stvdv
Veteran Member: I Share (not Debate) my POV
God's human qualities
Human's divine qualities
Maybe not so much difference
But I also decided to stay on topic
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Assigning Human Qualities to God
- Thread starter SalixIncendium
- Start date
Human's divine qualities
Maybe not so much difference
But I also decided to stay on topic
What I do, and I was allowed into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints this way, is I pick things that are God that are not human, things that are God that are human, and then call them all the one God.
Namaste
Many points. Let's address one by one.
1. "Thinking requires brain"
This I will split into 2 parts - for individual restricted consciousness and God-consciousness
(i) Individual consciousness: This is being refuted (that thinking or feeling requires brain), as consciousness can be disembodied and embody compassion, justice etc.
If you and I have these concepts, where did they come from? What is stopping Brahman' from expressing the purest concepts?
(ii) However, God knows, rather than thinks. Since knows (omniscient), the process of thinking from point a to b in time is almost non-existent. If it is observed, then that is LeelA (pronounced leelaa).
We will come back to this point later.
----------------------------
2. "YHWH is jealous." - This is a LeelA. It does not mean YHWH is intrinsically jealous and trapped by human emotions. No. That is absurd!
(VishNu is not jealous by the way. VishNu is an-asUya, and likes those who are an-asUya. Different Leela , different method.)
If I cannot relate to this emotion called jealousy as a human, how do you think God would actually be jealous? That is absurd isn't it? Also, there is a gulf of a difference between this low human emotion called jealousy and God's feigned jealousy.
That means jealousy is a Leela and a tool used by God to convey and require compliance for the good of the people.
"Do this or face my wrath." "Thou shalt have no gods before thee." -- The YHWH-God said that to the Jews, the selected people, because He cared about them and this was His method because He knew the subjects present there at the time better than anything.
Transgressing His commands and getting distracted to worship a different aspect of Him or to worship maya as an excuse or espcape, will not be good for their spiritual well-being, so YHWH did not want to leave them at their fate by being lenient. So He decided to be strict.
Faking jealousy was the safety net He used to get them to eat their spinach and carrots without
any mischief, digression or distraction.
Had he not faked jealousy, they would demand candy in place of spinach, towards their doom.
This is what we call Leela in the Eternal Dharma.
---------------
3. Anger.
Some said righteous anger is good. At the level of God, righteous anger is also a Leela, because even the righteous anger is not intrinsic to God's (or Brahman's Being)
A leela to keep things in order.
e.g. NarsimHa avatar used anger as a tool to put the wicked HiraNyakashyapu to an end (finally) and save dear little Prahlad! and the rest of the citizens there as a result.
Rudra uses "anger" as a tool to annhiliate aspects of creation that are past due their turn to get annhiliated. The same Rudra cries pools of tears for the suffering people!
Take it as you wish -- poetic, Leela, but guess what, God is all-poetry! You will get tired of sorting out poetry from God as it is an endless and not a wise task.
Krishna says, BG 4.7 : I descend era after era, whenever their is decline in righteousness, in dharma, and increase in unrighteousness, adharma, to annhiliate the miscreants, and to protect the saints and the good ones.
On rare occasion, He "charges" Himself with anger as a tool to keep order. Borrowed Rajas to rock the boat of vishuddha sattva. If that was not the case, would Krishna stay cool, indifferent, unaffected through ShishupAl's 100 insults?
Out of control or impulsive anger of humans for the sake of the ego, is nowhere close to God's anger.
-------------------------------------------
4. Pure divine emotions - loving, compassionate, being pleased by devotion, etc.
Yes, God adopts these. If you know that deep inside all humans are "God-beings" or "godly", then you have answered your own question!
However, let's for a moment leave aside the godly that have been a human at some point.
AvatAr has 9 to 16 kalaas (if 16 = whole, the level of spiritual goodness is measured in kalA, fraction) , while ordinary humans have 1 ,2 not more than 5 kalAs. Saints have 6,7,8 kalaas.
Krishna was said to have 16 kalaas - pUrNa Brahman.
Why are you putting restrictions on Brahman' by saying Brahman' CANNOT think, feel compassion, love, care, motivated to reach, etc.
If that was the case, this world would never come into existence.
Brahman can do what Brahman' can/wants.
Infinite Leela. The Leela of being "bound" by devotees. The Leela of playing "hungry for love from devotees" Why? Does God need food or love ? Butter?
This is His TOOL, trick , mechanism to keep you engaged in devotion. For your own good!
5. God wants xxx to happen, or wants xxx.
Again, you know better than that! Brahman is AtmArAm -- Self-Contained, Self-Fulfilled.
Has no desires apart from what flows from It naturally -- i.e. sarga -- creation.
Once created, a form of Brahman' that was manifested for your good, wants what is good for you.
This is where the "want" comes in.
Again, God "wants" is a Leela & tool to fulfill the proceedings of existence.
----------
Brahman the sat-chit-Ananda has infinite freedom to express the next stage !
Anytime and every time. "Sky" is the limit for Brahman'. Love, protect, nurture, punish, discipline, teach, love, protect, watch out for, inspire, help, support, unite, separate, create, destroy, rejuvenate, empower, motivate, facilitate, drive, lull to sleep and wake up.
And yet! I have told you already that I do not take upon Myself the karma of individuals!
Through all of this I am Sat. I am Chit. I am Ananda.
I am the Lotus Leaf that does not get drenched in the water nor the mud.
Many points. Let's address one by one.
1. "Thinking requires brain"
This I will split into 2 parts - for individual restricted consciousness and God-consciousness
(i) Individual consciousness: This is being refuted (that thinking or feeling requires brain), as consciousness can be disembodied and embody compassion, justice etc.
If you and I have these concepts, where did they come from? What is stopping Brahman' from expressing the purest concepts?
(ii) However, God knows, rather than thinks. Since knows (omniscient), the process of thinking from point a to b in time is almost non-existent. If it is observed, then that is LeelA (pronounced leelaa).
We will come back to this point later.
----------------------------
2. "YHWH is jealous." - This is a LeelA. It does not mean YHWH is intrinsically jealous and trapped by human emotions. No. That is absurd!
(VishNu is not jealous by the way. VishNu is an-asUya, and likes those who are an-asUya. Different Leela , different method.)
If I cannot relate to this emotion called jealousy as a human, how do you think God would actually be jealous? That is absurd isn't it? Also, there is a gulf of a difference between this low human emotion called jealousy and God's feigned jealousy.
That means jealousy is a Leela and a tool used by God to convey and require compliance for the good of the people.
"Do this or face my wrath." "Thou shalt have no gods before thee." -- The YHWH-God said that to the Jews, the selected people, because He cared about them and this was His method because He knew the subjects present there at the time better than anything.
Transgressing His commands and getting distracted to worship a different aspect of Him or to worship maya as an excuse or espcape, will not be good for their spiritual well-being, so YHWH did not want to leave them at their fate by being lenient. So He decided to be strict.
Faking jealousy was the safety net He used to get them to eat their spinach and carrots without
any mischief, digression or distraction.
Had he not faked jealousy, they would demand candy in place of spinach, towards their doom.
This is what we call Leela in the Eternal Dharma.
---------------
3. Anger.
Some said righteous anger is good. At the level of God, righteous anger is also a Leela, because even the righteous anger is not intrinsic to God's (or Brahman's Being)
A leela to keep things in order.
e.g. NarsimHa avatar used anger as a tool to put the wicked HiraNyakashyapu to an end (finally) and save dear little Prahlad! and the rest of the citizens there as a result.
Rudra uses "anger" as a tool to annhiliate aspects of creation that are past due their turn to get annhiliated. The same Rudra cries pools of tears for the suffering people!
Take it as you wish -- poetic, Leela, but guess what, God is all-poetry! You will get tired of sorting out poetry from God as it is an endless and not a wise task.
Krishna says, BG 4.7 : I descend era after era, whenever their is decline in righteousness, in dharma, and increase in unrighteousness, adharma, to annhiliate the miscreants, and to protect the saints and the good ones.
On rare occasion, He "charges" Himself with anger as a tool to keep order. Borrowed Rajas to rock the boat of vishuddha sattva. If that was not the case, would Krishna stay cool, indifferent, unaffected through ShishupAl's 100 insults?
Out of control or impulsive anger of humans for the sake of the ego, is nowhere close to God's anger.
-------------------------------------------
4. Pure divine emotions - loving, compassionate, being pleased by devotion, etc.
Yes, God adopts these. If you know that deep inside all humans are "God-beings" or "godly", then you have answered your own question!
However, let's for a moment leave aside the godly that have been a human at some point.
AvatAr has 9 to 16 kalaas (if 16 = whole, the level of spiritual goodness is measured in kalA, fraction) , while ordinary humans have 1 ,2 not more than 5 kalAs. Saints have 6,7,8 kalaas.
Krishna was said to have 16 kalaas - pUrNa Brahman.
Why are you putting restrictions on Brahman' by saying Brahman' CANNOT think, feel compassion, love, care, motivated to reach, etc.
If that was the case, this world would never come into existence.
Brahman can do what Brahman' can/wants.
Infinite Leela. The Leela of being "bound" by devotees. The Leela of playing "hungry for love from devotees" Why? Does God need food or love ? Butter?
This is His TOOL, trick , mechanism to keep you engaged in devotion. For your own good!
5. God wants xxx to happen, or wants xxx.
Again, you know better than that! Brahman is AtmArAm -- Self-Contained, Self-Fulfilled.
Has no desires apart from what flows from It naturally -- i.e. sarga -- creation.
Once created, a form of Brahman' that was manifested for your good, wants what is good for you.
This is where the "want" comes in.
Again, God "wants" is a Leela & tool to fulfill the proceedings of existence.
----------
Brahman the sat-chit-Ananda has infinite freedom to express the next stage !
Anytime and every time. "Sky" is the limit for Brahman'. Love, protect, nurture, punish, discipline, teach, love, protect, watch out for, inspire, help, support, unite, separate, create, destroy, rejuvenate, empower, motivate, facilitate, drive, lull to sleep and wake up.
And yet! I have told you already that I do not take upon Myself the karma of individuals!
Through all of this I am Sat. I am Chit. I am Ananda.
I am the Lotus Leaf that does not get drenched in the water nor the mud.
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I find it more reassuring to assign godly qualities to humans. For example, believing that God is good and loving, we should try to be like him.
Unveiled Artist
Veteran Member
I don't know if this relates to the topic. I'm a bit uncomfortable using the word god; I see and experience it differently. However, this topic of human attributes makes me curious.
With that in mind, if a person assigns human attributes to their god and, I assume, their god is unknowable (I assume?), how does one know those attributes are represent god?
Are there some god-religions that god is actually knowable through attributes like symbolism, objects, statues, and such or are these things attributes to god but is not god itself?
In other words, are the attributes god or if they do describe god, how does one derive the attributes that align with god-and how do they know?
(Assuming, for a minute, this refers to all paradigms rather than just one)
With that in mind, if a person assigns human attributes to their god and, I assume, their god is unknowable (I assume?), how does one know those attributes are represent god?
Are there some god-religions that god is actually knowable through attributes like symbolism, objects, statues, and such or are these things attributes to god but is not god itself?
In other words, are the attributes god or if they do describe god, how does one derive the attributes that align with god-and how do they know?
(Assuming, for a minute, this refers to all paradigms rather than just one)
Hi
1. From the scriptures. That is the most direct way. People do not randomly project either petty or good emotions on their Deity. Same is the case with the Bible. Bible is a scripture. Written by humans, inspired by God.
In the same way, other religions also have scripture that describe God. Some are more detailed than others.
2. From direct divine experience, from devotion and spirituality. God reciprocates to devotion.
This is also part of how scriptures describe the Divine. Poetic and experience of saints also adds to it.
3. History. Divine history related to earth as well as revealed divine history is recorded in scriptures.
4. In the Eternal Dharma that Hinduism is, we understand that God descends here as an avatAr, leads an exemplary life, sets examples, teaches, protects, shields, rectifies what has gone wrong, and unmanifests.
Not all avatArs manifest fully 100% God, and the variations in avatArs is because of the need of the time.
---
At the absolute level, Brahman' does not take on qualifiers.
At the same time, Brahman' is a repository of infinite all-auspicious divine qualities and goodness. So, Brahman' has roles to play, simultaneously.
When God gives, or makes a resolve, His goodness is of a much larger magnitude than what humans can generally comprehend. Sometimes He gives Himself!
When a couple performed austerities and prayed for years to get a godly son "just like VishNu" , VishNu finally acknowledged their penance, and said He will be their son since there is none in the entire existence that is like Him. And not just once, He decided to be their son 3 times, in 3 different eras! They never asked for 3 sons.
Similarly, He holds people to high standards, and seldom responds.
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Unveiled Artist
Veteran Member
I wish I could converse more, but Hinduism and Hindu concepts are foreign. I get it on a surface level but not insofar the language and people's personal interpretations are concerned.
Only my example was based on Hindu Dharma. The 4 points were in plain English and not specific to a religion.
It clearly says that scripture, divine experience, spirituality, devotion, meditation, contemplation, history, revelations and because of God's appearance as avatArs (descent), one can know or get glimpses of the nature of God.
Unless your questions were mere rhetoric or alluding to 'personal whim' - which is not the case. We do not invent God. We carry the God-substance deep within us. In whatever miniscule degree that is visible, that helps cognize and understand.
Yes.
Gods are anthromorphisms; that's the whole point. A god is a construct that humans use to relate to the otherwise unrelatable. Human characteristics are key to a god being relatable.
I approach it from the other direction: it's inevitable that God is anthromorphic; the presumptuousness comes in assuming that God exists.
Because God is a creation of humans who have desire, IMO.
Because humans have egos, IMO.
I'm not sure that "God" and "plausible" belong in the same sentence together, but for discussion's sake: can you tell us more about this hypothetical God that has no human qualities?
Unveiled Artist
Veteran Member
I don't believe so. I had to read your post a couple of times to get what the context of your post.
I'm not sure what you mean by god other than the attributes you use to describe it. I'm also not familiar with avatars.
It sounds like you already have an agenda of what I mean, my intentions, and what type of questions you think I may ask. That's not a good start of a conversation.
Instead of assuming (I have no religious background), please ask.
No. It was simply by reading your post(s).
Also, I said unless your post #46 was like a statement, then that is a different story.
Other than that I only answered.
---
The main thing is that we are made-of-God. We are not humans, we are in or have a human body. So that helps connect to the Divine Whole. This is why I said we do not invent God , but our nature and God nature is slowly revealed.
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Unveiled Artist
Veteran Member
Post 47? I just meant I don't know much other than surface level on Hindu concepts (like Brahma, Avatars, etc in your post) to discuss it in full. I'm not sure where the last paragraph of your post was referring to.
It doesn't sound like this convo will be productive.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
I do not assign human qualities to God because that is anthropomorphism and that is not what my religion teaches. Regarding a personal God, this is what the Baha'i Faith teaches:
While the Baháʼí writings teach of a personal god who is a being with a personality (including the capacity to reason and to feel love), they clearly state that this does not imply a human or physical form.[2] Shoghi Effendi writes:
What is meant by personal God is a God Who is conscious of His creation, Who has a Mind, a Will, a Purpose, and not, as many scientists and materialists believe, an unconscious and determined force operating in the universe. Such conception of the Divine Being, as the Supreme and ever present Reality in the world, is not anthropomorphic, for it transcends all human limitations and forms, and does by no means attempt to define the essence of Divinity which is obviously beyond any human comprehension. To say that God is a personal Reality does not mean that He has a physical form, or does in any way resemble a human being. To entertain such belief would be sheer blasphemy.[15][16]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_in_the_Bahai Faith
I do not believe that God thinks the same way that humans think but I believe that God has a mind and a will, like humans do.
However, the Mind of God and the Will of God are not like a human mind or a human will.
I do not believe that God has wants and desires the same way humans have wants and desires but I believe that God has wants and desires. I believe that because it is in the Writings of Baha’u’llah. I will spare you all the passages because I know you don’t like them, but the following short passage should be sufficient.
“He Who is your Lord, the All-Merciful, cherisheth in His heart the desire of beholding the entire human race as one soul and one body. Haste ye to win your share of God’s good grace and mercy in this Day that eclipseth all other created Days. How great the felicity that awaiteth the man that forsaketh all he hath in a desire to obtain the things of God! Such a man, We testify, is among God’s blessed ones.” Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 214
I do not believe that God gets angry the same way that humans get angry (which may or may not be a product of ego), but I believe that God gets really angry, because it says in the Bible that God has wrath and Baha’u’llah reiterated that. This is the shortest passage I could find to make my point as I think wrath needs to be understood within a context:
“Say: There is no place of refuge for you, no asylum to which ye can flee, no one to defend or to protect you in this Day from the fury of the wrath of God and from His vehement power, unless and until ye seek the shadow of His Revelation. This, indeed, is His Revelation which hath been manifested unto you in the person of this Youth. Glorified, then, be God for so effulgent, so precious, so wondrous a vision.” Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 257
Again, I do not believe that God has any human qualities but I believe that God has certain attributes because that is what my religion teaches. However, it also teaches that God is “sanctified above all attributes and holy above all names.” The sum of the list of all the attributes we can think of is still just a vague picture of a transcendent being that will forever be unknowable in its essence.
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In Advaita Vedanta, Nirguna Brahman is considered to be the highest divine principle. It is without form or attributes.
I think that's part and parcel, actually, of why the Torah describes God as the One who simply "Is" (YHWH - 'I will be what I will be', 'I AM THAT IS'), precisely because He does not have attributes pertaining to anything that can be described.
It is thus taken as the unconditioned basis of reality – of absolutely everything that is – so one can’t say that God "exists" in the sense that I or Mount Kilimanjaro or photons exist. God is, rather, what grounds the existence of every contingent thing, making it possible, giving actuality: "the possibility of anything existing at all" to quote the Eastern Orthodox scholar David Bentley Hart.
The medieval Dominican friar and Catholic mystic Meister Eckhart (c. 1260 – c. 1328) wrote:
"God wants us to know one thing, that there is no ‘god’... When all images are detached from the soul and she sees nothing but the one alone, then the naked essence of the soul finds the naked, formless essence of the divine unity, the superessential being, passive, reposing in itself...
God works beyond being, in the unconditioned, where He can move. He works in nonbeing. Before ever there was being, God was working. He created being where there was no being...If I were to call God a being it would be as wrong as to say that the sun is white or black. God is neither this nor that.” (Sermon XCIX (83)).
God works beyond being, in the unconditioned, where He can move. He works in nonbeing. Before ever there was being, God was working. He created being where there was no being...If I were to call God a being it would be as wrong as to say that the sun is white or black. God is neither this nor that.” (Sermon XCIX (83)).
As one commentator wrote on his theology:
“Eckhart’s experiences are deeply, basically, abundantly rooted in God as Being which is at once being and non-being: he sees in the ‘meanest’ thing among God’s creatures all the glories of his is-ness (isticheit)."
(D. T. Suzuki, Mysticism Christian and Buddhist)
(D. T. Suzuki, Mysticism Christian and Buddhist)
Comparatively in a non-theist context, I'm thinking of that passage from Udāna 8: Pāṭaligāmiyavaggo in the Pali Canon, where the Buddha is speaking about Nibbana as the unconditioned that does not arise depending on mutable conditions like feelings, transient emotional states, mental formations etc. (a ceaseless cycle of becoming) but rather is a supreme state transcendent to the order of mundane experience and phenomenal existence, precisely because it is not produced by causes and conditions and so cannot be "applied to things with attributes we can describe":
"There is, monks, an unborn, unbecome, unmade, unconditioned. If, monks there were not that unborn, unbecome, unmade, unconditioned, you could not know an escape here from the born, become, made, and conditioned. But because there is an unborn, unbecome, unmade, unconditioned, therefore you do know an escape from the born, become, made, and conditioned.”
Compare a church father describing the nature of God:
CHURCH FATHERS: On the Trinity, Book V (St. Augustine)
"We know, or at any rate firmly believe and hold, that whatever is said of a nature, unchangeable, invisible and having life absolutely and sufficient to itself, must not be measured after the custom of things visible, and changeable, and mortal, or not self-sufficient. But although we labor, and yet fail, to grasp and know even those things which are within the scope of our corporeal senses, or what we are ourselves in the inner man; yet it is with no shamelessness that faithful piety burns after those divine and unspeakable things which are above...
He is, however, without doubt, a substance, or, if it be better so to call it, an essence, which the Greeks call οὐσία . For as wisdom is so called from the being wise, and knowledge from knowing; so from being comes that which we call essence. And who is there that is, more than He who said to His servant Moses, "I am that I am" and, Thus shall you say unto the children of Israel, He who is has sent me unto you? But other things that are called essences or substances admit of accidents, whereby a change, whether great or small, is produced in them. But there can be no accident of this kind in respect to God; and therefore 'He who is', God, is the only unchangeable substance or essence, to whom certainly being itself, whence comes the name of essence, most especially and most truly belongs.
For that which is changed does not retain its own being; and that which can be changed, although it be not actually changed, is able not to be that which it had been; and hence that which not only is not changed, but also cannot at all be changed, alone falls most truly, without difficulty or hesitation, under the category of being .
That which is accidental commonly implies that it can be lost by some change of the thing to which it is an accident. For although some accidents are said to be inseparable, which in Greek are called 7χ8ριστα, as the color black is to the feather of a raven; yet the feather loses that color, not indeed so long as it is a feather, but because the feather is not always. Wherefore the matter itself is changeable; and whenever that animal or that feather ceases to be, and the whole of that body is changed and turned into earth, it loses certainly that.
Therefore there is nothing accidental in God, because there is nothing changeable or that may be lost.
For all things are accidents to them, which can be either lost or diminished, whether magnitudes or qualities; and so also is that which is said in relation to something, as friendships, relationships, services, likenesses, equalities, and anything else of the kind; so also positions and conditions, places and times, acts and passions. But in God nothing is said to be according to accident, because in Him nothing is changeable; and yet everything that is said, is not said, according to substance"
(St. Augustine of Hippo (354 – 430), Book V De Trinitate)
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Yes, this is parmArtha. Within parmArtha also, Brahman' has "ananta kalyAN guNa" (infinite divine qualities of all-auspicious goodness) in dormant form.
Otherwise how can SaguN come from NirguN (while at the same time remaining NirguN)?
Whether you call it mAyA or not, the pure-saguN is dormant in nirguN.
We can stay (abide) in parmArtha, that is great and good for you if you do! but we are simultaneously saguN in potential form.
OR
Brahman' has the potential to be saguN. When this potential reveals itself, that is when we can see the divine qualities.
While this was directed at Salix, I think Anatheism is a good word to describe it. It's derived from the Greek ana and theos meaning ‘above or beyond God’, as opposed to atheism (literally 'without God', whereas ana is about going beyond it but not rejecting it).
Meister Eckhart is recorded as having famously said: “God wants us to know one thing, that there is no ‘god’” and "Let us pray to God that we may be free of God".
The reason for this 'anatheism' is that the apophatic mystics distinguished the eternal and "super-essential" mode of being - conventionally called, in ordinary parlance, 'God' - from conditioned existence (because it is 'unconditioned Being' and created things are conditioned).
When Socrates spoke in the Platonic Dialogues of "the God", he was referring to another philosophical conception about the ground of existence, quite distinct in his mind from his references to "gods" such as Zeus or Saturn, with their humanlike qualities.
On the contrary, since every concept or image we could form in our minds of this Being is derived, by analogy, from 'conditioned things' - it's really impossible for any creature to properly conceive of the divine essence as It is or would be in and to Itself.
But the 'belief' (in all forms of theism and deism, even those of the Ignostic or Anatheist variety) remains, nonetheless, that such an eternal, unconditioned and illimitable mode of 'supreme being' - even though it is far beyond the ken of our homo sapien intellect, supremely 'alien' to us - is still necessary for explaining why there is something rather than nothing, indeed why we have a conditioned and transient cosmos at all.
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And you consider "Nirguna Brahman" to be God?
Your link suggests to me that Nirguna Brahman can't be conceived and has no attributes. Is this correct?
Yazata
Active Member
I don't.
Because to the extent that I think of 'God' at all, it's as whatever the ultimate source, ground, basis or explanation of reality itself might be. First cause, ground of being, source of cosmic order and so on. The answer to 'Why is there something instead of nothing?' That's a very abstract and philosophical sort of concept derived from metaphysics and natural theology I guess.
And I just have trouble imagining the ultimate principle of all of reality, of the entire cosmos, as being a person in the human psychological sense. That strikes me as anthropomorphism, as an example of human beings imagining God in our own image. Puffing ourselves and our own cosmic importance up really large.
I don't.
But I suppose that one of the reasons why so many people prefer personal deities is that it makes it easier for human beings to relate emotionally to them. We form emotional attachments more easily with people than with abstract concepts.
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The Baha’i perspective views Gods as being an unknowable essence, transcendent above any human conception. The finite mind can not grasp the infinite. All anthropomorphisms used to describe God are metaphorical.