attempting to show the value of compassion in the face of the unknown and the power that could arise from such compassion.
Thank you for some really great points. I think this is true for many people and the history of humanity. And perhaps why the world is less and less religious as time goes on. We no longer need a "god" to explain what fire is or from whence it comes. I often wonder where god will fit in modern society, if at all.I see God as a placeholder for that which we don't understand
Perhaps. I think about this, and most things, as a pendulum, swinging back and forth. For the time our known science is advancing on our known universe, explaining the pluto is red or showing us the monsters under the seas. But what happens when our science reaches a point where it expands our universe? When we come across some outside life that is so different from what we ever thought possible that our theories race far beyond our capacity for understanding? Suddenly we find ourselves again in a place where we are impossibly small and "not we" is impossibly big. We'll call it something other than God, but we'll still cling to that core concept of a placeholder to help us sleep at night. That's my theory anyway.