A Stereotyped God

How many people believe in “God”? The Christian God I mean. According to statistics, about two billion people on the planet believe in “God” and call themselves “Christian”. However, I would estimate only a few hundred thousand, maybe a couple million, of those people actually know God. The rest know a stereotypical God that the world has come to create and manipulate. God cannot be stereotyped if he really is God, and he is God.

A stereotype is putting a subject in a box. When I put something in a box I feel more secure, more in control. Like, God for instance. To be able to control God would be great, I could do whatever I want. The thought of an all powerful being floating above and judging according to it’s own will is frightening. So I put him in that box for my own piece of mind. But more often than not I put a protective box around myself to shield me from what I don’t understand. Then once I believe I’ve started “thinking outside the box” and I’m beating God, the stereotype; I don’t quite realize that all I’ve done is either move from one box to another or just expanded the borders of my current box. And for that I get a false sense of greater control and stability. With that I continue to expand my box and close my eyes in false comfort and security and the assurance that I’m right. Until I can barely see the edges of my box or have completely closed my eyes to anything but what I believe. I think I know all there is to know, or at least enough to judge or be uninterested.

With a solid belief in God that is solely based on a stereotype, I ask for things God won’t deliver, or at least things God won’t deliver when I want them. I bastardize, butcher, and mutilate God into what I think he is and should be. When that happens I completely ignore God because he isn’t living up to my standards. I view God as unjust, unfair, and just plain stupid, sometimes thinking “I can be God better than God can.” I rip God from his throne in my eyes so that he can be forced down to my level or lower. Just so I can be comfortable. A luxury not available to everyone in the world, but brandished to every extent in countries like America and England where Christianity has it’s largest populace where I feel like I have the freedom to make God as I please by reinterpreting him to my will. With God stereotyped, it’s no wonder so many people can call themselves “Christian”. He fits to anyone after a little butchery. And I believe that’s wrong beyond anything else.