No. Really. The power of a god, to an individual, is proportional to their ability to impact their life. I suggest, then, that everyone is more powerful than any god, real or imagined, from that person’s perspective.
Look back. Who has made the biggest impact on your life? Who pulled up the bootstraps and got you back on your feet? Who made the hard choices and who put in the work and kept on grinding to reach your goals?
Heresy, Right? Perhaps not this time. You don’t have to reject god(s) to accept that you have more power than them from your perspective. Let me explain.
Divine influence may exist. There are thousands, perhaps millions of personal testimonials to that effect. People of (almost) every religion claim experiences of personal divine influence. Even accepting each experience at face value, we still don’t know which deity did the deed, or indeed if a deed was done.
Which God? Suppose a Catholic has a strong urge that tells them to ‘turn left’ while driving down the road. They comply and are narrowly missed by a drunk driver rather than killed in the collision. How does a Muslim interpret these events? A Mormon? A Wiccan? A Zoroastrian? Which God/force/etc. saved them? All of them? None of them? The only conclusion that we can draw is that God(s), if they exist at all and assuming ability to reason, do not want us to know.
We don’t know. We have tried and failed throughout history to find proof that God(s) exist. We have created lovely logical arguments, but each has been shown to include all too human error. God(s) are a mystery and it seems that it is either a deliberate one or none exist at all. The more knowledge we gain and more of the world we can explain, the less we can attribute to the acts of deities. Earthquakes, strange lights in the sky, sickness and drought all used to be the exclusive domain of God(s). Now God(s) are banished to pockets of scientific ignorance. We have gotten so good at understanding our world that divine influence has become nearly impossible to distinguish from chance.
It doesn’t matter if God(s) exist. Looking broadly over the reported lives of humans and in light of the endless surveillance and recording technology has enabled, it has become clear that God(s) use their power so discretely as to be objectively undetectable. The ability of a God to directly impact your life can only be measured by the difference between the results of their acts and random chance. If we cannot tell the difference, then their effective power over our lives is zero.
Our acts matter. The same person who avoids a car accident by divine influence, by feeling the vibrations around them, or by pure blind chance probably also got up that morning, combed their hair, showered, made breakfast and set off to work. These simple acts have a bigger impact on their life, on average, than car accidents. They may also have fought off a depressive episode or taken their insulin or a hundred of other critical steps to keep their life on an even keel. Suppose they hadn’t. Suppose they lay in bed and refused to act. The results vary, but none are good. Our acts have power that is almost never zero.
Thou Art God. You have more power in your own life than any outside force. Your continual decisions to act or not act in each moment have more influence on your life than people, governments, or even God(s) ever will. You may not be divine or perfect. None of us are. But, you are unavoidably the God of your own life. Act like it.
Heresies.org 