Reply #74: Don't particularly agree with your interpretation there ... [View All]

[Nihil]

> Something like that just defines god out of existence.
> A god which is not anthropomophic, which is not accessible
> by worship or prayer, might as well not exist at all, ...

Not necessarily. It can often be the "Don't know" option when the
other choices don't appear to make sense. It can also fulfil the
desire to be thankful for "good fortune" (or lack of "bad fortune")
or (on the flip-side of this) the desire to blame "someone" or
"something" for a negative event, experience or feeling.


> ... and there are certainly no religions which define god in that way.

I'd agree that no major religions do that but I think that Atenism
(Ancient Egyptian "heretical" monotheism) came pretty close in that
the Aten was usually represented as a solar disk or orb that was
explicitly only one aspect of a god that could not be defined or
described by the traditional human/animal hybrids of the standard
Egyptian pantheon.

>> Aten was the life-giving force of light.
>> The god is also considered to be both masculine and feminine
>> simultaneously. All creation was thought to emanate from the god
>> and to exist within the god. In particular, the god was not depicted
>> in anthropomorphic (human) form, but as rays of light extending
>> from the sun's disk.

(Note also that the representation of the "disk" in most carvings
was in fact three dimensional - as a sphere or orb rather than a
simple flat disk.)