My Divine Imaginary Friend
I've been attending Quaker meeting and one of the thoughts that has surfaced for me is that these ppl and other religious ppl gain benefit from listening for inspiration from the light or their belief in a divinity of some sort
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What a tempting image.
But I think the dangers of imagining my DIF to be like this are irresponsibly bad. The concept that my DIF has power to affect the world in supernatural ways causes the theodicy problem... "
In the church I attended as a child I was taught that you did not pray for God to do things for you (i.e., intervene in the natural world). The point of prayer was to ask God for comfort and strength to deal with whatever was going on. I think this is a much healthier belief than the idea that if God really loved you he would fix all your problems.
Theologically speaking, I am baffled by Christians who believe that if you pray hard enough only good things will happen to you (and God will root for your sports team). Have they never read the book of Job? And morally, the idea that you can tell how much God loves you by how well your life is going leads to repugnant beliefs about the unfortunate. Not to mention that if something absolutely terrible happens to YOU, it tends to destroy your faith just when you need it most. I wouldn't recommend that interpretation of a loving God. Which I think means that I am agreeing with you.
It sounds like you are looking for more of a spiritual sense of connection with a benevolent universe, and that you are open to personifying that sensibility into a "divine imaginary friend" (a term I kind of love).
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Nice summary of the theological and psychological problems with these types of god concepts. They are quite problematic.
Thank you for the encouragement. :)
I'm glad you like my phrase! Lol! :)
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