[Quranic Reflection]: Anthropomorphism and God in Islam

[WinterHold]

God is an entity that we can't imagine with our minds

I wonder if the tendency to anthropomorphize has something to do with the fact that the big religions are supposed to be for everybody, including both the educated and the illiterate. 

So for example Americans think of Taoism as being philosophical and abstract, because the Tao Te Ching has been fairly well known in English. It doesn't talk about a Big Father or a scary Hell. But I know that (pre-Mao) if you went to a Taoist temple in China there would likely be paintings of Hell to scare the simple people into behaving themselves. There was a difficult version for people who were better educated, and another version for the regular folk.

It's just easier to imagine a Heavenly Father than an apophatic divine. So the elites were comfortable with a simplified version for the common folk, which took the symbols more at face value. No doubt it offends our modern democratic feelings today, but I think a two-tier approach was common in Taoism, Buddhism, and Christianity. 

But I don't know about Islam.

Many humans prefer the easier thinking route; i.e they don't like moving their brains to think about an absolute, abstract deity.

Islamic clergy followed a similar path too; very similar actually. Their tool to anthropomorphize God is the :Hadith" with both its Sunni/Shiite versions.

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In this topic I want to discuss "Anthropomorphism" and how it corrupts religion and the "image of God" in our heads.


"Anthropomorphism" is defined by:


Moreover, it's also removing any kind of respect the creature has to God. Since God is an entity that we can't imagine with our minds or even apply attributes to. Actually, we need a "word from God" first telling us how to approach him correctly, what traits to "apply to him" and what names should we call him with.

The Quran says about God:



Simply, we can't picture or imagine an "eternal refugee" who is "one and only", never was born or gave birth and has no equal.

But Anthropomorphism was always present in both "Christianity and Pagan religions -Judaism forbids it like Islam-:



God is beyond description, all we can do is take the description he gave in the Quran, and that's it.

"God is beyond description", your words.

I agree, so why would I want to take the words of a book written by ignorant humans?

"God is neither a material nor a spiritual being", again your quote.

Sounds like you are describing the non existent.

The "Quran" is not the word of man, it's the "literal exact words of God himself".