Birth of God

The fact that man cannot understand his own inundating complexity and life processes completely; that too in the wake of ever changing dynamics of the world around him, pushes him to seek an entity that is outside his sense of 'self'. This non-self is humanised and 'made' super-natural to explain the-beyond-natural laws it HAS to work with. Also, God is part of an inclusive model that seeks to create a user-interface between him and the outer world. Somehow the creation of this entity also helps with the construction of meaning - personally, spiritually and socially.Suddenly makes the unseen translucent. This is where God is born. Classic example: When humans could not understand the mechanisms that brought rain - the supernaturality of it all prompted them to create a Rain God. Now that we understand the intricacies of it all, the processes of rain is 'natural'. It is part of the 'natural' dynamics of 'nature'. It does not scare us anymore to deify it as a supernatural. In many ways than one, God is born out of fear. Explains the phrase: God-fearing people. Fear of the unknown and the entropy of life.

There is this full circle of confusion again. What we describe as a 'natural order of things' is a function of what we are able to perceive even; let alone quantify/tabulate/rationalise. So, the classification of 'natural' and 'supernatural' is as limited as one's cognition can get. In other words, every human being has his own perception of what is natural and what is super-natural, depending on how advanced or rudimentary his cognitive awareness is. Of himself and of his perceived collective reality. Brings us back to: the world is born in perception, of the self, the non-self, the natural, supernatural and what not. Making God a figment of many a fearful imaginations. By us diminutive humans. So, Arundhati Roy was right when she wrote: The God of 'small' things.