General Discussion

This representation is merely a cartoon shortcut expressing some of the pitfalls of this sort of Creationist or Intelligent Design theory, or a God actively involved involved in human affairs.

The same sort of cartoon might be done with talking galaxies, as in the beginning of It's a Wonderful Life.

Would that depiction bother you any less?

My own mental image of the universe and my own religion are unconventional. I'm a scientist especially interested in evolutionary biology. I don't have many problems with big numbers. A universe with just under 14 billion years of visibility doesn't bother me a whole lot, even if it makes me, myself, very, very small. Furthermore, I'm certain time does not exist as we comprehend it. Time is merely a useful calculating shortcut that our sort of biology stumbled upon while surfing the great wave front. Time is not an accurate representation of what the actual universe *IS* and this becomes painfully obvious at the scales of quantum physics. I'm fairly certain time travel in the Dr.Who sense is impossible, that faster-than-light-travel in the Star Trek sense is impossible, and that neither the "future" nor the "past" are anything more than some probabilities radiating out from any local present.

Wherever you go, there you are.

The religious heritage of my family is of Catholic heresy and pacifism, which is largely how my ancestors ended up in America. I had a very intense religious upbringing in various flavors of Christianity, in the intellectual Catholic tradition, or in intellectual rebuttals to that tradition, but unlike my mom I've never gotten myself kicked out of churches fighting with religious "authorities."

The community I live in is largely Catholic and liberal. We raised our children Catholic, but this was largely without friction here. In conservative communities, where the Priests and Bishops are often as enlightening as a bag of hammers, I probably wouldn't be welcome at Mass.

My mom wanted to be a nun until she met a leering, smoking, drinking, not-so-smart priest. Then she met my dad, they had many children Catholic style, she as a Jehovah's Witness. (That church celebrated having a mess of kids too.) But my mom couldn't stay out of politics, both inside the Kingdom Hall, and outside in the secular world, so we were literally excluded, bouncers at the doors style. Then we were Quakers. My mom could speak out as she pleased, other Friends would nod their heads respectfully, and life would go on.

I grew up as a weird kid who sat out the flag salute in school and knew the Bible.

I don't have any trouble at all "flying without a net" as Warpy describes above.