Nonpersonal God vs Personal God

Forskare: Gudstro är det enda vetenskapliga « Dagen.se: "Det betyder, menar Allan Emrén, att Gud verkligen bryr sig om människor. Och att människan gör väl i att söka Gud och lyssna till Hans ord."

I have never been an atheist so I don't know how that feels. However, when you believe in a nonpersonal God, it will not be possible to form that personal relationship which is so important for many religious persons. Setting up Religious Humanism to compete with Judeo-Christianism and Islam in order to reform Churches eventually requires the practitioner to compensate in some fashion for this lack of compassion which probably is best performed by substituting with human contacts when needed. I have seen figures that, if I remember correctly, showed that about 20% of people that believe in a God don't believe in a personal God. For these people and myself this is not a problem.

I am convinced that eventually the benefits from science and the belief in Nature providing the answers of tomorrow would mean that more people would accept Religious Humanism as an alternative to traditional monotheism. In a relatively equal country like Sweden people are distinctly secular. The need for comfort would be less than in a country with larger gaps between ruling classes and people in general. Social Projects and Health Care substitute for the traditional job of the priest and religion if not science and Nature. Given the choice many people would want to enrich their lives with a life philosophy such as Religious Humanism.

Emrén discusses the role of the creation in his life and I'm also fascinated by the similarity of the tale in Genesis and what we know today. However, the person that wrote it was not constrained by earlier dogma that would prevent him to figure out what was most likely to have occurred. Soil came from rock, Plants came from soil. Animals came from plants and we from animals and plants. This common sense order of events was probably there even 2500 and 2000 years ago. However, if God is Nature, God wrote the Bible. I don't think following it literally is a good idea though.