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God is a Girl by Runewuff
If you ask someone to draw a picture of God, they'd probably draw an old bearded man. It's the traditional image of God.
When I was a boy, I found this image comforting. A father figure, protecting me, watching over me.
Later as a teenager, when I lost faith, the image of God came to symbolize everything wrong with Christianity. it seemed the Bible was written by the sort of old men who would say "get off my lawn!" They created an image of God that appealed to them, agreed with them, and is the sort of Grumpy Old Man to say "get off my lawn!" too. God became a mirror image of the old guys who wrote the Old Testament, telling us "thou shalt not" this and "thou shalt not" that. A mirror image of the Catholic priests who tell young people not to have sex, especially gay sex... while they do as they will with little boys.
As I came to dislike some things about my Dad, I disliked the same things about God. My parents, especially my Dad would agree with many of the "thou shalt nots", especially the no sex thing... though I wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for them having sex.
On my road to atheism, the idea of a personal God was one of the first things to go. A being that spans the entire Universe, that created the entire Universe, just seemed too vast to care much about me. For a time, I even thought that there was a God, and an afterlife, but that he'd have no interest in saving any one of us. We're too insignificant.
The afterlife slowly died... and then God, his image forever fixed on one I disliked, carrying all the baggage of the religious values I was raised in and rejected, a symbol of everything I wanted out of life but my parents and priests tried desperately to keep me from... and succeeded.
God the Grumpy Old Man is a God I just can't believe in.
When I got into Paganism, one of my first experiences was to meet Goddess.
With what I know now was a not-so-good beginner book on Wicca (are there any that are actually good? lol) I set out to see if it was bullshit or not, if one could establish a connection with the Sun and Moon, like the author described. Using the Moon as a medtation focus, a vision came. More followed.
Out of those visions came many things, which have faded over time (maybe because I haven't meditated and worked up religious ecstacy in a long time.) But one remains. Goddess.
The image (and voice) of Goddess has remained malleable along Triple Goddess lines, though instead of maiden-mother-crone, I get something more like girl-maiden-crone. The girl is the form she appears in most often - a country girl in a sun dress. (Though she's come to appear as a wild child with no clothes and long unkept hair - tentatively at first, like a distant relative visiting your house who after a while asks "hey, can I slip my shoes off?" and settles on your couch more comfortable and informal - but now all the time.)
She had always been there, though I didn't know it. All my life, I'd heard that girl's voice in my head, but it's not good to hear voices in your head, so I never took it seriously. Comforting me when I never knew I needed it. Telling me "Don't be afraid," when I'm worried. Asking "Are you enjoying the body I gave you?" or "Isn't this fun?" at appropriate moments. Basically, she wants me to have fun and enjoy life. (I don't think these are universal messages necessarily, because I do worry too much, and hold myself back a little because of the Catholic guilt sensibilities I was raised with.)
Its changed everything. God the Playful Little Girl I can believe in. Suddenly, for the first time in my life, I believed in a personal God.
Ever since making that connection, the times I've been in church and prayed (usually the holidays, because of family tradition) for the first time in my life, I often get an answer to my prayers, like a voice picking up the other end of a phone call... the voice on the other end of the line is that girl.
So for me, the Wiccan Goddess and the Christian God are one and the same. There is still (mostly) one God, but my image of God is forever changed. Out is the Grumpy Old Man and in is the Playful Little Girl.
...at least now I can say that, no matter what your God says, my Goddess wants me to have sex. :p
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I get the impression that spirits and deities appear in different forms depending on who they're dealing with... they seem to pluck imagery from my subconscious whether it merely suits their purpose, or will make one comfortable and facilitate communication.
...though I think I did see the true form of one thing I nicknamed Big Eyes that used to hang around here. He was rather unnerving and just didn't give a fuck... his advice was usually spot-on though.
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Well, I'm glad this is working for you and making you feel better. Being an atheistic atheist myself, I don't have many encounters with the Goddess, except when I'm writing kobold mythology. Actually, all this talk made me feel tempted to write some more about it. In that case, I'll have fun describing how god is a she, and how the whole universe is the dream she dreams while hearing the songs of the demiurge. And, of course, this god looks like a kobold.
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Well, for me, this stuff only sort of works. I'm skeptical of even my own experiences and tending towards atheism lately, but I decided to write about my religious experiences as I would have when I fully believed.
Mmm... I found writing about made-up religions more fun when I was an atheist - no beliefs to get in the way of the creativity, or modify the story to try and fit what I think is the "real" religion.
One of my favorite ideas is deities that appear as a version of your own kind. An evil one might have more horns (basically the Devil to a human) while a good one might look more angelic.
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Heh, actually I did modify the religion quite a few times. I started with something plainly silly, but then I thought I wanted this to look like something more believable, something that
peoplemy pathetic little creatures took centuries to develop, so that all the easy questions had already been answered, and they now had something could give them a little hope and peace of mind. Probably why I ended up with a religion (mostly) monotheistic and with a deity whose existence is ambiguous at best. Hehe-
The fun part of fantasy worlds is you CAN make the gods real. As in physically appearing and doing stuff if they so choose. I tend towards imagining settings where it's possible but difficult for them and they only do it to make serious shit go down.
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Well, I guess I'm losing all the fun, 'cos I made the goddess Oaroacue specifically so all-encompassing that any direct pickering with mundane affairs would be beyond her. But physical presence is not necessary for her interference: reality itself is just the effect of her hearing and imagining the words of the poem of Verján, the dermiurge.
Verján, the perfect poet, inconstant and whimsical, has a good sense of esthetics, but is amoral, so his stories create suffering on their characters. He's only concerned with creating an interesting plot, not with the welfare of his puppets. Only Oaroacue, as an unmoving center of all there is, has the moral compass to modify the story and bring a happy ending.
I have so much fun thinking about these things that I really wanted to write a very big theological comparison between our goddesses in your newer post, but I guess I have already bothered you too much in these last few months (I can't help it if you post interesting stuff! ; ). Writing an essay in a comment section would be too much over the top, even for me.
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actually, i've enjoyed talking to you, you're not bothering me at all. though yeah, reading a long essay in a tiny comment box would be awkward. Sounds like you have a well thought-out theology there.
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Dark Violet
Very interesting x3 Though, do you think that the girl that you see as the Goddess is how she really is, how she wants to be seen, or merely is how you see her? With stuff like this, is there even a need to take on a human appearance?