Why do Christians anthropomorphize God (praising God like it's a person)?

Question

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

You can’t really use the term “anthropomorphize” in reference to God because the definition is attributing human attributes to nonhuman physical items (animals, plants, objects, etc). Jesus came to earth as God in human form, so He (not “it”!) was indeed a human, worthy of praise as God and in conjunction with His Father God. (John 8:38 (NAB): “Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham came to be, I AM.”)

Hank Samm · Answer

They were taught to do it, it is the easiest way to support the con. “You were created in God’s image” “You have a personal relationship with God”. If I want to sell you snake oil I have to show you what a miracle it is so I have someone you can relate to as a human being limp onto the stage, take a swig, and start dancing. People can relate to other people, few can relate to interacting with a concept.

As a religious leader I want you to blindly follow me and give me your money. I tell you that you can be BFFs with the most fantastic “person” that there ever was if you do what I say. So I give you an image of god that is easy to understand so my sales pitch is easier.

When I want to sell you some shitty land I show a picture of a beautiful lake with pretty people playing on the beautiful golf course. I do not show you a real picture of the swamp.

This is an indictment of organized religion, it does not really have anything to do with god and whether or not god exists. Reality has little to do with the con.

Olaf Simons · Answer

Allow me to make things a bit more complicated – You said Judaism and Islam are far less anthropomorphic that Christianity, and I am not quite sure whether this is the interesting perspective on any of the three.
 
Others have already hinted at the Old Testament and its first book, Genesis: God created man in his image – sounds extremely anthropomorphic, Judaism is anthropomorphic too, so the message. Is it? The passage is at least ambivalent. It is not about man creating God in his humane image but about God creating man in his divine image. Still a confession that God has two legs and two arms, and that he looks like us… if we assume – next complication – that this passage deserves a literal reading. We have to if we are evangelical literalists but that might not be the thing to be with a look at Judaism.

The Jewish God is in any case everything but stable. Much like the Northern Germanic Odin he can take a human form and talk to people who will not become aware of the fact that they are talking to God. There are other moments when he prefers to be visible as a fire in a bush and it should be clear in any case that one should not look at him (a form of superiority he shared with other ancient Gods). He establishes a law that forbids any visual depictions – a massive abstraction surpassed only by the decision not to give him a name.

Is the Jewish God monotheistic? This is not quite clear. The Old Testament is a collection of books that eventually became the Thora. Older layers imply that this God was just one God among others. He was the creator… but that again is nothing special. (Polytheistic religions tend to have creators of the world – they are often dead, surpassed by more powerful Gods that defeated them). The God of the Jews is the creator of the world and he declares that he will defend his people if they give him a singular position. He is at one point ready to engage in a competition with rivals – and we do not read that these rivals did not exist, he simply is more powerful.

Younger layers of the Old Testament radicalise the concept: There is but one God and the others have never existed and do not exist – they are inventions of foreign nations who do not have a clue.

The situation did not remain that stable. Read Hiob – a book in which this God shares his realm with antagonists (though of his making) who can bet against him. This is apparently part of a wider Zoroastrian Dualism. And then there is Ecclesiastes – a book of scepticism and cynicism with passages of immense uncertainty. It is no longer clear whether this God is doing anything – let alone reward those who follow him. They all will eventually die and be annihilated.
 
Christianity

Christianity became in many ways a relapse into anthropomorphic views – on a level we will have to define. God comes to Earth as Jesus Christ. He is also part of the trinity and what is worse: we will soon unfold an army of Saints who will all be licensed to do miracles pretty much like previous the Gods of folklore.
 
Some complications. Jesus is constantly asked whether he is God – and he is careful not to say his “yes” too bluntly. We are all divine and he at least is eventually pretty lost in God’s plan. Jesus is able to form doubts.

Christian theologians will say that this is a remarkable sign of how humane God dared to become.
 
The New Testament is in any case everything but cohesive. Jesus is sometimes God and in other situations ready to leave that question open. Later theologians settle the question on his behalf. The New Testament itself is otherwise ready to form extreme abstractions. God is love, God is, so St. John “The word” as it was in the beginning – the Greek text speaks of “logos” and that is a word that will open doors into at least three directions: into the direction of genesis where we hear God creating things with his word, but also in the direction of Neo Platonism and the new Gnostic tradition that propagate again the idea of a dualism: God is logos, reason, the faculty to think and light, the old Zoroastrian fire with its antagonism towards darkness and matter. Christianity spread in Greece, modern Turkey, and it was so we learn with a look at St. Pauls, able to face the challenges of Greek philosophers in Athens.
 
Yet we also have all those saints, all those relics that do miracles if you touch them, all those holy images of the Eastern Church – proofs that this religion was falling back into traditions of anthropomorphism if not into animistic traditions…
 
The result is a construct with creeds for the simple minded (who will inherit God’s kingdom) and specialists, theologians, who will resolve the puzzles with new synthetic views. The Trinity is for Christian Theologians not a relapse into polytheism but a divine puzzle – three and one at the same moment, something mystics will be able to feel and something theologians will be able to think. All this is as complex as Zen Buddhist one-hand-clapping.
 
The institutional power of a religion/Church/organisation is to some extent its power to integrate paradoxes by denying them

This is a complex thought. Jewish and Christian Theologians will defend their creeds as monotheistic without denying the aspects that have to puzzle the outsider. One can read this as a weakness. Their religions are a historical mess. One can read it just as well as a historical achievement. A religion wins with the paradoxes of belief it is able to create and to deny. It uses these paradoxes to integrate factions, rivalling religious concepts – and it offers their representatives a solution to live with: What you perceive is real, it does not contradict us, an advanced mind will be able to resolve these paradoxes – the advanced mind of a theologian, or the advanced mind of a believer who overcomes these paradoxes in a higher synthesis of a complex awareness. None of these paradoxes is a paradox in God, so the religious certainty.
 
The theological power to integrate will be matched by an institutional stratification. The Christian university is an achievement of Catholicism under the promise that we will eventually have one knowledge throughout Christianity – one scientific knowledge in accordance with theology, the supreme science which is able to resolve all seeming paradoxes.
 
A Postscript on Islam and the Western Ideal of a non-anthropomorphic religion

Jews and Christians defended their religion as the step into a divine, non-anthropomorphic view. Islam adopted this view – now with a look at its two elder brethren (or its two new rivals). The Christian reform movements used your call for a pure non-anthropomorphic religion as a lever to use against rivalling factions, sects, heretics – and in the case of the Reformation against Catholicism.
 
The Protestant theological debate that followed the Reformation developed an immense interest in a next step view of pure deism. They rediscovered Jewish monotheism as an interesting earlier level and they discovered in Islam as, perhaps, the religion that had felt the Protestant impulse far earlier. Islam had developed a form of philosophical deism in the 12th century, so the discovery of 17th century Christian Theologians, who read Hay Ebn Yokdhan, the 12th-century Islamic-philosophical novel that was now available on the European market.
 
Is Islam an abstract religion, as abstract as the decorations in mosques? Perhaps and perhaps not. The prophet is almost divine – object of many rules that put him on one level with god. A level of intermediate agents is part of Islam: It has adopted angels as emissaries. Shayāṭīn - evil demons and Iblis' as the corresponding agent of the Christian and Jewish fallen angel who gave the model to the Christian devil – a heritage of the old dualist and gnostic traditions.
 
What am I trying to say? That we should not underestimate these religions: They can be anthropomorphic and abstract simultaneously and they can defend this amalgam as a paradox to be resolved on higher levels of argumentation and spiritual immersion. The question itself is part of a tradition that stretches back into the first era of these creeds. They used their alleged “purity” and “rationality” as an argument to sell on the markets of rivalling traditions. None of these religions is simple, none of them is the napkin religion and that is not their disadvantage but their productive problem. They developed increasingly complex institutional structures to defend their unity and intellectual cohesion in the mess they declare to be strictly speaking inexistent, a misconception.
 
Some Atheist readers in the Dawkins tradition will not like this posting: it is too complex and I seem ready to praise these religions for their power to assimilate heterogeneous views and for their tendency to form complex institutions. Subscribe to atheist websites and you will get all these memes telling you that all religions are basically the same stupidity. As a historian I am tempted to say that Dawkins’s atheism is basically protestant, the deist’s protest against literalists. My personal view is more in the tradition of Auguste Comte. Whatever we do, we are on a path these religions have paved. We use their institutions (at least me as a university academic) and we follow their guidelines when we discuss such questions as the one you have raised.

Kimmo Aatos · Answer

I need to provide more background for my question. But, before I proceed, would you please let me know how to provide more information in the optional question description part. There is a character count limit, and there is no way that I can adequately explain myself within that limitation in such complex questions. Anyway, getting back to my question:

In Judaism and Islam, one may argue that the God may best be described by such attributes/adjectives as infinity and zero at the same time. The God is so unfamiliar and so unknown that there is no way that humans can comprehend. Hudson Smith gave the analogy of a dog trying to solve integral equations. The God is outside of space and time. So powerful, so knowledgeable that he is both to be feared and loved at the same time in infinite degrees. He created billions of galaxies, each of which contains billions of stars, and each star has countless number of quarks, and this God knows all about them, their configurations, their groupings and higher level functions, their everything....In short, in both religions, as far as I know, he is so different, so awesome that one would not normally talk about him in personal, human-like terms. Don't get me wrong, in both religions, the God has a relation with the mankind. But it is different in Christianity. Christianity seems to  conceptualize God so anthropomorphic that it is  almost like having a friend. This unfortunately (but I think naturally) brings to my mind that this religion may be the product of humans. Is this the effect of the gentile world on the Jewish origins of Christianity through the Greek mythology? How else could this creator God infinite in everything be human-like in attributes/relations etc.

Jim Caron · Answer

Theism is a flavor of religious belief that inherently considers the organizing power of the universe as akin to a person. Whether monotheism (Islam, Judaism) or polytheism (Christian, Hindu, Greek/Roman/Norse mythology), the conception centers on human-like gods. Their emotions are the reason why things happen: God gets angry so there is a flood, or a hurricane, or a plague of locusts.

Other faiths are non-Theistic, and don’t conceive of [God] as a person: Buddhists see Karma as the moral principle of the universe, and never discuss Karma as a dude. Taoism and Confucianism are both about balance; there is not an invisible dude keeping things in or knocking things out of balance.

Most atheists I know actually believe in what is sometimes called Pantheism: That all of creation is “God” — but not that there is a separate man-like being above and beyond that sits in judgment. “Good and bad” doesn’t relate to the rules written somewhere on stone tablets by God, but on how actions affect humans in the real world. Killing people is bad not because you’ll go the Hell, but because it hurts people and causes strife and sometimes wars.

The short answer to your question is: Theism is the religion of cave men, and the reason why they conceived of God as a person is because they are primitive, and couldn’t imagine anything except a human intellect controlling things. In other words, it’s naive.

Takeshi Chin · Answer

For the same reason humans think aliens have an anthropomorphic form.

As humans, we like to project human qualities to other existent or non-existent beings.

It makes sense if you think about it: finding similarities in people, animals, gods, or objects makes us feel less lonely in this universe.

Andrew Piereder · Answer

This will be a necessarily concise answer to a very big topic that covers thousands of years of history, but it should provide some interesting direction for your inquiry.

The very oldest conceptions of god(s) are distinctly anthropomorphic and date from pre-history, but even our most abstract concepts are at least 2,500 years old, dating from ancient Greece where mythology gave way to naturalistic views of the world around us.  In all cases though, God was that which lay beyond our understanding.  The Akupāra is an old Hindu myth about the world being supported on the back of an elephant standing on the shell of a giant tortoise.  This is course elicits the question of what the tortoise is standing on, which results in one of two answers; 'another tortoise' (presenting the paradox of infinite recursion) or a shoulder shrug admitted that the answer is unknown.  John Locke used this myth to support his theory of substance, a quality of the material world that is beyond our comprehension, laying just beyond our sensory capacity.  This is also the pattern of our conception of God--that force and state of existence that lays just beyond our understanding.  As human knowledge increased, God became more remote and more abstract among the rising religion traditions.

Judaism, as a very old religion, has seen a great deal of that evolution within its own long history.  An Israelite of Moses' time would not have viewed God in the same terms that Maimonides did.  Similarly, one can trace many variations in the conception of God in the writings of the church fathers, often still evident today in the many sectarian versions of Christianity.  There is an entire branch of theology called Christology, devoted to nothing but the study of the nature (or natures) of Jesus Christ.

Plato and Aristotle had enormous influence in all the surviving Abrahamic religions, namely in defining the original concepts of a prime mover, concepts of perfection, etc..  In particular, the idea of a Prime Mover held that to avoid an infinite regression of effects and causes, there must have been an original cause.  This prime mover could act upon the universe, but could not be acted upon.  It represented the source of all perfections, was entirely an entity of intellect, contemplating only itself.

Sound familiar?

If it does, thank the Greeks.

Coming back to the issue of Christology, Jesus, as a son of God, presented Christians with a significant theological problem--how does a unmoved mover have a son?  How does a human being encompass both a human and divine nature?  Some resolved the problem in a predictable way--they simply denied Jesus was a literal son of God (i.e. Arianism).  Muhammad is thought to have borrowed heavily from the Nestorians and other Christians in northern African and the Levant to arrive at his version of Arian theology.

More recently, the Latter-day Saints (Mormons) have rejected the Greek prime mover thesis, asserting that the Father is also a created being and that God is a civilizational concept.

Omar Saleh · Answer

Quran 42:11 the Creator of the heavens and earth.’ He made mates for you from among yourselves––and for the animals too––so that you may multiply. There is nothing like Him: He is the All Hearing, the All Seeing.

Squeeze your head imagining Him and you will never have an idea about how He looks. There is nothing like Him [Not Gender, Not Biology etc] and everything belongs to Him. It's like being a wood door trying to imagine how the carpenter creator looks [to Allah belongs the utmost example of Perfection].

This life is a test. And test will have difficulties [imperfections]. So, that you can have idea of perfection by compraing oppositely with the imprefections. Such as Disease and Death.

Anonymous · Answer

You introduce an excellent question. I have worked through this one at a much earlier time.

“Why would an omnipotent being able to create & destroy all reality in a blink be angered at something it created?”

The way I address such an issue is like by asking questions to get my answer.

Where did I get the idea that:

(a) an Omnipotent Being (God, Divinity, Mind etc.)

(b) able to “create & destroy all of reality in a blink,

(c) do so in any angry reaction towards its Creation?

I realize that I must have gotten this idea from some source or other;

so what is the source for this assumption?

.

What would be obvious to me is that I have no objective data which substantiates any answer at all. I can see that I have no idea who wrote such a thing, who thought such a thing, or who taught such an idea. That is a serious problem for any person who seeks knowledge.

Where is my source data? Who wrote it? Who said it? When was it written or said?

Why did someone write it or say it? Where was it spoken or written?

Who taught this to me? Can I prove, on the basis of fact, that anyone did ever write it, say it, promote the idea?

If I have no answers, I must acknowledge that I need answers, and the answers must be specific.

If a person follows logic and facts as the basis for their thinking, they need to use objective source data. Otherwise, they must consider that their assumptions are confused or erroneous.

(How will you answer this question? How did you acquire this assumption?)

If you will answer, we can proceed in an objective manner.

—————————————————————-

Question #2

“Why do some religious people (especially Abrahamic religions)

think of God with human traits?”

At this point, I realize that I am asking a question to which I have no answer.

It is self evident that I have not studied the teachings and doctrines of

“Abrahamic religions”.

That question I already know has its answer in the Holy Bible as follows:

========================

Genesis 1:26

“Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”——-Genesis 1:26

I am successful therefore, in answering one of my questions.

All I need to do now is discover the source for the previous assumption.

Only when I have done this, can I be certain that I have accurate data which will serve as the basis for answering the other questions.

For example, I might ask reasonably;

“Are all Abrahamic Religions the same in this regard?”

(I can see that they are quite different in their teachings, because I have studied them. So that consideration can be dealt with accordingly.)

Conclusion:

Having recognized that I am very short on objective data, I realize that I need to carefully seek out the source of my assumptions.

(By the way, I had these same thoughts long ago. It was not until many years afterward, that I discovered answers. I was basing my thoughts on a broad spectrum of confused impressions derived sources which were usually not very specific and not very objective.

So can you address your inquiry as I suggest?

If you do, you can say that you are thinking in the way that is similar to how a scholar thinks. The scholar never assumes much,

in the absence of objective source data.

I can also propose that there is a certain concept that a wise person will implement in their thinking about anything they examine.

It is referred to as the external locus.

I had an external locus when I first considered these questions, and I think it is fair to say that you are functioning with an external locus in your asking about this subject.

It is helpful for us, if we are to give an objective examination of the subject, to recognize the operation of two functions.

(A) External Locus

(B) Internal Locus

How do these affect people in their thinking?

Most common is the External Locus.

People ask questions or offer propositions as factual, without an actual basis in a fact. It can be said that it is a vague set of half-thoughts and a pastiche` of notions that completely lack any objective substantiation at all.

If I am going to be objective as a thinker, I need to understand the need to

(a) see my assumptions objectively

and

(b) to question my own assumptions

If I do not, I cannot fairly say that I use “logic” or “facts” for the basis of my thinking.

I would be unscholarly, rather than scholarly.

(People often refer to this as either Having—Scientific—Discipline

or Not—-Having—Scientific—Discipline

So to be a disciplined thinker, I intend to shift from this confused state of generalize impressions from the outside, and I shift to an Internal Locus.

Like a disciplined scientist, I begin gathering all of the objective data which can be found on the subject. I read. I watch videos. I listen to lectures on the subject. I question.

So operating from an Internal Locus, I ask myself;

Where am I getting my information?

Is the source specific? Is the source objective?

I can tell you that as a young  man  from a  very dysfunctional background,  nearly everything I thought  was based upon external impressions which were very confused.  I functioned with an  External Locus.  People who operate this way  are those subject to external manipulation  in their thinking. They often fall prey to Black and White Thinking (Fallacy of the False Dilemma)  …and so forth.

I learned to correct that by  operating  with  an Internal Locus.

I learned to ask;  “Where am I getting my information?”

“What knowledge am I operating with?”

and finally,

“Where do the scholars and the scientists  get their information?”

“How do the scholars and scientists think?”

If they are objective,  they have developed a  strong ability to challenge their own assumptions.

To be objective,  Subjectivities need to be abandoned, and Objective knowledge needs to be identified.

Todd Smith · Answer

You have no choice but to speak of God analogously, hence, anthropomorphically or metaphorically.

Language itself is metaphysical, metaphorical and poetic. The invisible hand of the mind is always reaching out into the universal treasure trove of the world of things in order to find some symbol or image that “pictures” reality via the symbol or metaphor. Metaphors allow us to picture some abstract concept or idea into the concrete allowing us to perceive it that wouldn't be possible apart from the metaphor or symbol.

The rose speaks of love. A strong man is an ox. An intelligent man is a torch. The mind is like a garden. Small children are rug-rats. A fool is a jack-ass. Wisdom is a priceless pearl.

Anything you can conceptualize can be conceptualized metaphorically. The mind is constantly surfing on the sea of analogy because Nature itself is analogous of the Mind of its creator whom we call God. Our minds have no choice but to reflect the world of things analogically as though we were looking into a mirror. Physical Nature has no choice but to reflect the inner spiritual nature of reality itself. All of Nature is like a finger pointing to the moon. That is, Nature itself is like a light that shines in darkness. The physical highlights and illuminates the spiritual and immaterial. The black of night reveals a multitude of stars. God is calling Man to shine like eternal stars which should be just as plain as the nose on your face.

Jared Decandia · Answer

The Bible is the source of the anthropomorpic presentation of God. The very first chapter of the entire book of the Bible is where we see the answer to this question.

Then God said, “Let us make man in Our image, after Our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” - Genesis 1:26

According to the Bible human beings are created in the image and likeness of God Himself. Contrast this with the creation of plants and animals found in the same chapter:

PLANTS:

11 [ http://biblehub.com/genesis/1-11.htm ]And God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plantse [ http://biblehub.com/esv/genesis/1.htm#footnotes ] yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth.” And it was so. 12 [ http://biblehub.com/genesis/1-12.htm ]The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

ANIMALS:

20 [ http://biblehub.com/genesis/1-20.htm ]And God said, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens.” 21 [ http://biblehub.com/genesis/1-21.htm ]So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

24 [ http://biblehub.com/genesis/1-24.htm ]And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds—livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.” And it was so. 25 [ http://biblehub.com/genesis/1-25.htm ]And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

God creates all  living things according to their own kind. Its repeated fairly often in the chapter for enphasis. This is in contrast to human beings. Look at the full context:

27 [ http://biblehub.com/genesis/1-27.htm ] So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

In a sense your question is asking "Why is God portrayed so much like us in the Bible?"

The truth is not that God is like us (we are the original and He is similar to us), rather the truth as revealed on the very first page of the Bible is that we are like God (He is the original and we are similar), because while every other creature was made according to its own kind, man was made according to God's kind.

Hence the term mankind isn't even completely accurate. A more accurate term for us---at least according to the Bible, is Godkind.

interestingly enough, after God creates man He doesn't just say that it was good:

28 [ http://biblehub.com/genesis/1-28.htm ]And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” 29 [ http://biblehub.com/genesis/1-29.htm ]And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. 30 [ http://biblehub.com/genesis/1-30.htm ]And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. 31 [ http://biblehub.com/genesis/1-31.htm ]And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.

This time after His latest and greatest creation, it wasn't just good to Him, it was very good.

Hope that helps.

Anonymous · Answer

Created in His own image shouldn’t be taken literally, if taken at all but it is. We are a part of nature and nature is intrinsic to God is how I think of it. Also, we can't really conceive of God so its the default concept. I think people who believe God takes a personal interest in every little detail of our lives, they have to give God human qualities. There’s nothing wrong with that if it helps you keep a positive outlook because sometimes believing things will work out will make for a positive outcome. Certainly much more than thinking it won't. My feeling is that God helps those who help themselves. Maybe giving God a face helps with focus somehow.

Gustavo Pedroso · Answer

Because religions are ideologies created by men to explain the will and characteristics of gods. Being men, the best they can explain is in terms of men.

Anonymous · Answer

Yes, apparently man made God in his image.

Those that have actually considered your question fully, can come to no other conclusion.

Of course that does not necessarily mean that no God exists, it simply means that he is a lot different than that one. And it probably means that, he probably did not create the world, did not punish anyone, never created a Hell, and will never judge anyone.

Once you get past the petty and capricious God of the bible, you can move onto a loving God and a world of much greater potential, with people that mirror their spiritual parent. It gives one hope, a world where everyone respects each other, forgives each other, helps each other and loves each other, and eventually does not see an “other,” but instead sees the beneficent face of God.

Anonymous · Answer

You are forgetting that it was God himself that spoke of his qualities. It was not humans that decided to anthropomorphism him. His words in Genesis 1 was that HE implanted in humans HIS qualities.

(Genesis 1:26) 26 Then God said: “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness, and let them have in subjection the fish of the sea and the flying creatures of the heavens and the domestic animals and all the earth and every creeping animal that is moving on the earth.”

All other lifeforms on earth operate out of instinct. Humans were given free will, the capacity to make decisions based on moral choices.

I don’t know if you are a parent or not, but all parents recognize that their children can incite emotions that they never knew they could have. Deep love, willingness to sacrifice for their children, for example. Then there is sadness when the child rejects the standards of the parents, anger over the abuse someone does to their child, etc.

Jehovah God looks on all his intelligent creations as his children. The angels are referred to as “sons of God”. Adam, at his creation, was a “son of God”. Being the Almighty does not limit his emotions to simple calculations of power flow.

(Job 38:4-7)  4 Where were you when I founded the earth? Tell me, if you think you understand.  5 Who set its measurements, in case you know, Or who stretched a measuring line across it?  6 Into what were its pedestals sunk, Or who laid its cornerstone,  7 When the morning stars joyfully cried out together, And all the sons of God began shouting in applause?

(Luke 3:38) 38 son of Eʹnosh, son of Seth, son of Adam, son of God.

Billy Mcmillin · Answer

Because we are mortals in this world. We relate in the physical realm ((🌎))

Brendon · Answer

Because The God is people.

The evolution made the god.

I am working as THE GOD!

Definition of the word “god” is: “god is anything that is missing!”

……………………………..

All gods are real, but in the absence!

Soon god is the presence, then is not god anymore!

Have a goodier godding!

PS: You are using the word God as Google’s emoticon!

You have to dig deeper and find more specific labeling!

Michel Verheughe · Answer

It makes sense, doesn’t it?

If a God had told Moses that he made the earth from a non-dimensional singularity 13.7 billion years ago, or a priest/mullah/rabbi tells you that God will intervene in the wave collapse of Quantum particles according to the Copenhagen Interpretation of Heisenberg’s Principle of Uncertainty then … you won’t see that many people in church/mosques/synagog. ;-)

Tom Handy · Answer

One reason is that God often takes human form. From Genesis to Revelation, God often deals with us in the flesh. And the reason is simple. God made us to be like Him. So it’s not that God is like us. It’s just that we have the potential to be more like he is. And in this light, it’s also important to recognize that perfection is likely far different than we imagine. The Bible is very clear that being perfect is in fact being very “human” as God is often shown to be. The fact is that when we sin and when we reject God, we are being less-human. Love, passion, remorse, gratefulness, friendship, and even anger are all part of what we are because we were supposed by like God is. And as the gospel show us, Jesus Christ (God incarnate) is very human.

So is God larger than the universe and beyond all human understanding? Yes he is. But he is also accessible with emotion and love just like an Earthly father. God can be and is all of these things. As Jesus said in John 14:7 -

If you really know me, you will know my Father as well.

Yeriko Federiko · Answer

Human beings have this qualitative sense that they are the most advanced and civilized beings at least in the Milky Way. Therefore, this perception makes world’s religion assume that God must have the likeness of humans and behave like a person in a supernatural way. Well, Genesis 1 describes God creating humankind in their likeness. These reasons are responsible for the anthropomorphic view of God.