Welcome to a problem-identifying node of the Pandeism index!!
You know how sometimes you're
sitting in the
middle of the
bar.... and you
notice a pretty girl who's looking your way -- and
she's smiling at you, maybe even coyly
waving? And you think, "wow, this girl is actually
coming on to me!!" But then, just as you're about to get up to go talk to her, you realize that
she was looking and smiling and waving at someone else, someone way
behind you, the
whole damn time -- she's
never actually even noticed you!! She was (and remains)
blissfully unaware and
unconcerned with your very
existence, and you, well you were simply
so caught up in that moment, in the
secret desire to be the
target of that
affection, that you were
primed to believe that it was you she was looking at.
Now imagine you were at a
table in middle of the bar with some
buddies, and you
all thought the pretty girl was looking in the
direction of your table. You'd surely
mention that amongst yourselves, give to one another
affirmation and
encouragement that you were collectively the
targets of her
observational affection -- your
reassurance suggesting, if not outright declaring, how very
worthy you are to be the
subjects of this pretty girl's
interest. And if one amongst your group were to have
doubts, the rest of you might collectively try to talk him down from them.
Well now....
write that
sentiment larger and consider the
possibility that that's how certain amongst the
theistic faiths, especially the
believers in an
interventionist personal deity, are about believing that they are the target of
divine attention,
all of the time. Like the man in the middle, they sense a divine
presence underlying our
Universe and immediately
imagine that it's
looking,
smiling,
waving right at them!!
Joyously they erect the
conceit that their
Creator wants to
be with them, and fulfill various of their
scenarios for receiving
happiness. And these people unknowingly
looked beyond, they get together in groups to reassure each other that such is the case, that it is really
they who are the targets of an unbound supply of
love and
attention. And they inspire the most self-
certain amongst them to put on the
haughtiness of
faux authority and
lecture to all the others that this is indeed the case. And wherever someone suggests otherwise, they try to
convince, and failing that,
denounce.
But who are we, who possibly
feel the
presence without even the
capacity to
gauge the
gaze, to claim to be the target of what we
perceive,
wish,
desire gutturally? Who, indeed, are we even to
note the
eyes of the pretty girl at the other end of the bar, and before ever hearing a word from her, to instantly assure ourselves that her
gaze and her smile and her wave signify no less than her compelling wish to bestow undying love upon the subject of those motions? And, naturally, that it is we
alone to whom they might be
aimed?