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Harari in his book 21 Lessons for the 21st Century juxtaposes two very different definitions of God, that people interchange freely as their agenda demands.
Using his words, I call these two gods the god of the campfire and the god of the burning pyre.
The god of the campfire
“Sometimes when people talk about God, they talk about a grand and awesome enigma, about which we know absolutely nothing. We invoke this mysterious God to explain the deepest riddles of the cosmos. (…) The most fundamental characteristic of this mysterious God is that we cannot say anything concrete about Him. This is the God of the philosophers; the God we talk about when we sit around a campfire late at night, and wonder what life is all about.”
The god of the burning pyre
“On other occasions people see God as a stern and worldly lawgiver, about whom we know only too much. We know exactly what He thinks about fashion, food, sex and politics, and we invoke this Angry Man in the Sky to justify a million regulations, decrees and conflicts. (…) The most fundamental characteristic of this worldly lawgiver is that we can say extremely concrete things about Him. This is the God of the crusaders and jihadists, of the inquisitors, the misogynists and the homophobes. This is the God we talk about when we stand around a burning pyre, hurling stones and abuses at the heretics being grilled there.”
Related
- I wrote about Harari’s two gods on my KNT blog (in Hungarian): https://kocsisnagytimea.wordpress.com/2023/09/18/tabortuz-maglya-istene/
- For a detailed comparison of the two gods, see: 4a1a1-what-i-call-the-two-gods-of-harari-are-contrary-god-images
- Harari juxtaposes spirituality and organised faith (I think in Sapiens) in a similar way.
- Just as it’s up to us on what we place the label God, it’s up to us also what label we place on our spiritual experiences: 4a-it-s-up-to-us-how-we-call-the-whispering-voice-in-our-ears-god-satan-madonna-the-universe-or-anything-else
- It’s insightful how Mayim Bialik, a scientist and observant Jew at the same time, interprets God. I touched upon it on my KNT blog (in Hungarian): https://kocsisnagytimea.wordpress.com/2023/09/11/muveszet-terapia/
- Modern spiritualism often operates with the god of the campfires, while organised religion needs the god of the burning pyre to operate