There's a two-line joke that packs a punch. It generates a smile of slight recognition at first, then too much recognition, and a "Hey, wait a minute."
Here it is: "In the beginning God created man in his own image. Ten minutes later, man returned the favor."
...and we've been creating God in our own image ever since.
Generally speaking, what we think about God says far more about what we're like than it does about what God's like.
Ex-Roman Catholic priest Matthew Fox reminds us that "people who worship a punitive father are themselves punitive," and, "God the Punitive father is not a God worth honoring but a false god and an idol that serves empire-builders. The notion of a punitive, all-male God, is contrary to the full nature of the Godhead who is as much female and motherly as masculine and fatherly."
God is the Ultimate Mystery and, therefore, like a blank canvas upon which humans project aspects of their own selves.
The opening line of the ancient book of wisdom, The Tao Te Ching, is among the most profound statements about the Ultimate Mystery I know. It reads: "The God that can be described [by a finite human brain] is not the infinite God."
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