Homocentricity or Anthropocentrism
Why Do Religions Think Humanity Is Central to God?

Homocentrism is the attribution of Human qualities to non-human beings, such as God. A homocentric cosmology is one that holds that the Universe was created and fine tuned for the creation of our species in particular. This page argues that the universe was not created just for us, we are not the centre of creation, a god with Human characteristics is an erroneous projection of the ego.

1. The Two Major Blows to Homocentricity
   1. We are Not the Center of the Universe
   2. Evolution Explains Life: No Special Intervention was Required
   3. Of All the Diversity of Nature, Why is Human Heterosexuality Divinely Sanctioned?
2. The Ego
3. Is Theism Caused By Pride?
4. Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence
5. Gods as Solipsistic Projections
   1. In Worldwide Religion
   2. In Christianity

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1. The Two Major Blows to Homocentricity

1.1. We are Not the Center of the Universe

The first blow to the homocentricity of classical religion came with the realisation that the Universe did not revolve around the Earth. After a while this ungodly belief was eventually accepted as the evidence was so far in its favour. Many theologians could cede this point without changing much of their theology. Organized religion, always the most prominent adversary to modern scientific discovery, eventually accepted it after a bitter battle. Other similar blows included the realisation that the orbits of the planets were not circular, but elliptical, and that the Earth was not a sphere, but more egg-shaped. The circular and spherical designs were approved by theologians because they were seen as perfect shapes, and God's creation is perfect. However, such beliefs were not essential parts of theistic beliefs and the more scientific theories came to be accepted. Battles continue to be fought over evolution.

Now, in the Universe there are billions of stars and galaxies, spread out over unimaginably huge distances. We occupy the tiniest part of the Universe. It seems ridiculous to imagine that the place of Humanity in the Universe is particularly special. If God created the Universe in order to house mankind then the actual scheme put in place in ludicrously inefficient. Not only is the Universe awesomely massive but the vast majority of it consists of intergalactic space that is all but empty, and most of every part of known reality is completely uninhabitable for Human Beings. There really is very little evidence that the Universe was fine-tuned for Humans.

1.2. Evolution Explains Life: No Special Intervention was Required

Life and consciousness can be described and explained with the laws of nature and statistics, without the need for any special creation. Eventually, too, this point was accepted by Western and modern religion. However the theists then arrived at a much more modern theology: That God planned the path of evolution precisely in order to produce the Human species. This theory is called intelligent design or creation science. The response to this is statistical: In any universe, of any time, with any fundamental laws, it is likely that over a vast period of time the particles of that Universe would combine in a self-duplicating manner and evolve into life forms. Every Universe would create different life, it happens that on this planet the life we know is the life that evolved. On other planets and in different Universes, the natural laws would have resulted in different life which had evolved to be suitable for that Universe, such is the nature of evolution, biology, chemistry and statistics. Without God being required to explain life, homocentric religion is committing an egotistical error.

1.3. Of All the Diversity of Nature, Why is Human Heterosexuality Divinely Sanctioned?

Traditional religions such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam give official sanction to male-female heterosexuality and to traditional gender roles; declaring marriage to be an act that holds cosmic importance, not just a way of formalising loving relationships in human cultures. Yet nature is full of diverse, weird and wonderful sexualities and genders. Homosexual behaviour, for example, is rife within the animal world. Many species do not have two genders. Is it rather a coincidence that us humans imagine that the divine creator happens to declare that common human sexuality is the norm? And is it not prideful, egotistical and strangely ignorant that some people even condemn all variants to hell? Surely better criteria has to do with the quality of love, the helpfulness and kindness of action, and the caring of others, regardless of gender and sexuality issues.

Newer religions are more cosmopolitan. Wicca, paganism, the new age movement, Satanism, and others, have all completely dropped ideas that divine powers have an interest in particular human sexualities.

• See: "The Battle Between Monotheism and Homosexuality" by Vexen Crabtree (2002)

2. The Ego

It makes no sense to think that God is interested in us as a species, more than any other species. The dinosaurs would have had every reason to imagine that the Universe was fine-tuned for them. The stars and moon to provide light at night, the sun to make the plants to grow, for food. The evidence is convincing that everything was designed, just for them. The same logical arguments would lead dinosaurs and Human theologians to the same conclusions: We are the species that God cares about! But how wrong the dinosaurs were! Given the success of insects such as ants, and reptiles, and bacteria, it is actually more likely that the Earth was built for them, not animals, and not Humans. Some bacteria can survive in space; and 99% of the Universe is pure, vast, empty space. To say that the Human species is central to creation is somewhat odd, given the vastness of the universe.

God could have created the Universe for Peanut Butter, using us as a tool to make it. We could be the tool it is using to produce a Super Computer with which God wants to play chess, and we are merely one of a set of disposable tools created along the way, soon to be discarded like the dinosaurs. Who knows?

Egocentricism is probably the primitive belief of many species throughout the Universe, until such a time as their science reveals its simplistic error. Anthropomorphic gods are a projection of our ego rather than a humble admission that we (as individuals and a species) are relatively unimportant when we consider our place in the massive Universe.

“Given the egocentrism that seems to characterize the human race, convincing people that the universe was designed with them in mind is as easy as convincing a child that candy is good for him.”

"Intelligent Design" by Victor J. Stenger

“If Christianity is true, mankind are not such pitiful worms as they seem to be; they are of interest to the Creator of the universe, who takes the trouble to be pleased with them when they behave well and displeased when they behave badly. This is a great compliment. [...] It is an even pleasanter compliment if He awards to the good among us everlasting happiness in heaven.”

"Why I am not a Christian" by Bertrand Russell (1957)

Others qualified in psychology and psychiatry such as Sigmund Freud, R.D. Laing₁, etc, have testified that God is a projection of the ego. In Experiences of God are Illusions I summarize two of the psychological causes of God belief under 'A Parent Figure' and 'Concept of Abstract Love'

• "Experiences of God are Illusions" by Vexen Crabtree (2002)

Our ego makes us want to feel special, wanted, watched and observed. We want to be punished when we do wrong, because we like to feel that our actions count. God provides an imaginary fulfillment of the role required by our ego; the position of a being that ratifies our importance in the world. The less important we feel ourselves to be, the more this God can assert itself. In angst and powerlessness, people find comfort in a personal "realisation" that actually everything is ok, they are not worthless, because God cares for them. Some turn to God to fill a hole created in our heads by an impoverished ego, filling them with a sense of importance.

3. Is Theism Caused By Pride?

Pride is an important function of the ego.

• Which indicates more pride: to believe that one's consciousness is merely the product of stupid and uncaring random processes, or to believe that one's consciousness is a supernatural phenomenon akin to that of angels and gods?

• Which indicates more pride: to believe that the vast and ancient universe has no purpose, or to believe that a universe of 100 billion galaxies was created 14 billion years ago just so that one could grace it with one's presence?

• Which indicates more pride: to believe that one's mind will soon forever cease, or to believe that one's mind is eternal?

  Quoted in "Who is More Prideful, Theists or Atheists?" by Vexen Crabtree (2006)

4. Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence

“When we discover intelligent life in the universe we will have to face certain facts. The first would be that the appearance of an intelligent humankind was not a special act of creation by god(s). If intelligent life can arise in a multitude of conditions it makes it less arguable that God needed to act specially in order to create humankind. Yet such actions are part of the creation stories of all major religions. The particulars of our religions would be reduced to local symbolism and relative truths that apply only in some parts of the Universe, to some species. [...]

Some saviour religions actually cater for aliens. The Urantia movement holds that God has 700 000 sons incarnated on various worlds in the universe; Jesus is, of course, one of those divine sons₈. The early scientist and astronomer Huygens argued that "the planets must be inhabited because otherwise God had made worlds for nothing"₉. The religions that seem best placed to function in a Universe with more than species of intelligent, sentient beings are those that hold to universalist ideals; that is - the creator of the universe saves all living beings, and everyone goes to heaven. Other positions - that God punishes members of one species for doing 'evil' things, while punishing members of a different species for doing completely different things according to local circumstances, does not make sense if God embodies any set of absolute morality. In other words - deist, pantheist, universalist and non-religious forms of deism appear to be able to explain aliens much better than Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam).”

"Alien Life and Planet Earth" by Vexen Crabtree (1999)

5. Gods as Solipsistic Projections

5.1. In Worldwide Religion

We only have limited imagination. We find it impossible to imagine emotions, for example, that we ourselves do not experience. All of our genres of science fiction and theology all attribute spirits, aliens and otherworldly beings with emotions that are merely adaptations of Human emotions. We do the same with our gods. We give them Human emotions.

Xenophanes was a Greek philosopher, 535-435BCE, who made fun of this all-too-Human projection.

“Xenophanes [wrote] 'mortals deem that gods are begotten as they are, and have clothes like theirs, and voice and form... yes, and if oxen and horses or lions had hands, and could paint with their hands, and produce works of art as men do, horses would paint the forms of gods like horses, and oxen like oxen [...], the Ethiopians make their gods black and snub-nosed: the Thracians say theirs have blue eyes and red hair.'”

"History of Western Philosophy" by Bertrand Russell (1946)₂

Inbetween the time of Xenophanes and my own time, many authors and philosophers have pointed out the Human-made nature of Gods, such as Col. Robert G. Ingersol in the 19th century:

“To me, it seems easy to account for these ideas concerning gods and devils. They are a perfectly natural production. Man has created them all, and under the same circumstances would create them again. Man has not only created all these gods, but he has created them out of the materials by which he has been surrounded. Generally he has modeled them after himself, and has given them hands, heads, feet, eyes, ears. and organs of speech. Each nation made its gods and devils speak its language not only, but put in their mouths the same mistakes in history, geography, astronomy, and in all matters of fact, generally made by the people. No god was ever in advance of the nation that created him. The negroes represented their deities with black skins and curly hair. The Mongolian gave to his a yellow complexion and dark almond-shaped eyes. The Jews were not allowed to paint theirs, or we should have seen Jehovah with a full beard, an oval face, and an aquiline nose. Zeus was a perfect Greek, and Jove looked as though a member of the Roman senate. The gods of Egypt had the patient face and placid look of the loving people who made them. The gods of northern countries were represented warmly clad in robes of fur; those of the tropics were naked. The gods of India were often mounted upon elephants; those of some islanders were great swimmers, and the deities of the Arctic zone were passionately fond of whale's blubber. Nearly all people have carved or painted representations of their gods, and these representations were, by the lower classes, generally treated as the real gods, and to these images and idols they addressed prayers and offered sacrifice.”

"Complete Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersol (1900)" by Robert. G. Ingersol (1900)

A slightly more complex and developed idea of God is to attribute non-Human animal forms to them. This is a form of symbolism used heavily in some ancient pagan religions. Rather than being merely homocentric, these gods are human-experience-centric. For example, no European pagans thought that a god might have the head of a marsupial such as a Kangaroo, simply because they'd never seen kangaroos. As such, all Human gods can be known to be cultural projections as well as solipsistic ones.

“The satirist Lucian has his fictional character Momus complain to Zeus about all the bizarre representations of the gods with animal heads. In reply Zeus acknowledges, 'These things are unseemly,' but explains that 'Most of them are a matter of symbolism' [...] Celsus likewise explains that the Pagan representation of the gods are understood by the initiated as having symbolic meaning and should not be taken literally, since they are 'symbols of invisible ideas and not objects of worship in themselves'

Ironically, many Pagan philosophers thought it was the Christian conception of God which was primitive. Whilst it was all right to personify aspects of God as the 'gods', they regarded it as impossible to portray the ineffable nature of the supreme God in human terms as the Christians did. Celsus, finding such anthropomorphism ridiculous writes:

'The Christians say that God has hands, a mouth, and a voice; they are always proclaiming that "God said this" or "God spoke". "The heavens declare the work of his hands," they say. I can only comment that such a God is no God at all, for God has neither hands, mouth nor voice, nor any characteristics of which we know. Their absurd doctrines even contain reference to God walking about in the garden he created for man and they speak of him being angry, jealous, moved to repentance, sorry, sleepy'”

"The Jesus Mysteries" by Timothy Freke & Peter Gandy (1999) [Book Review]₃

Thankfully, modern liberal religions will accept that God is not likely to be anthropomorphic, but would say that it has merely appeared to us in Human form with Human traits so that we would more readily understand it. This is a return to the original Pagan ideas about the gods, where they understood that all we can do is use symbolism to view the divine and that Gods have different faces and characters for different occasions.

It would be foolish to accept any Human emotion could be one of God's: We might as well try and theorize as to what emotions water has, or worms, or the planet Earth: If it is impossible (as it seems to be) to imagine new emotions not already known to Humans, then it is very likely that any statement about the feelings of the Gods is probably wrong, unless it is based on a strict mathematical rationality.

5.2. In Christianity

In Christianity the Creator of the Universe has only one son, and that one son went to Earth in the form of a Human, in order to save humans. Such a sacrifice only occurred once - not once per planet, once per intelligent species, or even once per galaxy. Just once. Not only that, but Humans were created in the image of God and the angels: Genesis 1:26-27 says: "Then God said 'Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground'.". That's quite an endorsement of our species, from the creator of a billion billion stars!

“Jesus was God's only son and [...] the Crucifixion was a unique event specific to Jesus (1 Peter 3:18). So, there is no salvation for aliens. Also, Biblical eschatology has Zion descend on to Earth after Judgement (Revelations 10), with no more stars in the sky. Genesis 1:26 says that man is made in the 'image' of God and the angels, 'in our likeness'. [...] Are we to believe that intelligent life evolved throughout the universe but that our species in particular was created by the Creator, and that the Creator happens to look Human, along with the 'only' son of God who is also Human-shaped?”

"The Crucifixion Facade: Extra-Terrestrial Alien Life and Salvation" by Vexen Crabtree (2002)

Is it amazing divine grace that us Humans are so blessed with the Creator's attention? Or is it an anachronism from a time when Humanity did not yet perceive the vastness of the Universe? Given that Christianity fought major battles with astronomers about the Earth being the center of the world and with biologists about evolution, and lost both major battles, I would hazard a guess that when it comes to the uniqueness of the Human race in the Universe, Christianity also finds itself the wrong side of the divide between mythology and truth. The Christian conception of God, sin and salvation, and of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, is steeped in egotistical and prideful homocentriciy.