[Quranic Reflection]: Anthropomorphism and God in Islam

[The Grand Nudger]

Theism is defined by describing the divine in such a way. An intervening and personal god.

As to whether it removes respect from a god to be described in that way, the way in which every single theist describes their god..well, I guess that depends on how shitty a view of people you have, Winter. You could have decided that your god was swinelike rather than personal, for example.

[WinterHold]

One of Allah's most common sobriquets is 'the Merciful'. Mercy is an exclusively human emotion. Allah is therefore anthropomorphized.

Boru

"Mercy" is an absolute and abstract trait. For example you have the trees covering a spot on a hot day, clouds raining water after a drought. Mercy exists in the universe way before humans.

[Silver]

That's just you ascribing mercy where there is none.

Where you might interpret the scene of shade beneath a tree as merciful, someone else might only perceive a frighteningly cold darkness away from the warmth of the sun.

[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".

[Silver]

One would think a real deity could have written a better book.

[Fake Messiah]

One of Allah's most common sobriquets is 'the Merciful'. Mercy is an exclusively human emotion. Allah is therefore anthropomorphized.

Boru

Not to mention that Muhammad had a conversation with Allah in heaven after he arrived there on a flying donkey, and bargained with Allah as with a common peddler on the street, which is very anthropomorphized.