Why God is an old man

If McCain wins the US Presidential election this Blog post will constitute heresy and I will be on the run from the pitchfork wielding crowd. But right now everything is still up for grab and the first report giving McCain a lead over Obama has come in which is why I begin thinking 'what is it with us'? Why, as a species, do we crave certainty to the degree that we are willing to put up with 'the devil we know' rather than seize the moment and get a sense of real hope and real change?

It kinda leads you to ask some deep questions about religion. We'll forego the Earth-mother/male-dominance question on the deity's sex and will, for a moment, focus on the other issue that's been hot on the Presidential election trail this year: age. It might seem a little oxymoronic but change, hope and youth tend to go together like home and apple pie, bacon and eggs and curry and beer (OK, that's a Brit hangover from our post-imperial days).

I speak for myself when I write that when I look towards God I really want him to be dynamic, full of energy, power and kick-ass attitude. The kind of God that looks at my enemies and says 'I got some thunderbolts, let's go and get them' and looks at the natural disasters of the past and promises 'never again, just gotta do something about that', but I seem to be on a minority here. The kinda of pec-flexing, muscled, energetic, vibrant god I have in mind is not really the same god who reassures the masses that tomorrow is going to be the same as today, natural disasters are one of those things that come and go and that under his benevolence prosperity, stability and the sense that the universe unfolds the way it should are all as inevitable as the sunrise.

That god, apparently, has flowing white hair and a beard and robes that hide his body and tends to speak with a gravely, statemans-like voice. I find it really curious and I ask myself 'why?'. Why must the god we all want be an old, dicrepit guy. I know, I know, the issues about ageism and as I am rapidly getting there I am wholy onboard with the whole equality, non-disriminatory thing, but you know, even so, if I am going to follow a god into battle (so to speak) I'd rather he looked more like Arnold SchwarzeneggerArnold Schwarzenegger did in Commando than Charlton HestonCharlton Heston looked in Almost and Angel. I know the majority are more comfortable with the latter than the former which leads me into the field of pop-psychology and the sense of insecurity we get when confronted by a god that's strong, potent and maybe a little wild.

That god is not quite the kind we feel has a place in our civilised, Valhalla-free world. We don't want to pay lip-service to someone who might actually deliver when he says 'let's go and get them' and ask us to leave our comfy hearth and join him. The doddery wise figure of age is much more comfortable to deal with. First of all he's old therefore instantly wise which means he will know the folly of shaking things up. Secondly he is old therefore a little tired unlikely to really stir things up and when he tries he will lose focus, forget, get things wrong and hey, being a little forgiving towards a deity's frailties only makes us feel good, right?

All of which, I suppose, lead to the conclusion that maybe many of us may go not so much for "better the devil we know" adage as for the "change is bad" refrain.

I know you need to work hard to now understand what I just said and its connection to McCain and Obama. Admittedly none of them are going to be gods (and that's something we need to be grateful for) but one of them is going to be the Supreme Commander of the world's most powerful nation andit might be a good thing to stop having a buffoon everyone laughs at in that post.

It's high time perhaps we stopped looking for gods who are reflective of the values of our grandfathers and sought someone who moves with the times, is prepared to storm windmills if necessary and thinks the world is a place that has more hope than pressure groups, Big Business and backroom deals would normally allow.

If I start mailing these posts from a cave in the hills, typing in the dead of night so the pitchfork zellies do not hear, you'll know that McCain won and the world is still the same sorry place it is today, but just a little more so.