Eros: A Valentine's Day Gift

For most of my believing life, probably the #1 reason I believed in God was that I thought I felt him. That was my "proof." But what had really happened, of course, was that I felt feelings that I was told came from God. Once I realized that God was not necessarily the source of these special feelings, I was eventually able to drop him... and still have the feelings, of course.

Now, think of when you've felt romantic love: maybe especially as a very young person feeling it for the first time or (especially especially) as a teenager. Then imagine your parents or priests or whoever swooping in and telling you, "That's Eros you're feeling. He has hit you with one of his gold-tipped arrows, and now you are uncontrollably in love with this person until the poison wears off." This authority figure might even follow up with, "And I'm sorry if the person you love doesn't return the affection. It probably just means that Eros has hit that person with one of his lead-tipped arrows."

We can all see the ridiculousness of these statements, since we're now taught Greek mythology in high school (mythology here meaning, of course -- as Joseph Campbell quipped -- "other people's religion") and can easily recognize the allegorical nature of the mythological characters. It's especially easy to see metaphor in Greek mythology when the gods have names like Ocean, Night, Sleep, and Death or when they're gods "of" something (of war, of wisdom, etc.). It's a little more difficult in the Abrahamic system when all of these nicely-divided deities become lumped into one male figure who eventually becomes so powerful that not only is he "a god," but his name actually becomes God.

So, back when I was feeling "God feelings," those feelings could have been anything since God is everything. God is love, after all, but he's also a jealous god, an angry god, a god of mercy, a god of righteousness, and whatever else. He's a shepherd and a king and a rock and a father and even a mother hen. No matter what I did or felt or experienced, God could be blamed for it.