What if God is horrifying?

[MetaMortician]

Speaking for myself, at least, the idea of God is horrifying enough. The reality then . . . .

[SpookyDread]

Dreamtime: Concerning The Boundary Between Wilderness And Civilization by Hans Peter Duerr

* Nothing about the fables told by the inquisition and witch trials was a lie, to a degree.. they were describing a darkly pagan culture. The witches used drugs, or natural means to fly away at night. Similar to Joseph Campbell in a way.. the idea is that in order to understand our selves, we have to be devoured by the wilderness.

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"Soul" Of the Primitive by Lucien Levy-Brulh

* Primitives have no soul because they are instead assimilated into their society , they can't separate their minds from their food, they can conceive of themselves as being in two places at once, and so on. In other words they're prone to being possessed and live in a state of ego death. He also argues how and why a primitive person offers their vital force or mana to hungry ghosts , and various means of magic to ward off or control their environment. He has a very dark vision.

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Hero With A Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell

* Even though he argues that a hero transforms in their journey to a defeat a monster, the author also concedes that the hero dies .

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Deformed Discourse by David Williams

* This is about the function of the monster in medieval discourse.. a lot about negative theology and this sort of thing. This book is really difficult and haven't braved through this one yet. He's actually an English professor at McGill near where I am from (I'm at the other University here in Concordia and know of his colleagues)… Part I traces the poetics of teratology, the study of monsters, to Christian neoplatonic theology and philosophy, particularly Pseudo-Dionysius's negative theology and his central idea that God cannot be known except by knowing what he is not. Williams argues that the principles of negative theology as applied to epistemology and language made possible a symbolism of negation and paradox whose chief sign was the monster. Part II provides a taxonomy of monstrous forms with a gloss on each, and Part III examines the monstrous and the deformed in three heroic sagas -- the medieval Oedipus, The Romance of Alexander, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight -- and three saints' lives -- Saint Denis, Saint Christopher, and Saint Wilgeforte. The book is beautifully illustrated with medieval representations of monsters. The most comprehensive study of the grotesque in medieval aesthetic expression, Deformed Discourse successfully brings together medieval research and modern criticism.

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I'm looking for more books like this and have hit a #### brick wall in trying to find more books. I've found whatever serendipitously or by recommendation . For anyone interested.

I've been driven insane with no friends over reading stuff like this and being all in my head about it.

[miguel1984]

God is horrifying.

[ChildofOldLeech]

Quote Originally Posted by miguel1984

God is horrifying.

Horrifyingly delicious, you mean!

[miguel1984]

Yeah, but what I really meant was that if God were a spaghetti flying monster, it would terrifying for the faithful. Then again, the communion wafer would be delicious!