Assaults on Statues Explain Why Any God Must Remain Invisible and Imaginary

Rollo statue in downtown Fargo. Famous Viking, born in Norway and eventually given the Normandy area of France. Watch Vikings, English Spelling, My Ancestry, William The Conqueror, Viking Life, History Channel, Family History, Mythology, Norway

Statues of great heroes in our history are now being damaged by protestors. The public is split as to whether this is a serious activity and must be stopped or whether the statues need to be removed and stored away. 

To me, it illustrates why every god that has ever "existed" has had to remain solely in the minds of humans. Any god that was human would be soon recognized to not measure up to the god individual people desire. Everyone has to have his/her own god, one that is very pleased with that particular person. A living person, like those the statues represent, will have views and a history some find different from what they themselves prefer. Thus, a celebrity statue and any human god will not measure up. 

The assaults on statues illustrate why there are atheists and freethinkers. Atheists and freethinkers have come to understand the desire in human beings for a god. They understand some humans need a god uniquely interested in the individual human being himself. To approve of the person and be aware of the unique qualities and talents that person has, the god must be located in the mind of the person him/herself.

Statues of heroic individuals represent both the person who achieved his/her celebrity status but also the failings that can be seen looking backwards in history. Native Americans were made worse off by Christopher Columbus landing here. Why should they want a statue of him? Great Generals ordered the massive killing of their enemies. If descendants of the enemy now don't appreciate the Great General who ordered their ancestors killed it's understandable they may want a statue removed.  Any person who was once considered a god would suffer the same fate. A god whose history was made up to fit individual people will have fans as long as there are humans.

Christians might say their Jesus was a person and has not suffered this fate. But, he was only a person in the Bible, no one has ever written the words he saw and talked to a live Jesus personally. If someone, or several people, had know him and written about him there no doubt would have been various opinions about him. 

Comments

  1. Ardy BJuly 25, 2020 at 3:52 PM

    Jon,
    In the NT Jesus is referred to as the “King of the Jews”. Worshiped in many ways, idolized, and immortalized in many forms. Recall the plastic Jesus on automobile dashboards. Eastbound on I-94 west of Fargo, ND you can see a huge roadside sign declaring “Jesus Lives!” and a phone number to call. Then we have Elvis Presley, the “King of Rock and Roll”, worshiped, idolized, and immortalized in many forms. We can see a large array of Elvis statuary across the South and enjoy his music anytime we wish. 2016 brought us the made for TV movie “Elvis Lives”. Jesus died the death of a disgraced criminal hung from a wooden cross on a skull shaped hill. Elvis had his own cross to bear and died on a bathroom floor full of high dosages of, among other things, the opiates Dilaudid, Percodan, and Demerol, as well as Quaaludes and codeine. The linked article sums up with, “Still, even deeply flawed people can have lessons to teach us.” Lessons and gods.

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