Why is it common for religious people to think that God is “up there”? Why is God associated with the sky?
In: Culture
There’s no such thing as a “new” religion – every religion is just an offshoot of the one before it. As a result, you have to absorb, tweak and spin the practices and stories from the previous religion(s) you’re absorbing into your new one.
Islam has to deal with it’s predecessors (Christianity and Judaism) so the Quoran has whole passages that are basically pulled from the bible, or about biblical figures. That’s just a recent example.
If we go back really far, Christian-Judeo-Islamic religions all sort of started from a similar area, and they had religions that gave spiritual significance to the objects in the sky. It makes sense, the Sun is necessary for life, the moon is equally as large (from perspective) and it’s easy to start giving stories to the other points of light up there. You see this in almost all religions. It follows that the gods would be “up there” where they could see us.
This just is so ingrained that it went from literally the stars being the gods to god just being up there. As we explored the heavens (with telescopes, then later space craft), it became euphemistic and stayed ingrained.
Hinduism and Budhism are two interesting exceptions: believing God(s) live in everything around us (as well as in the skies).
Latest Answers