Spirited Arts 2024
Konstantina
Age 14
| Ipswich School |
How do we envisage God
In my artwork I have made two paths going in opposite directions. The path on the left leads to religion. I have made a girl, reading the bible to show that she is religious and believes in God. Next to her, a pile of books about religion are stacked up. I have made books that are manmade, to represent how religion was made by humans. All evidence supporting god's existence is man made. Humans wrote the bible and came up with the creation story so I don't believe we should place our faith there.
On the other side, the path going to the right leads to another girl. This girl is holding a telescope and looking into space. She represents atheism. She cannot see anything other than planets and stars, so she doesn't believe in God because she has no empirical evidence to support his existence.
The paths represent how society makes us decide between being religious or being an atheist with no in between but I totally disagree with that. I believe that the stereotypical God of Christianity doesn't exist and was simply made by us to give us some comfort as to what is our cause and the reason we exist. It offers us support and motivation to know there is something beyond, after life. Religion simplifies our existence (e.g. God created us as the perfect beings, and we are here because of him). However, I don't think it is really that simple and we appeared in this world by chance. There must be a greater reason we just cannot prove or know at all.
In the middle of the artwork, I have drawn a more abstract shape to represent this greater power I think is out there, which caused the big bang and was the first cause.
I don't think we were created by a God, but I think there is a greater power that has caused us to exist. For me God isn't the person in the Bible but just a word representing this greater power we just cannot understand and will never truly do. It's too large for us to even try to simplify. Additionally, I don't think this power is personal and I don't think the universe revolves around humans due to the problem of evil.
Firstly, if God existed and he was omnibenevolent and omnipotent he would stop evil, but it somehow still exists meaning he hasn't gotten rid of it which leads us to think he is either not all powerful. and he can't get rid of it or not all loving and doesn't want to (the inconsistent triad) Also the fact that there is so much unproportionate evil in the world like natural disasters and war that just cannot be justified in my opinion by religion and a perfect God (evidential problem of evil). In contrast I believe that we are just a small part of the universe which is too big for us to understand.
That's why we create religion; to explain things we can't really explain.
Therefore, in my painting I present God as being a greater power nobody can understand somewhere outside of the earth. Too far away and too impersonal.
