At first I saw all these pictures as just being funny or irreverent and I’m sure the people who made them intended them to be. But on reflection I realized that most of them could actually be the different ways people respond to God or perceive him/her/it/them to be. In the original, one of the great masterpieces of Western art, man and God are reaching out to each other and that’s how the genuinely spiritual believer sees things. The one with the baseball reminded me of a speech I heard by a victorious sportsman which started, ‘Firstly I would like to thank the Lord.’ God takes sides in sporting events? Interesting! The one with the money is defiantly how the people who attend certain charismatic churches see God. The picture of God handing Adam a pair of underpants reminds me of Cardinal Carafa and people like him. The raised finger represents the atheist’s attitude, the magnifying glass, me and people like me. And for all we know, if God does exist he/she/it/they may well look something like how he is depicted in the last picture. What makes humans think that God is a larger version of themselves? Meanwhile, Michelangelo is probably turning in his grave. 
On the other side Bhante, what could Michelangelo’s ‘anatomically incorrect’ Adam represent?
ReplyDeletethe jellyfish in the last picture was a fairly recent invented god called "Cthulhu".
ReplyDeleteit can be found in the works of H.P. Lovecraft.
and yes, some people believe it exists.