I like the Yoruba concept of God. It is possibly the best religious interpretation of God closest to my idea of what (or whom) God is. The Yorubas call God “Olodumare” — a name that suggests unending possibilities of the being’s essence.

Including this kind of unending possibilities….

According to those who do that kind of research, Olodumare is “the least mentioned and most worshipped force in the Yoruba religion”.

Yep. Least mentioned, but most worshiped.

You would think Olodumare would get pissed at this non-worship. But the dude is too cool to care. Afterall, humans are puny creatures he made on one of his more boring moments. So Olodumare leaves all the ritual, worship, shrines, temples, and other religious humbug to the lesser dieties to scramble for. Olodumare doesn’t need followers, he doesn’t get angry, or jealous, or vengeful or worried or possess any other human emotional attribute which the Christian God and other major religious Gods are subjected to. Olodumare does not contemplate people’s reproductive (or misreproductive) habits.

That’s the job of your bored old grandfather.

Olodumare is divinity. He lets humanity handle its own affairs. He doesn’t cause floods or tsunamis–those are part of the natural order of things. And humanity is as subject to the vagaries of the Universe as a butterfly is subject to the vagaries of the forest. Except that humans have a brain–but the butterfly can also camouflage.

And that’s how God should be: awesome and remote. Not a petty, meddling, egoistic, praise seeking, interfering fellow.