If I want a made up God then I'll have Aslan

[Angrboda]

Perhaps all these high exalted fictional characters like Aslan, Ichigo, Batman, exist deep in our psyches. All possible characters exist within our imagination. In a sense, we do worship them, even though they are not real.

And just maybe fictional characters are manifestations of God as well.

So Aslan the fictional character can be a manifestation of God, as is Batman, as is Ichigo.

Or, perhaps God shares attributes with these fictional characters, not because they resemble God in certain ways, but rather because God resembles them in certain ways, like, in being a fictional character.

(The having attributes that are impossible, incoherent and logically contradictory is a big clue that "you just might be dealing with a fictional character." God? Has it in spades. Remember that rock that God cannot lift? Fictional character.)



An interesting but relevant side story. Kwan Yin is a boddhisattva of ultimate compassiion. Relieving suffering is her game. Many southeast Asian depictions represent her as having a thousand arms. (And indeed there is a popular dance in which she is represented by dancers who are choreographed to appear to the audience as if they are a single woman possessed of many, many arms. See youtube) The tale explaining this is as follows:

One Buddhist legend from the Complete Tale of Guanyin and the Southern Seas presents Guanyin as vowing to never rest until she had freed all sentient beings from the samsara or reincarnation. Despite strenuous effort, she realised that there were still many unhappy beings yet to be saved. After struggling to comprehend the needs of so many, her head split into eleven pieces. The buddha Amitabha, upon seeing her plight, gave her eleven heads to help her hear the cries of those who are suffering. Upon hearing these cries and comprehending them, Avalokitesvara attempted to reach out to all those who needed aid, but found that her two arms shattered into pieces. Once more, Amitabha came to her aid and appointed her a thousand arms to let her reach out to those in need. Many Himalayan versions of the tale include eight arms with which Avalokitesvara skillfully upholds the Dharma, each possessing its own particular implement, while more Chinese-specific versions give varying accounts of this number.