Chicken or egg conundrum - extended
I was talking to my cousin the other day about how our god, Ganesha, has not grown since we have come to know him. He is still the little boy who shows up every year to eat kadabu and escort his mum back to Kilasa. That's true with all the other gods too - Shiva, Vishnu, Brahma, Shanmugha - they seem to have been stuck in the same age not growing older. To this my cousin replied, "this is similar to The Simpsons - Bart Simpson being stuck in 3rd grade every year for the last 24 years, Maggie Simpson remaining a toddler for the last 24 years, the southpark kids not growing up in the last 16 years etc". These stories are all human creations being stuck conveniently in a certain state, however, everything around them being contemporary. This led to an interesting parallel to the conundrum mentioned in the title - did god create man, or, man create god? Go figure!
posted by Bhargav @ 1:07 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Well, my take on it is, Man created a notion of God. He made sure God looked similar to how he/she does, but each one had an extra feature or prop that we could not have. You always fear what you cannot be/have, thus the fear in God or as some people say "Daiva Bhakthi".
He did also make up brilliant stories that he could tell his children, so they learn human values through heavenly stories. For example: When Shiva asked his sons to go around the world thrice, Ganesha chose to go around his parents thrice, hence bringing in the angle that "parents are your world, make sure to respect and take care of them". I do not disagree with that value, but I was always drawn by the fact that Ganesha was plain lazy!
Coming to the fact that they never grow old, that is how man wants to see God and inturn himself.
Have you ever seen an 'ugly' god?
Very well composed comment. To answer your question, I have seen an ugly interpretation of the GOD - the artist gone wrong in his work. If you can have ugly plush toys for kids, why not have ugly looking gods?
Here are some reasons why Gods are stuck at a certain age. It is because man understood more about nature around him in the recent past and could reason out things and did not want a GOD entity and hence the Gods did not grow? Or, the many creative brains cannot cook up more stories about God in this age of reason and understandings. Whatever the reason is...I just wanted to share this observation to others out there.
Essentially, man created God to forward his means. That is the reason why we fight amongst ourselves over Gods and faith.
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