Man made God

          Contrary to the popular adage – and belief – that God made man in his image, in reality, it was more the other way round! But then there is a theological / spiritual / philosophical debate that I do not want to instigate here with such a seemingly-biased statement. Let me clarify – the scope of this article is to only discuss about the “Man-made God”.

          “What is God?” has been the primordial question for mankind. A more fundamental question should be “Who told man about a God?”
So, starting with this basic question we see that “God Himself revealed His existence to man” is what most of the scriptures and mythologies say to get the basics out of the way. In fact, when we just browse through the mythologies and legends of most civilizations, cultures and religions that exist (or existed) on the earth, we see stories of Gods. There is no end to the legends of these Gods!

          Now let us see what are the characteristics generally attributed to God (apart from super human strengths and abilities) –

• All forgiving, merciful and patient
• Unlimitedly compassionate and kind
• Benevolent / helpful to people who pray to the God
• Mighty and powerful, yet uses it only for good deeds

So on and so forth; all imaginable good characteristics are attributed to God. Now let us try to analyse these characteristics / traits of God. Are these really the traits or characteristics NOT present in a human? Of course, they all are! But what really differentiates a man and a God is the degree to which each possesses or displays these traits! In God, these characteristics are amplified many times over; limit tends to infinity. Then why is a human being not called a God? Just think. Has it not happened before? Think again. What about the sages of the Vedic culture, monks of Jainism and Buddhism, Jesus, Sai Baba, etc.? They all are considered as Gods and for the simple reason that they too displayed the same traits discussed afore with a magnitude far greater than which is normally attributed to or attained by the ordinary human. So, is this a case to declare that GOD was man-made? Not quite!

          Again, when we refer the mythologies and legends of Gods of various cultures and civilizations we see a markedly common factor among them all. In all cultures we come across at least one story or a legend which depicts a failing God i.e. a God who does not really fit the picture of only good type of God. In many stories, we also note that the main Gods of the pantheon themselves have some misgivings and failings at one point or the other. Common sins of the mankind like jealousy, lust, anger, revenge, etc. are seen in the Gods too! Consider the Seth of Egyptians, the Indra of the Hindus, the Bel of the Chaldeans – most Gods have legends depicting some misgivings. Now why does God fail? Naturally, because man (or mankind) made the image of God and attributed all good and bad in his own nature to the super-entity he had created by imagination. Generations of humans contested upon the characteristics of God and each in his own image added a legend / story / trait to a God – better still some have added their own Gods to the pantheon and declared them supreme over the others! Thus, Gods have good and bad traits a la humans.

          Coming back to the age-old question, what is God? One possible answer would be – God is that super-entity that man imagined to control others indirectly and also to control vast resources. Man made the God as is portrayed today across cultures in its various facets to pass on his own guilt after a sin to the action of God; or maybe to look-up to a superior unseen force in times of his calamity and feel confident that “He” is there to protect man; or maybe to show that man can become like God by achieving his characteristics – which are after all only the accumulation and amplification of man’s own traits! But what do we see today? Man forgets that he has made this “God” and fights over it. He kills animals and fellow humans mercilessly over petty concerns regarding whose God is greater or better or the ONLY One!! Fie on them!