From Ammond Shadowcraft:

"Man is certainly stark mad. He cannot make a worm an yet he will
be making Gods by the dozens." Montaigne (1553-1592 CE)

But something else is at this core...

"He was a wise man who invented God." Plato (427?-348? BCE)

It seems that Mankind is stuck in the rut of inventing Gods and
Goddesses. Francesco Caracciolo (1742-1799 CE) once quiped...

"In England there are sixty different religions and only one
sauce."

Sad, isn't it? So much valuable human energy utterly wasted on
inventing and maintaining nonexistent Gods. Well it has a use...

Religion, like laws, promote civil peace...

"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."
Napolean (1769-1821 CE)

Yes, inventing Gods promotes civil peace, but it also provokes
idiocy in the slackminded...

"Faith is believing what you know ain't so." Mark Twain (1835-1910 CE)

And herein lies the self-deception I've written of. We deceive
ourselves because we have precious little other choice except to
bound happily into the Void. That precious little choice is to
accept reality as it is and refuse to project our human whims and
failings upon it. Zen masters have written of this as "Big Mind"
and "Little Mind". Big mind makes no judgements and entertains no
abstractions with respect to reality. It simply perceives. Little
mind plays with various abstractions, and projects onto those
perceptions what is entirely inappropriate.

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> find, that utter denial of a Divine Power of SOME kind makes little
> or no sense. And perhaps Ammond ought to ask himself why that is,
> without allowing himself the cop-out of dismissing all such notions
> as mere deception.

So Sean lives somewhat in the time-bound theistics of the 1700s.
Power greater than any creature? Sure, try solar power, try atomic
power, try electricity, try one horse power (is greater than one
man power). That sentiment displays time-bound whimsy Sean. You
know there is this time called the 1900. The year is 1991.

The 21st century is just around the corner. What surprises will it
bring to the species?

Now, since you've addressed my integrity, I think it's more
difficult and more beneficial to accept human nature and the human
estate as it is and work from there to a brighter future for the
species. I refuse to project upon reality the human whimsy of Gods
and Goddesses, of Divine Powers, of the Great Mom and Pop in the
Sky. I prefer honesty and integrity to the religious feel-good
cop-out of Divine Powers and Deity.

Turn about is fair play, let's address yours... Why do you need
Gods Sean? Aren't you good enough without them? Or are you a slave
to literary devices? Are you fearful of life without the extended
comfort of Mom and Pop? Does it worry you that you don't have all
the answers to all the difficult questions? Why do you try to
answer those questions with the empty symbols of Deity and Divine
Powers?