what would a god look like?
Religions generally present images of their gods, so there are lots of pictures to choose from. Some are based animals, and lots are imaginative mixtures of human, animal and verging on nightmare images. Google ‘hindu goddesses’ for a particularly fine selection.
The Jewish religion is quite clear about having a dislike of deity images, so the spin-off religions of Christianity and Islam haven’t had the opportunity to be quite so creative. Furthermore, the belief that man was created in the image of god, coupled with the idea of the human shaped man god Jesus appearing on earth, perhaps gives most Christians a reason to imagine an actual man with a hefty dose of supernatural powers, lurking invisibly somewhere behind the celestial curtain.
But is that what believers really think? And for those who don’t follow any organised religion, but still have an urge to believe that a god exists, is it necessary to imagine what the deity looks like in order to believe it exists?
Personally, at the time in my life where I believed a god existed, I had no concept of shape, gender or material presence to the being. It was just the natural urge to reach for answers and protection that I’d dragged along from childhood: the invisible friend and perfect invisible parent providing imaginary love and guidance. Surely something outside of our material world, that has the power to create it, would be inconceivable. If we’re going to the imagine the full extent of what-ifs, we have to acknowledge that any existence outside of this universe is beyond our comprehension. Gods we can imagine are the least convincing of all.
The concept of something outside the universe and an invisible protector would be seen as mutually exclusive to a young child. The protector god would obviously have some sort of anthropomorphic qualities, or be related to something the child could relate to , teddy bear, doll, etc. Even a friendly dog or cat.
A watered down version would be transferred into adulthood. How is it possible to conjure up:
‘…the invisible friend and perfect invisible parent providing imaginary love and guidance.” without some point to anchor this thought on? Even the terms, friend” and ”parent” have substance.
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You’re saying all this like it’s evidence-based fact, but I have sneaky suspicion you’re just projecting your personal thought processes onto everyone else. Perhaps I’m projecting my thought processes onto others when I suggest that not everyone needs a visual link to the god whose presence they imagine they feel. But I don’t think I am. 🙂
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You are missing the point. Either, some THING created the universe or SOMEONE.
Now, we know where the Christians stand, and it is simple fr them to get a handle on God, even if they can’t imagine how Jesus might look transmogrified.
Pure Deists do not have the luxury of an earthbound god in a former shape.
So….how do they create an image of the creator they believe in.
IT manifest as what?
It must be self aware, have a conscience and have the ability of choice, at least. But this is irrelevant to the main point.
The more a deist allows for attributes for his /her deity the more it must, by extension, begin to take on a ‘shape’. Form follows function.
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Rubbish. A deist has no need to move beyond function. “Something created all this. I have no idea what it is.” works perfectly fine.
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“Something …”
See….some ..THING.
If something has function it MUST have a form.
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You’re hilarious! Think – outside of our realm of understanding, and imagine that gives anyone who believes in a creator deity licence to abandon all hope of visualisation. God is a concept – not a picture.
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How can one think outside of one’s understanding?
Concept’s still have form.
What concept does a deist conjure when he she thinks of god?
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I explained it in the post, if you would be kind enough to re-read before asking silly questions. No physical form. A description of being potentially beyond physical, and at the least beyond understanding, and a feeling of omnipotent comfort. Concepts don’t have form. Silly Ark.
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@ violetwisp
I agree with you.
I don’t agree with Arkenaten
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@violetwisp
“God is a concept – not a picture”
I think I quite agree with you ; to be more accurate the one true God is a being; He needs no picture as human beings cannot conceive and comprehend that:
[20:111] He knows all that is before them and all that is behind them, but they cannot compass it with their knowledge.
http://www.alislam.org/quran/search2/showChapter.php?ch=20&verse=110
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What does electricity look like? What does wind look like? You can visualise function and effect without needing to see either.
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Right, now we we are getting down to specifics.
Are you suggesting that such a deity might be like electricity?
Electricity can be measured and can be ”seen”’, so too wind. They are not ‘nothing’.
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Before this goes on too long, are you being serious or is this an exercise to ridicule concepts of god? Because if you’re serious, it’s because YOU ONLY THINK IN PICTURES and NOT EVERYONE ELSE DOES. 🙂
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concept
Use Concept in a sentence
con·cept [kon-sept] Show IPA
noun
1.
a general notion or idea; conception.
2.
an idea of something formed by mentally combining all its characteristics or particulars; a construct.
3.
a directly conceived or intuited object of thought.
verb (used with object)
4.
Informal. to develop a concept of; conceive: Experts pooled their talents to concept the new car.
Origin:
1550–60; < Latin conceptum something conceived, orig. neuter of conceptus (past participle of concipere ), equivalent to con- con- + cep- (variant stem of -cipere, combining form of capere to seize) + -tus past participle ending
What else can I say?
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You’re sorry you didn’t realise what an idiot you were being? As your pasted dictionary tells you – a general notion or idea. No picture required. Do you even understand the notion (or concept, if you will) that perhaps not everyone needs images to think? Please answer this because I’m beginning to wonder if you read anything I write.
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Where does it say “No picture required”?
And now you suggesting I should apologize for being an idiot? Why?
”an idea of something formed by mentally combining all its characteristics or particulars; a construct.”
So God is….. You cant have a sentient ”thing”
I always read what you write, why do keep suggesting otherwise?
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This is getting us nowhere. We’ve clearly reached a mutual comprehension impasse. We’ll have to ask an impartial third party view for clarification. 🙂 I’m going to ask Clare if you’re making any sense, and what I’m missing here.
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Come over and read Nate Owen’s comments on the post in question. He understood first go and he explains why.
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@violetwisp
You are right in your approach.
Thanks
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@violetwisp
I agree with you here.
I don’t agree with Arkenaten
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@ violetwisp
“A deist has no need to move beyond function”
I agree with you.
I don’t agree with Arkenaten.
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@Arkanaten
“The more a deist allows for attributes for his /her deity the more it must, by extension, begin to take on a ‘shape’.”
That is just a guess; not relevant to me an Ahmadiyya Muslim.
I don’t agree with you.
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Maybe your god looks like a camel?
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I think that human thinking is not limited to the universe; and now it is in plural the universes; so human vision has no limits.
I don’t agree with Arkenaten.
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Can you provide an example of human thinking that goes beyond this universe?
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I would like to quote here in this connection from Wikipedia, my virtual university:
“The multiverse (or meta-universe) is the hypothetical set of infinite or finite possible universes (including the historical universe we consistently experience) that together comprise everything that exists and can exist: the entirety of space, time, matter, and energy as well as the physical laws and constants that describe them. The term was coined in 1895 by the American philosopher and psychologist William James.[1] The various universes within the multiverse are sometimes called parallel universes.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse
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Well I think the moon is made of cheese.
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I don’t limit your thinking; it is your own thinking; you may think at your own risk and cost; I have no objection.
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Maybe there was sand in Mohammed’s underpants?
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Well, I think it’s safe to say that with Paarsurrey on my side through this whole post, I must be on the side of reason!
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If this creator genie is outside this universe then we must assume said genie created it for some purpose, which presumably doesn’t include because its own universe was/is a piece of crap. If its un-imaginable then said genie is not living here, meaning its universe is much better than ours which is, in all reality, much better suited/designed for the production of black holes than life bearing planets. Soe clever man did the calculations and estimated that for every life bearing planet there are ONE TRILLION black holes. That’s pretty impressive. So impressive in fact that it sort of mean life is just a residue which popped up expectantly from the black hole making process. Alas, the question remains: what was said genies purpose?
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To make humans bad then demand they suffer for it? (Are there really that many black holes? Who counted them?) The real question is: would we need to see a visual representation of this genie to imagine it might exist?
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Perhaps not, but an indication of said genie would be helpful.
Here’s the black hole man
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Great video! So, combining this with a classic line from Ark’s post yesterday, I now want to explore the idea of a god who imagines lots of other supernatural deities to account for things it doesn’t understand, and who created the universe because it had a black hole fixation. Jeez Louise, what if our creator deity is a superstitious science geek, who was playing with black holes to find its creator, and we are an accidental bi-product it’s not even interested in! Much more likely than the Christian story.
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Sweet Veles! I think you might be onto something here 🙂
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@ john zande
I think to have a better vision of the one true God we should think about the four fundamental attributes mentioned by me in one of my comments here ; reason being; one should exist prior to making others exist.
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A better vision of an imaginary thing. Isn’t that an oxymoron?
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I don’t always read your atheist posts, what with me being a Christian and all. I am biased here, as I don’t have a mind’s eye: I cannot visualise something. However: CS Lewis, a fairly conservative populariser, said “We have long abandoned belief in a God who sits on a throne in a localised heaven. We call that belief anthropomorphism.” I don’t have an image of God Being, though I have lots of images as a gateway to thoughts of God- Rublev’s Mamre, Pantocrator, Mary’s child, etc, etc. They are all different, and they enrich each other rather than conflicting.
Even the idea of God as Spirit producing emanations in the Gnostic 2nd century ideas, male or female but not obviously humaniform. Qabalah also has manifestations as emerging from Ein Sof, the Infinite.
God would pass by Elijah, who would only see his back: I think that is an early idea of God being detectable in God’s actions- like electricity, which I can’t see, or the wind, I can only see its effects, or feel it.
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Thanks for having a look and commenting. You haven’t said if either or none of us are making sense, but I’m guessing from your comment that you don’t think a visualisation is necessary.
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Unhelpfully:
I think both of you are making sense. The Infinite, which pervades the Universe, as in Panentheism, could not be visualised as a Thing, but is a concept so I have some idea of what I think it is like.
I can see the effects of electricity, and know that electrons in metals are shared between atoms, so metal can conduct electricity, electrons made to flow around a circuit. I see the light go on. I imagine electrons moving, though the scale is unimaginable.
For me, however, I hold two possibilities (at least) in my mind at once, the all-powerful, loving Infinite with which I have a personal relationship (that’s “theist”) and the material universe, composed of particles following laws, in which I evolved randomly.
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@violetwisp
“don’t think a visualisation is necessary.”
You are right.
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@ Clare
“God being detectable in God’s actions- like electricity, which I can’t see, or the wind, I can only see its effects, or feel it.”
I agree with you; to be more precise; the one true God is known from His attributes.
Thanks
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Something looking like something would be a material item in the naturalistic universe where photons reflect from it’s surface, so I have very much doubt about super-, or otherwise unnatural apparitions. However some religions do make images of the avatars of their deities.
Jesus is the key avatar of the Christian god. It is rather obvious how he has been percieved by people. In most western images and movies he is presented as this blond and blue-eyed caucasian dude. Why? Because their god has to be a white guy – right?
The Bible of course gives totally different descriptions of the Abrahamic god appearing to people. Moses meets a burning bush and a voice, which sounds like a creosote bush and a case of mental instability. This Biblical god also sends a lot of these messanger entities and sort of avatars who are frequently referred to as angels,or sons of god. They all seem very andropomorphic indeed as they do have children whith the daughters of men and sometimes, like in the Gospels, the eyewittness accounts are unable to differentiate them from human youths. All this is further complicated by the fact that the ancient hebrew tradition did also refer to humans as “sons of god” just for following the divine commands very well. Naturally the god is referred to as the “father”, and never the mother and equally naturally these avatars and obidient humans are allways decribed as male. After all this god alledgedly made human being (a male) in his own image. So, would that mean humans (males) look like gods?
It is interresting though, how the modern western culture has made a sex change operation to the angels. Hardly anywhere do you see in popular culture angels that are not female. Totally contrary to their description in the Bible.
Jesus is most often depicted as a long haired dude, not only by artists, but also by people who claim to have had a revelation from him, exept for at least one dude. That is St. Paul who puts it down that it is unnatural for a man to have a long hair. Perhaps he was right, and as Jesus was in his opinion an avatar of a deity outside universe he (naturally) had an unnaturally long hair. Or did he percieve, the long hair as some sort of manifestation of the asexual nature of Jesus? Or is it that since Jesus was under the Old Testament law he had to have a long hair accordingly, but that in some of the revelations Paul got the law about hair length got renewed? What the hell does the alledged creator entity of all the galaxies and entire universe care about the hair length of men? Apparently there is expected to be some supernatural effect, since Samson lost his might along whith the hair, right? A bit like Metallica.
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“Something looking like something would be a material item in the naturalistic universe where photons reflect from it’s surface, so I have very much doubt about super-, or otherwise unnatural apparitions.”
This is exactly what I was looking for! A practical analysis of the situation based on science. I’ll need to drag Ark over here and see if he understands it …
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Unlike many atheists, I’ve always known that god is imaginary, so I’ll offer my unique perspective on the matter: To me it was always abundantly clear that men constructed a god based on themselves. Note I said men. Not people. It is my extremely strong conviction that men created religion in order to oppress women.
Christianity is probably the best example. Even a few minutes into a church service, one is inundated with worshipping of the masculine and debasing of the feminine. The whole “Father/Son” obsession is not an accident, and neither is the resulting patriarchy that has so strongly gripped Wester culture. (The only reason that Catholicism has been so successful with the Mary thing, in my opinion, is that they used it to connect with pagan traditions that were likelier to honor the feminine – this is seen strongly in Latin America where it blended with indigenous beliefs and customs).
However, one can’t place all the blame on Christianity, because Christianity stole most of its ideas from Judaism and many of its ideas from older traditions. For example, ancient Greek mythology did create women deities, but they were always in submission to man-gods, who were posited as stronger and more virtuous. In fact women-gods often represented what Greek men posited as immoral or undesirable – obsessive, controlling, jealous, backstabbing, etc. Misogynist stories like the tale of Medusa are a great example of men going in and fixing what women supposedly ruined.
I dare say that Islam (which most people won’t acknowledge is based on Judeo-Christian tradition) takes the misogyny to a new level. Funny how men keep evolving (oops not allowed to say that word! [sarcasm]) their god to be more and more hateful to women!
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I agree with you about the gods of the organised religions most people have in this age. Horribly masculine. I’m not sure if it’s consciously to oppress women, but it’s certainly a bi-product of men creating a god they think would be great i.e. them. I was wondering more what kind of creator entity the deist imagines – and if they need an actual picture to go with this in their minds. It’s sparked off an interesting angle on how differently people think for me – with some people clearly unable to think of things if they can’t attach a picture to it. I need to do some reading …
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Well I don’t know you from a bar of soap but I certainly don’t imagine you look like your Gravatar, and as you refuse to post a picture I have to conjure up an image….just like a deist would do.
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Sigh. But I’m a human and you have experience of seeing humans, which gives you a picture bank to guess from, especially based on comments about gender, age and place of origin. The deist has no experience of seeing gods, and rejects the forms that gods take in organised religion. Unless they are like you (A VISUAL THINKER) they have no need to conjure up an image of a creator that exists outside our physical reality.
Really, your obsession with visual is the equivalent of a deaf person insisting that a deist should know the timbre of their creator deity’s voice. “What does it sound like?? If you can’t say what it sounds like then how can you imagine it?” We all use our senses differently, and we all process thoughts and concepts in different ways. I’m confused you can’t recognise that. You’re a very closed thinker if you can’t see that. No offense. 🙂
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To attribute creative powers to a ‘thing’ which has no form or no qualities to relate to in context of it’s ability to create carbon based life forms is like saying i believe in a Nothing and it can make stuff.
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Don’t be ridiculous. “I believe something outside our material universe created everything we see and experience, but I have no idea what form it takes.” is perfectly valid. Although it can certainly be argued that the fact that there is no evidence to suggest such a thing exists makes it a ridiculous assertion, the lack of detail regarding it’s physical form is neither here nor there.
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I’m fed up with this already. Write a new post.
And pick a topic that you as a woman can discuss rationally. But nothing to do with dishes or nappies or stuff.
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Oh, you poor angry little man with a blinkered mind. The Christians are right about you. 🙂
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They never said ANYTHING about my good looks
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Your wish is my command. Duly posted.
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Reblogged this on paarsurrey and commented:
Paarsurrey says:
“we have to acknowledge that any existence outside of this universe is beyond our comprehension”
I agree with the above.
The truthful religion describes it like this:
[39:68] And they do not esteem Allah, with the esteem that is due to Him. And the whole earth will be but His handful on the Day of Resurrection, and the heavens will be rolled up in His right hand. Glory to Him and exalted is He above that which they associate with Him.
http://www.alislam.org/quran/search2/showChapter.php?ch=39&verse=67
Thanks
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Pingback: what would a god look like? | paarsurrey
I would like to quote here from the secure and pristine Word of the one true God:
[42:12] He is the Maker of the heavens and the earth. He has made for you pairs of your own selves, and of the cattle also He has made pairs. He multiplies you therein. There is nothing whatever like unto Him; and He is the All-Hearing, the All-Seeing.
http://www.alislam.org/quran/search2/showChapter.php?ch=42&verse=11
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Do you mind if I quote from my copy?
[3:4] As for those who disbelieve in God’s signs, for them awaits a terrible chastisement; God is All-mighty, Vengeful.
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I would like to quote the verse with the verses in the context:
[3:1] In the name of Allah, the Gracious, the Merciful.
[3:2] Alif Lam Mim.
[3:3] Allah is He beside Whom there is no God, the Living, the Self-Subsisting and All-Sustaining.
[3:4] He has sent down to thee the Book containing the truth and fulfilling that which precedes it; and He sent down the Torah and the Gospel
[3:5] Before this, as a guidance to the people; and He has sent down the Discrimination. Surely, those who deny the Signs of Allah shall have a severe punishment. And Allah is Mighty, Possessor of the power to requite.
[3:6] Surely, nothing in the earth or in the heaven is hidden from Allah.
[3:7] He it is Who fashions you in the wombs as He wills; there is no God but He, the Mighty, the Wise.
[3:8] He it is Who has sent down to thee the Book; in it there are verses that are decisive in meaning — they are the basis of the Book — and there are others that are susceptible of different interpretations. But those in whose hearts is perversity pursue such thereof as are susceptible of different interpretations, seeking discord and seeking wrong interpretation of it. And none knows its right interpretation except Allah and those who are firmly grounded in knowledge; they say, ‘We believe in it; the whole is from our Lord.’ — And none heed except those gifted with understanding. —
[3:9] ‘Our Lord, let not our hearts become perverse after Thou hast guided us; and bestow on us mercy from Thyself; surely, Thou alone art the Bestower.
[3:10] ‘Our Lord, Thou wilt certainly assemble mankind together on the Day about which there is no doubt; surely, Allah breaks not His promise.’
http://www.alislam.org/quran/search2/showChapter.php?ch=3
I don’t see anything objectionable in the verse/s.
If somebody has any valid objection; that person should mention the objection and prove his viewpoint from the verses in the context.
Thanks
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I don’t think there’s anything gracious or merciful in the notion of an all-powerful deity that creates sentient beings in order to punish them. Furthermore, I don’t think there’s anything gracious or merciful in the notion of punishment for any creature. It’s a psychologically defunct strategy – it has no intelligent purpose.
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When I was a kid I used to imagine God as a fat genie-like guy. Shirtless with pants that were held up by a rope belt.
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Either like Gandalk, Yul Brynner, or Mean Joe Green.
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I’m assuming that’s Gandalf because Gandalk is really too obscure. Why all men? God the lady god is a much more distinct possibility, although Yul Brynner is a nice thought.
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