The God Of The Common People.

Homer Simpson floods the streets of Springfield as a work of modern art, an installation piece. He looks at his work and sees that it is good, mumbles the words, "I wish God were alive to see this".

Nietzsche thought his concept, that God is dead, would take centuries to dawn on the common man, like the light from a distant star. In this analogy he saw himself as the distant star. Within decades the popular magazine Time had posed the question on it's front page, "Is God Dead?". A few decades later and it is a clever, very clever one liner in an animated sitcom, uttered by the modern archetype of the common man. Great thinkers often discount the proletariat, of course they think about the nature of god and their relationship with it. Of course they do.

All the high churches have seen themselves as keepers of the faith, it's a form of psychosis, me and my mates are closer to god than you lot down there. It is also a proven method for gaining and maintaining power, building wealth on the pennies of the poor and ill educated. If a god inspired tyrant plays his cards right there will always be plenty of poor, ignorant, fearful people to exploit. All the usual tools are employed, theatre, music, mythology.

The common man is inclined to lay a bet each way, toe the party line whilst maintaining his own thoughts, his own code. He and she pay attention, they talk, listen, read, want to know how to relate to this human life just as much, if not more than any great thinker, leader, clergyman. The gap between their real life experience and what they are told to believe is so blatantly apparent, how could they not wonder?

So for Mr. and Mrs. Suburbia the idea that the traditional idea of god, the order it enforced, is dead is not so hard to understand. They see it every day. They see it when the free press reports some of the hypocrisy of their own faith, they see it in a changing culture, they feel it in their souls when they are no longer satisfied with what they grew up with.

The real question is what will replace the old order? We are in flux right now. Any new concept of god, any new moral code, will have to pass the test of the common man. Perhaps it will rise up from the people, not be frowned down upon them? There have been vast social experiments, most replaced a church with a state, same shit, different architecture.

I guess we are both the laboratory rats and the scientists at the same time. We are the experiment and the observers. How very post modernist of us all, we oughta' be congratulated on our work, awarded a Nobel when the results come in. We are all new stars, shedding a new light, uncertain what we will illuminate.

Parkstreet.

From www.parkstreetgodblog.blogspot.com