I can't speak for Anders, but I see no presumption in his post that
gods don't exist yet. I see only a presumption that gods can be
created, and a hint that all gods that do exist have been created.
The miniscule slice of history I'm familiar with shows a lot of
human beings creating gods (this is my interpretation) and many
more human beings serving those gods that other human beings created,
but I don't know of any gods of non-human origin. If you can point
me to any, it might be interesting to study them.
>The problem is, there is a non-laughing god who claims that he
>already exists, and that he is the King of the Hill; and who backs up
>these claims by inspiring his followers to exert a real force in the world.
>He calls himself YHWH, or "the Lord."
Yes, Lyle, we know. There is also a laughing god who claims that
it already exists, and that it is the King of the Hill; and who
backs up these claims by inspiring its followers to exert a real
force in the world. It calls itself Rock and Roll. At this stage
of the game, I think I'd lay my bets that Rock and Roll is going
to kick YHWH's butt.
I wouldn't even be surprised if a mere subset of Rock and Roll,
Hip-Hop for instance, could kick YHWH's butt. There are many many
other examples of vacuous abstractions that people make idols of,
listen to messages from, and use for guidance. Most of them (sex,
money, power) are very old, like YHWH. Rock and Roll is a bit more
interesting to me because an argument can be made that it did not
exist before the mid-1950s (although of course counterarguments
can be made to this).
The prophecy "Rock and Roll will never die" might turn out true.
I can't say I have the same estimate of YHWH's longevity.
>The question is whether it is possible to "create" a new god,
>a more Jovial god, who can laugh at anything and get away with it --
>and who can even stand being joked about.
>
>The operational meaning of this is: Can such a god
>inspire his followers to exert a real force in the world?
To both of the above: it's been done. Dionysus comes to mind,
although some claim that Dionysus no longer lives. But as you
yourself said once: may the best philosophy win. Let's subject
our idols to the same winnowing. I'm sure we'll have several
different good ones left after we jettison the old blowhards like
YHWH.
-- Eric Watt Forste ++ arkuat@pobox.com ++ http://www.pobox.com/~arkuat/