but he's not there

only 1% of people think of god as female, with 62% considering god to be male, the online survey conducted earlier this month of 1,050 adults in britain found.1

i remember sometime during the last millenium catching part of a documentary about christians in korea or some such topic and the one clip that stayed with me was an interview of a korean man saying that not only did he believe in jesus christ, son of god, but he also believed that christ was a caucasian with blond hair and blue eyes.

i immediately thought: "how horrible!" — this pathetic person had built himself a mountain that he could never scale.

most theists and deists with an anthropomorphic vision of their diety create one in their own image and posit themselves as the "chosen people" of that god, yet here was a person submitting to a god that he could never claim kin to, no matter how hard he prays, no matter what he sacrifices.

it seems that instead of enjoying the ego-boost most religions give their faithful, this person was basically condemning himself to a permanent inferiority complex. and if god is white, blond and blue-eyed, how could this person ever have any kind of relationship with any white, blond and blue-eyed human being in which he wasn't automatically inferior (perhaps even inferior to any caucasian nonbeliever as well), all the way down to his corpuscles?

watching that guy declare his strange faith just seemed so heartbreakingly tragic.

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¹ hat tip to p.z. myers @ pharyngula. from commenter greta christina:

the zombies' song "she's not there" keeps coming to mind. with a little tweaking, it makes an excellent atheist song. well, let me tell you 'bout the way he looks the way he acts and the color of his hair his voice is soft and cool his eyes are clear and bright but he's not there!