An interesting question I ran across in my research was "How can a limitless, infinite being be contained in the mind of a limited being like man?" (Barrett & Keil, 220)
While considering how our modern culture is moving away from nature,thereby redefining what anthropomorphism means to us, I realized that God is mostly depicted as a white male human (in western religion anyways). On the contrary, the Devil is still a hybrid man/animal creature. What does this say about or perceptions of the natural world? That all that is good and pure fits into the parameters of a male prototype? This is such a great contrast to the ancient Egyptians who employed animals as good and bad deities.
While considering how our modern culture is moving away from nature,thereby redefining what anthropomorphism means to us, I realized that God is mostly depicted as a white male human (in western religion anyways). On the contrary, the Devil is still a hybrid man/animal creature. What does this say about or perceptions of the natural world? That all that is good and pure fits into the parameters of a male prototype? This is such a great contrast to the ancient Egyptians who employed animals as good and bad deities.
As suggested by one researcher, "the rise in modern science is matched by the
diminishment and increasing censure of anthropomorphic descriptions of natural phenomena" (Horowitz, p. 61). What this suggests in regards to my topic is that humans put cultural concepts in terms of things they understand. Ancient Egyptians had a rhythmic and necessary relationship with nature; the flooding of the Nile, the rising and falling of the sun and so on. These same rhythmic patterns today are explained by scientific principles. But for the ancient Egyptians with no concept of scientific laws and principals, these phenomenon must have been the result of something greater. Man is simply not capable of these things; Gods are. While God is still responsible for all these phenomenon today (according to creationists) , we can't seem to fathom God in a different form than human. Its seems as though we have spent so much of our energy fighting nature (harvesting its resources, staking claim to land and pushing species to extinction) that we have declared it our enemy. It seems that we are so arrogant in our assumption of power over the natural world that God must be humanistic and the devil is something we don't and can't understand - some sort of freak of nature. Consider this, if God is as perfect as he is described and the Devil is the opposite of this, we are asserting that the human form is perfect and an animalistic form is wrong.
Barrett, Justin L., and Frank C. Keil. "Conceptualizing a Nonnatural Entity: Anthropomorphism in God Concepts."Cognitive Psychology (1996): 219-47. Print.
Horowitz, Alexandra C., and Marc Bekoff. “Anthropomorphism.” Encyclopedia of Human-Animal Relationships (2007): 60-66. Academic Search Complete. Web. 15 Nov. 2014.
diminishment and increasing censure of anthropomorphic descriptions of natural phenomena" (Horowitz, p. 61). What this suggests in regards to my topic is that humans put cultural concepts in terms of things they understand. Ancient Egyptians had a rhythmic and necessary relationship with nature; the flooding of the Nile, the rising and falling of the sun and so on. These same rhythmic patterns today are explained by scientific principles. But for the ancient Egyptians with no concept of scientific laws and principals, these phenomenon must have been the result of something greater. Man is simply not capable of these things; Gods are. While God is still responsible for all these phenomenon today (according to creationists) , we can't seem to fathom God in a different form than human. Its seems as though we have spent so much of our energy fighting nature (harvesting its resources, staking claim to land and pushing species to extinction) that we have declared it our enemy. It seems that we are so arrogant in our assumption of power over the natural world that God must be humanistic and the devil is something we don't and can't understand - some sort of freak of nature. Consider this, if God is as perfect as he is described and the Devil is the opposite of this, we are asserting that the human form is perfect and an animalistic form is wrong.
Barrett, Justin L., and Frank C. Keil. "Conceptualizing a Nonnatural Entity: Anthropomorphism in God Concepts."Cognitive Psychology (1996): 219-47. Print.
Horowitz, Alexandra C., and Marc Bekoff. “Anthropomorphism.” Encyclopedia of Human-Animal Relationships (2007): 60-66. Academic Search Complete. Web. 15 Nov. 2014.