Flowery Language

I spend a lot of time thinking about God. Or god. And if God or god cares if the word we use for him/her/it is capitalized. The language Christians use make God very hard for me to understand, makes me frustrated. It's not the "thee" and "thou" and "art" and "forsooth" stuff, that's just old English. It's the spiritual language and descriptions of God that don't have specific meaning, at least not to me, that drive me up the wall.

(I'm just going to skip my doubts as to God's existence and God's nature. That is a discussion that will never go anywhere with anyone. I've been having it for the better part of 30 years and nobody's mind has ever been changed. And I'm just going to call God God and him, because it's my people's tradition.)

For instance, God, I doubt, has a penis. What would be the point? So why do we call God "him"? Does God think he's a him? Does God even care? Wouldn't it be better? It's less personal, but God likely doesn't procreate, he just creates. And he doesn't do it by having sex with... um... other gods? Or if he does then the Judeo-Christian thing is has some gaping holes in its understanding.

Another one that drives me nuts is "Heavenly Father". In western thought, God is everywhere equally. I'm not going into details here, but by definition he has to be everywhere otherwise he's not the Judeo-Christian God. So if God is everywhere, why is he a Heavenly Father? He's equally a Shower Father and Toilet Father and Palm Tree Father and Shoe Lace Father, since he's just as much in Heaven as he is in the shower, toilet, the palm tree outside, and the shoe lace on my boot. And why Father at all? I know my actual father. And as great as my father is, he's not God. At least, if he's not, he hides it really well.

God, if he's an active parent in my life, could equally be called my Heavenly Mother, right? Is God truly more masculine than feminine? Does either word apply to God? Wouldn't the oh-so-politically-correct word parent be better? But since I already have a complete set of parents, would that make God my God-Parent?

Then there's the Holy Spirit stuff. We already have one difficult to understand omnipresent being, why do we suddenly have two? What's the difference? Why does God need or want spirits and ghosts and stuff. Can't God just be the spirit too?

I'll give God the Jesus thing. Came to earth in physical form to talk to the people, bang some heads together, turn over a few tables, and get things done. I'm not saying it makes sense to me, but it at least isn't flowery language. Jesus was a down to earth guy. He was a Rabbi and carpenter, and he didn't mess around. Jesus I can make sense of. Not everything he said makes sense to me, but the man, yeah, I'm on board.

The "personal relationship with Jesus" stuff is exceptionally flowery. It takes all my effort to maintain personal relationships with the people who are physically around me, the people I can see, feel, and hear. And I largely do a piss-poor job of it. Somehow I'm supposed to have a relationship with someone (or something) I cannot see, cannot feel, and cannot hear? If it's a relationship, how can it be personal? I just don't get that at all.

I'd also like to add that I have searched and searched and searched and have never seen "personal relationship with Jesus" or "personal relationship with God" anywhere in the Bible. As far as I can tell modern Christians have just made it all up. Maybe it helps them, but it doesn't help me.

Maybe I'm being a jerk about all of this. Maybe I should lighten up. But maybe Christians have established a new standard, one that doesn't reflect reality. All I know is that the flowery language adopted by modern Christians makes it harder for me to understand them.