A Christian’s Concepts of God

current concepts make us feel all warm and happy but without progression (adding future concepts of god to the flames) the fire will stagnate. also the smoke (past concepts of god), can build up and choke us. if we don’t get rid of those old concepts of god it could kill us.

Reminds me of the Jesus actor from “Religulous”, and his explanation of the holy trinity as that of water: solid, liquid, gas. It still made no sense.

All I see above are firewood, a person, fire, and smoke. None of it speaks to me of a god or any concept of it.

People have worshipped various gods in the past – it’s all been smoke and mirrors.

Even as our understanding of the world increases, there will still be people in the future who cling to religion (and guns); like a log, they have no ability to change or willingness to learn new things. (Alternatively, “because their heads are made of wood.”)

There are people now who would rather burn you at the stake than allow you to ignore their god.

I think it has something to do with getting closer to the truth/source of what humans have historically experienced as a god. They used to see god as mysterious and ephemeral: smoke. Now they see god as comforting and helpful: fire. But ultimately god is neither smoke or fire, he is wood: the source or basis of the whole process and part of the natural order. Basically, that the human understanding of god is changing over time and getting closer to the truth.
Not that I believe any of it, but that’s what I got out of the cartoon.

What I see, in agreement with a few interpretations already explored in some comments, is that such a way of warming oneself is non-sustainable, finite in life. Christianity just seems to struggle for its own relevance, having long lost its purpose, providing comfort.

Simply put, the future does not belong.

To me it means:
1. Our future concepts of god are dwindling.
2. Our present concepts of god can be comforting, but can easily get out of control and can destroy and kill.
3. Continuing to believe in gods pollutes the environment and makes it hard to see things clearly.

My interpretation (though I’m sure just an unintended and perhaps contrived hidden meaning on my part) is that the ashes are probably the most useful thing in the process – once they are through smoldering, that is. The illustration ignores the smoldering ashes and that resembles the ignorance of dogma. But if we study the ashes (which would resemble dead religions in my view) we can actually learn that the fire was far more temporary than the lasting ashes which will help to fertilize the ground which produces far more trees than can be burned by the fire-bringers. Thus, the circle of life, nay, evolution itself wins. Religions do evolve and the illustration brings that to light. No pun intended. Hopefully, someday, religions won’t need to burn for humans to find comfort, warmth and light.

Nature is far more interesting to me than this poor attempt to conceptualize something that need not exist at all.

The thought of a future god should give us a woodie??

If you have to explain it it’s not a good cartoon. Even the guy’s explanation for it comes across as tortured reasoning (albeit, the term “reasoning” is a tad generous.

I would hope the next time the urge to draw overcomes him that he develop an idea first, then draw a cartoon to support it…not the other way around.

“Free range pastor”? That guy is an insult to free range chickens.

My interpretation:
Our past concept of God is irritating and makes us cry if we keep it around too much.

Our present concept of God is warm and comforting, but a bit dangerous if we try to immerse outselves in it.

In order to maintain our concept of God in the future hard, painful work is required.

Alternative interpretation – your life will be better if you abandon God and switch to hydroelectric.

cheap shot dromedary hump.

I think good art purposefully leaves some ambiguity so the viewer can add meaning.
That is also my understanding of what religion *should* be.
Anyway, the following is my interpretation:
If you look at God too close, He disappears (goes up in smoke).
If you look at what other people have written (holy books), all you see is dead wood.
Ultimately, it is all a transient experience all in the mind of the beholder (the fire).

Don’t believe in God because only you can prevent forest fires?

I didn’t notice you lurking, nakedpastor. Welcome.

I’ll give you that. Nietzsche gave us some rockin’ one-liners too, but I try to avoid associating myself with uberracists, if you know what I’m saying.

If you’re not a Calvinist, can you give us a clearer sense of what your cartoon means?

Hmm, I confess I follow David’s blog (and even signed up to his mailing list so I get his cartoons first thing in the morning). Haven’t bought his collection of cartoons yet.

However, I think this cartoon can represent two connected ideas.

1. the individual’s changing ideas through life (e.g., from believing in Santa Claus, to different beliefs about ‘God’ [personal, remote, vengeful, loving, impersonal, non-existent]).

2. the dominant paradigms within a culture about ‘God’.

Admittedly one has to feel for the individual whose current live concept of a god is that of one who has condemned him in particular to eternal damnation. I suspect that individual is not warming himself but being burnt (perhaps with others pushing him into the flames).

This is my first post! (I haven’t read the artist’s explanation, but here’s how I see it.)

I actually have a much simpler view of this cartoon:

1. The view of god in the past was as thin, transparent, and intangible as smoke (only very few people were educated).
2. The current view is a bit more tangible but still can’t be explained (Science is slowly burning away the mythology of all religions.)
3. In the future, god will be tangible… because it will be replaced by science – the study of all things testable/ provable.

I’m going to guess what he meant first and then click on the link to his interpretation.

I think maybe he means Wood is in a stable state, not really doing anything, but has a potential of some sort. So our future concepts of god have the potential to be good or bad. Fire is active and can either warm people or burn the crap out of them. I guess our current world religions kind of do that. Smoke, you can see but doesn’t bother you unless you’re breathing it. So the concept of Zeus or whatever, doesn’t really bother people because it’s done and over with.

Ok…I was wrong. LOL

Nothing poor about that, nakedpastor. Change is good.

Thanks for stopping by.
Peace.

This is the most I’ve commented on one post here… ever. So please excuse me. On my blog someone pointed out that to say whatever we have chosen we’ve chosen because it is most comfortable for us is to undermine the pain some of us have gone through to get to where we are today. In other words, for many, to get to where they are today has been an excruciatingly painful process. I wrote in response to that:

Yes, I agree. Okay. That’s not what I meant because my “developments” have been painful also. Excellent point. Perhaps a better way to say it is that whatever conclusions we come to, easy or not, it is because this is what makes most sense to us and seems most rational. Something like that.

I tried interpreting the cartoon as-is, but to me it makes more sense if it’s reversed, or relabeled right-to-left.

Then wood represents the past concepts of god (relevant for their time and place but now fixed and dead relative to the present), which fuel the present needs of believers. And because the present changes (like fire) moment-to-moment, past doctrine is continually reinterpreted to serve it better (as a burning log changes). The needs of the present also influence the makeup of the future to a degree, but the future is subject to so many variables that it is nebulous and insubstantial from the standpoint of the present.

[After gloating about getting it right without peeking]
@NakedPastor, thanks so much for stopping by. One thing you may want to keep in mind is that atheist forums are generally going to be populated with people who don’t have warm and fuzzy feelings about religion, something I supposed you guessed from some of the more…creative interpretations of the cartoon.
Still, it has provoked discussion, which is great, as far as I’m concerned 🙂

This is what I thought when I first saw it:

People’s accepted ideas about God (wood burning in the fire) that form the basis for their faith (the fire) always break down and are consumed at some point (creating the smoke). New ideas (the wood in a stack) must be continually added to replace the old ones, or the person’s faith will burn out.

The person in such a situation may be fixated on faith (the fire) and the comfort it brings so much that they don’t see that all of the ideas they adopt (the wood) eventually burn out and prove false (the wood becomes smoke). A person desperate for faith must constantly adopt new ideas, because the time spent in analysis and testing of the ideas always erodes them; in order to keep faith, the person almost has to make up and or adopt new ideas, if only to sustain their faith.

Ultimately, there is a limited amount of valid-sounding ideas (wood in the stack), so depending on how fast a person goes through ideas, they may run out of wood and lose their faith before they die,or they may have enough wood to support faith their entire lives.

Still others decide faith is not worth compromising their intellectual integrity and allow the fire to go out. Such people are then cold, lacking the comfort faith gave them, but also, released from its fixation, are free to look for comfort elsewhere.

sara: perfect

My take.

My initial interpretation came in light of debates where Christians say atheists aren’t criticizing the most sophisticated version of God. The wood is the interpretation that theologians have. Later, trickles down to the laiety who use it for comfort. Atheists criticize the fire, but the theists point to the large stack of wood they have in the shed.

As WOOD, beliefs are solid and reliable. You could build a house from that wood.

As FIRE, beliefs are intangible. They can be bright and give off warmth, but you can’t touch it. Unchecked, that fire can also destroy things. It’s also always hungry: you constantly have to feed it so it continues to burn, but depending on the fuel you choose, it only burns to a certain size/brightness/warmth. If all you wanted was a little warmth and to roast a hot dog, you don’t start a forest fire.

As SMOKE, belief leaves soot everywhere. You can’t breathe it or incorporate it into yourself – your body rejects it, and if you keep trying, it can kill you. When a burning building is extinguished, we always hear of smoke and water damage, and the parallel is still apt: the damage from the SMOKE came from the FIRE. The water could be the ice-cold force of reason: someone shows up to fight the fire, but they’re not just spraying water all over – they attack certain spots and seek to contain/minimize damage.

Smoke comes from fire, and fire comes from wood, other than that no idea.

My interpretation: God causes global warming, deforestation, and air pollution 😉

Actually, nakedpastor has a point about comforting belief systems. The hard and soft sciences are constantly revising their models, and some paradigms are more difficult for scientific communities to dismantle than others as well. I study anthro, evopsych, philosophy of mind, etc. (That’s why my religious philosophy isn’t so great–those belief systems are bassackwards to my sciences and applied only as another tool to better understand human behaviour. It’s tough to memorize something you don’t believe in such tedious detail.)

It was only a few short decades ago that blatantly racist ideas were accepted as science. The Nazis were not the only guilty parties. The the shape of Africans’ skulls was used as proof for centuries (since Immanuel Kant’s Anthropology )that they were somehow ‘inferior’ or ‘less evolved’ than Nordic, Slav and European populations were. We know now that the very concept of ‘race’ is fallacious.

Primatologists and marine biologists are just now shattering anthropocentric preconceptions about animal perception, intelligence and communication. Animals from wolves to parrots to just about every other species are capable of so much more than previous generations ever thought possible. It’s amazing stuff to study. I love it.

Who knows? Maybe someday, we’ll discover that plant life emotes and communicates as well. Would that put an interesting spin on nakedpastor’s cartoon or what?

In the center of the picture there is a person who warms itself by the fire. This can be interpreted in the following way.

The person represents humanity. The fire represents benefit to humanity. The fire is also a natural process that follows a certain order (laws of nature). Humanity is confronted with two opposing concepts. There is the concept of god and there is reality. The concepts of god portrait a backwards chain of events that is in contrast with reality. Religion/faith puts smoke, fire and wood in chronological order, while in reality wood is the starting point, fire follows and smoke comes last.

I think the artist wanted to express that religion/faith does not help humanity, because whether religion/faith insists that fire results from smoke or not does not matter. Reality remains unchanged. The fire was made from wood, not smoke.

Ultimately, it is the understanding of reality that helps humanity. Moreover, religion is not only irrelevant to reality but can actually harm humanity. If the person in the picture followed the concept of god he may have never created fire. Following his faith, he would have tried to create fire from smoke. Not a good idea, especially in winter.

PS: I like how the concepts of god are all situated at the top of the picture (heaven), while the rest is at the bottom (down to earth). Smoke being the exception. But you can’t blame the artist for upholding the laws of nature.