Thinking about God

No, I don't think about God all the time, really I don't. But how do you avoid him? The expert on world mythology, Rudolf Otto, in his book The Idea of the Holy argued that every culture on each, despite its belief in many gods (or no god at all) has a foundational sense that beyond everything it knows there is a presence, vast and powerful that is the true authority in the universe.

It depends, of course, on how you conceive of God. What we call "God" could be the sum total of all that exists, deity imbodying every atom from tree to dog to us. Or God could be a personal being who thinks and feels and communicates. Or God could be a totally unatainable concept - an ideal so majestic and so aloof that we can search for him (it) but never really have a hope of success.

When I think about God, I suppose I could create an image of him in my own mind, but that's not very satisfying, because I'd do the same if I were imagining a fictional character. That's why, for me, thinking about God is based so centrally in the book I believe to be his communication to us - the Bible. I'm not interested in visualizing my own God into existence, because why good could he do me? But if he's actually spoken to us, there is a degree of certainty that's sure worth investigating.

Of course, even then we have a lot of questions. If he made us, why are we so messed up? Why doesn't he show himself? Why does he let bad things happen to people like us, who are mainly undeserving of bad things? and so on. I'd like to explore some of these, even explore God. That's a pretty daunting task, but I'd like to give it a try.