How Do I Perceive God?

By Inessa , aged 14 from James Allens Girls School  

How do we envisage God 

God is a collective attempt to give existence meaning, however meaning exists only as a human construct. I would argue that religion is the epitome of human nature, it exhibits our desire for certainty, community and guidance etc. It essentially satisfies human needs; however, religion cannot sate the need for a meaning. 

Humans constantly search for meaning, humans constantly ask ‘why?’, and when applying this ‘why’ to our existence we find there is no answer. This is because human perspective is not existence itself. A perspective is a perception of existence, a lens through which existence is seen, is intangible and not a physical thing. 

Therefore, meaning does not exist, it is entirely a human construct based off human perspective, which to anything but humans is incomprehensible. This is why God is portrayed with human traits, he is humanity’s created perspective of meaning, of course he will have human characteristics (such as love and anger). God is meaning, meaning does not exist. 

I chose a paper cutout of the Sistine chapel as I think it is the most appropriate way to express my idea. I decided to use plain paper as I wanted religion to be seen simply and as humanly as possible. In terms of symbolism, there is nothing beyond the papercut, purveying God. Instead, there is only religion as shown in the paper, with countless depictions of deity as human. My piece shows that only religion exists, and God seen through the cutout is nothing depicted in a human form.