I’ve said often lately that God is not dead, but is headed for life support. Those who understand what I mean tend to say it can’t happen soon enough while others may be shocked and even offended. But it is time to come to a new understanding of what God means.

    It is written that we were created in the image and likeness of God. This easily leads to thinking of a God, up in the sky, looking and thinking something like us but on a grander scale. This God has a personality, likes and dislikes, picks sides, can be offended and often capriciously smites both the wicked and/or the righteous for no understandable reason but, it is thought, obviously by some obscure plan. We’ve been led to fear and to try to curry favor with this God, hoping to avoid horrible punishment in an eternal afterlife, but as George Carlin put it so well, “But he loves you.” This version of God, the dominant God meme in our cultural stream, is damaging and retrogressive, and we need now to transcend it.