Metaphorical Gods Vs. Reality/God

Rev. Michael Dowd

Evolutionary Evangelist Michael Dowd has a very good essay titled “Metaphorical gods vs. Reality/God” and I encourage you to go read it. Understand that he is mainly writing for Christians and he is primarily trying to show that evolution is not incompatible with their religion (unless, of course, you’re a fundamentalist who insists on reading the Bible literally – then there’s no hope for you).

I’ve found Michael Dowd’s books and presentations to be enlightening, interesting, and even inspiring. I think his concept of God (or as Pagans would express it, Goddess and God) as “Ultimate Reality” and “the largest Creative Whole” are honest and good. I think his comment that “God is more than the universe” is also correct, and not just because there is so much about the universe we don’t know. I think the work he and his partner/wife Connie Barlow are doing is truly sacred.

But while there is nothing in anything he writes that I would challenge, I’m still struck with the same feeling I had listening to Davidson Loehr – where’s the room for religious experience?

I don’t expect Christians (or Muslims or Buddhists or atheists or even other Pagans) to accept my “subjectively meaningful interpretations” (to use Dowd’s phrase) as objective fact. But for me, they are more than metaphors – much much more.

Metaphorical Gods vs. Reality/God