We Anthropomorphized Nature As God

By Sumit Paul, New Age Islam 20 January 2024 I am of the view that God gave humans Reason, not Religion, and that Reason is a gift of God while Religion is a human construct. By Myerli You're right but allow me to go a step further and state that both god and religion are human constructs. Nature has endowed us with reasoning. Alfred Wallace, the man who independently reached the same conclusions Charles Darwin also reached in his Theory of Evolution, opined that reason and logical thinking were acquired by humans after lakhs of years of (human) evolution. Please refer to Dr Ajay Kansal's, 'The Evolution of Gods: The Scientific Origin of Divinity and Religion' and Pascal Boyer's 'Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought.' Both argued that mankind created god and religion and not the other way around. We must remember that evolution is a constant process and not just humans but all creatures are slowly and imperceptibly evolving. We needed (we still need) some kind of support from nature for our survival. Since the human brain is programmed to anthropomorphize things and give a concrete shape to all that we (want to) believe in, we anthropomorphized nature as god. All our fake philosophical thoughts and discourses that god has no form are absolute self-deception and theological Double Dutch. Human brain (not mind; it doesn't exist) cannot think or envisage in formless context/s. So, we created and conceptualized gods as per the level of our evolution. With the passage of time, we superimposed our own instincts and emotions on the gods our primitive ancestors fabricated long ago. Anthropologically, god is a manifestation of humans' evolutionary development. Religion came rather late in the history of human civilization. When humans realized that this concocted god could be better used through an agency or conduit, religions came into existence. A simple analogy will make you understand. We often form trusts, NGOs and other such organizations to facilitate our missions and objectives. Religions were created by humans to 'serve' the gods as John Updike wittily said, "A suspended god without a religion is forever in a limbo." So, god and religion are not just human constructs but also the oldest human undertakings with a semblance of vested interests. The semblance has now become a worldwide business. See, the level of idiocy going on in India. Idols of Ram and Sita are being consecrated. They call it Praan-Pratishtha: Infusing life into the idols. You're giving life to your deities! What an irony! This is a metaphor for our concoction of gods. We created them and also enlivened them. To quote an Urdu poet, "Mere Haathon Ke Tarashe Hue Patthar Ke Sanam/ Aaj Bhagwan Bane Baithe Hain Butkhanon Mein" (The stone idols I carved out with my own hands/ Are installed at temples as gods). It's religion that has divided the whole world and it's god that has deluded mankind. What our prehistoric ancestors created, degenerated into Frankensteins as time glided by. But deluded brains will not understand this. To them, their Allah, god, Jesus, Moses, Trinity (the biggest theological hoax), Ram etc. will remain their guiding spirits till the end. ---- A regular columnist for New Age Islam, Sumit Paul is a researcher in comparative religions, with special reference to Islam. He has contributed articles to the world's premier publications in several languages including Persian. URL: https://newageislam.com/spiritual-meditations/anthropomorphized-nature-god/d/131551 New Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic Website, African Muslim News, Arab World News, South Asia News, Indian Muslim News, World Muslim News, Women in Islam, Islamic Feminism, Arab Women, Women In Arab, Islamophobia in America, Muslim Women in West, Islam Women and Feminism