Comments on: What if God Was One of Us?

By: gracia

gracia — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 09:34:02 +0000

all i can say about this song is that, to believe in God is to also to believe that he had let tragedies happen, he had let little girls be raped, he had let a passenger ship or an airplane that could have carried a father with a family waiting for his arrival to have sinked or crashed… want me to enumerate further?

By: joe

joe — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 00:31:59 +0000

The song is about us (humanity) and our relations with each other, and perhaps, consequently with God.

To know someone’s name is to have a grip however tenuous on the humanity that they share with us. The same goes for recognizing their face. If we felt comfortable calling God by His personal name, if His face was a recognizable element in our environment, the perceived implication is that we would share human emotions and characteristics with Him. Not knowing His personal name, not knowing His face; it’s hard to come to grips with Him on a personal level, and a personal level is the one we usually function at.

We don’t typically recognize or even acknowledge strangers on the bus, the train or in any other public situation. What if God were another slob like us on the bus? We’d neither recognize Him nor believe in Him. There is no reason to believe we’d do otherwise. For those that believe the New Testament, you will recall that Jesus was not recognized as the incarnate God except by a very few of his closest companions. For those of you who don’t believe the New Testament, you surely have experience with human behavior to the extent that you can attest to our reluctance to interact with strangers.

Based on our behavior to one another, the lyricist is wondering how we might behave and relate to God. Whether God is real or not is not relevant to the analysis of the lyrics. God could be God, God could be humanity, God could be the slob on the bus. It’s not about God, it’s about us.

By: Darcy

Darcy — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 18:22:41 +0000

The song is not about Jesus, but about humanity. It explores the human condition via the concept of God. In the case of the song, God represents everything that is “good,” which is pretty much the general consensus among most monotheistic (and even some polytheistic) religions. The question the song poses is simple: would we still worship a God who isn’t everything good? In which case, God is not perfect–as most religions view him–but as an imperfect human/mortal.

The song then postulates that we won’t worship God anymore. “No one would call him on the phone,” Joan Osborne says. It also implies that God becomes a standard for humanity to abide by–to be perfectly good. As a standard, it means that human beings have opposite characteristics. So the song’s description of God should be seen as a critique of humanity, albeit opposite of how God is described:

“If God had a face, what would he look like?” – human beings have faces, or physical appearances metaphorically, and thus humans lack mystery. Also, it shows how often we jusdge others via what they look like.

“Just a slob like one of us?” – most theologians and philosophers recognize that God’s perfection relegates humans to low forms of life. The song is sensitive enough to explore this notion. In fact, this degrading effect of God led to existentialism’s counter argument, which empowers humanity.

“Just a stranger on a bus, trying to make his way home” – God is equated with destiny, again a common philosophical concept. He knows the alpha and omega, and the path is always set. That said, human beings are “lost” in this life, not knowing purpose or meaning or which path to take.

In conclusion, the song isn’t about God at all, but a critizue of the human condition. It is quite shallow to analyze it in terms of it questioning the existence of God when it does so much more–exploring theodicy, the purpose of life and humanity’s view upon itself. I repeat, the song is not about Jesus, it’s about you.

By: Nina

Nina — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 07:05:10 +0000

After reading all those comments about this song, I realised that hey it could mean that or whatever.
‘WHAT IF’ IF is the big key word here, which tells us that just imagine God was one of us, which he is not (in my opinion), God is our creator, He isn’t a slob like us, he isn’t just anyone, he isn’t like us, we= sin, Jesus\God- Sinnless and Holy, he is a person sent from God (His father) to preach the word and to demonstarte Love. Jesus is God but came down to earth to die for our sins in HUMAN form.
We were the ones who were suppose to suffer, and anyone who will safcrafice themselves obviously love you which proves that God\Jesus is Love. But i’m not too sure when she sing the ‘yeh yeh God is good….’ she means it in a sarcasic way, but I’m hoping she isn’t. And when she also sing ‘no-body call him on the phone, except for the pope maybe in Rome’ I think means that not only preiests, popes, preachers, whoever can have a relationship with him, anyone can… all those people are full of sin same as us. We are all equal, we can all have a connection with Jesus but do we want to believe in Him? And do we want accept him as our saviour? Who ever said he wasn’t our saviour, he is just our creator, I’m sorry but your wrong there, someone dying for you is JUST your creatoer, he saved you from death! He’s your saviour..
God will never be one of us, He is Holy and when He saw people selling products in the temple, you reckon he’s just gonna sit there and watch His temple being spiritually destroyed. He got angry, everyone gets anry yes, but we’d proabably tell them off, swear, scream, and alow satan to enter our hearts. Jesus is powerful and teaches us from wrong to right.. and they were wrong! Well anwyays, thats another story.

This song is great and makes people realise that we are nothing compared to our Lord Jesus Christ, our saviour. We are full of sin and hate whicih will lead us on the road to hell, unless we asf for God’s forgiveness and be redeemed we’ll go on the highway to Hevaen!:D The truth sometimes hurts… but it’s the truth, why avoid it?

By: non-fiction-control

non-fiction-control — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 16:43:33 +0000

tnx..

By: Skorch

Skorch — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 10:43:26 +0000

This has been going on since 2004…anyway, I always heard the song differently than most of you. I thought it meant “what if God was one of us?” in terms of God not understanding what it was like to be one of his creations…she goes on to sing “yea, yea, God is great, and yea, yea, God is good, and yea, yea,…” etc. perhaps saying that yea, it’s easy to be great and good if you live in heaven and don’t have to put up with all the crap a human has to deal with every day…but what if he was “one of us”?…could he then be so great and good? Even coming down here as Jesus was only a 30 year stint, a spit in the ocean compared to his existance in Heaven. But to all of you who say “God is Love” all the time…God is a lot more than that. God has every emotion you have including the ugly and violent ones. Jesus destroyed the booths of the mony-changers in the temple and drove them out of the temple with a whip…at the last supper when Jesus said “if you don’t have a sword, sell your coat and buy one”, the disciples said “don’t worry, hell we have two of them already” (paraphrasing, of course)

God nuked Soddom & Gomorah into monotomic dust ’cause they were pervs…God is not just “love”…God is the creator.

By: Strangelle

Strangelle — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 11:04:41 +0000

To anyone who could ever read this, I would only like to say that all of you have a point for what your opinion is, but one thing that I would like you to know that I, myself, believe in GOD.

GOD is in everywhere, in everything, from where you was born up to the sky above, and from where you are standing extend to the smallest horizon you could ever reach.

To those nonbeliever just think of it, how does the universe made? and who?
Science has its broad and acceptable explanation, but don’t you think that they just unfolding the real meaning what the bible wants to tell us? Why don’t you try to reflect on it, make an observation, and relate each meaning.
Science is just the living proof of the bible. Open your inner eyes and you will see what I mean.

Now lets go to the song’s lyrics…
The song really deals with various aspects of belief in God by asking questions inviting the listener to consider how they might relate to God.
It’s asking the believers and nonbelievers, us, about our true feelings about God. And what action would we present if the situation that God is really one of us, like us, human.

‘Hope you get the meaning and what I want to say. Thanks for reading my comment. Ciao!!

By: anonymous

anonymous — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 19:29:20 +0000

you all are stupid

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 13 Apr 2006 08:14:01 +0000

Geez I thought the song was about what god thinks of us and our world(as if he were here…a slob like us). Not about if he even exists?

By: Maurice

Maurice — Sat, 24 Dec 2005 17:03:52 +0000

Well, I'm not sure how I got to this site, but i've decided to contribute with what I can. I know some of you are just horsing around but I'd like to help out on the discution just in case. I study Christian theology in Chile (South America). As with the subject in question I'd like to state first of all that the comment above about the Council of Nicea in 325 a.d. is incomplete. The historical context shows that the definition of the “Son of God” was upto then unnecesary because the divinity of Christ was not still questioned. It so happens that a certain Arrio sustained that because God is only one, Jesus could not be God, and necesarily must be created. This is the issue that provoked the council. But the faith in the divine sonship of Jesus Christ is testified in the Gospels and other texts of early Christians. So in reallity the council declared something which is even harder to believe then that Jesus is the Son of God, it declared as a matter of faith the existence of the Divine Trinity, that is, one God in three Persons (Father, Son and Holy Spirit). Wow!
Secondly I'd like to contribute with a little Christian reflextion about how we could understand the frase: “What if God was one of us?”. The book of Genisis states that God created man in his image and semblance. Saint Augustine in the IV centuary interpeted this by saying that man is made in the image of Christ. This is quite intresting when we add the concept of St. Paul about the Mystical Body of Christ. Everybody is called to be inserted into this Body as a unique member. Trying to simplify, we can say that Jesus is the Head, and we have been created in his image to become a part of Him. In this manner we all become sons of God, each one of us is in a certain form Christ. In conclusion, each one of us is in a certain matter God. So to the question “what if God was one of us?”, I find the it quite a good question because he is.
I'm writing this on Christmas Eve, and this is really the meaning of this holiday. God became man in a Bethlehem in order that man can become God.
Merry Christmas.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 23 Dec 2005 20:31:57 +0000

Impressive, Green One. This has been ongoing for one and one half years at this point. It is a testament to the necessity of spell checking software and the ignorance of mere mortal men.
Men don't want a God because men only trust themselves.
They're afraid of something big enough to be God and then when they feel something big enough to be God they say it doesn't exist because it doesn't make sense to them.
But how can man expect to understand and make sense of that which is beyond them?
Would a god that could fit neatly in your mind give you solace?
Would that god make you feel secure?
What power, then would such a god have?
Why, that god would have fewer powers than men have.
That god would, in fact have fewer powers than any living organism on earth, because no man is even capable of understanding even the simplest thing such as life.
How then could man, who can not even understand life, possibly hope to understand the Creator of life?
God was one of us, His name was Jesus. He was the Christ and our Redeemer. And James Dean approached “the Presence” no closer than any of us.
But, I'm still wondering what James Dean has to do with this.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 23 Dec 2005 20:30:40 +0000

Impressive, Green One. This has been ongoing for two and one half years at this point. It is a testament to the necessity of spell checking software and the ignorance of mere mortal men.
Men don't want a God because men only trust themselves.
They're afraid of something big enough to be God and then when they feel something big enough to be God they say it doesn't exist because it doesn't make sense to them.
But how can man expect to understand and make sense of that which is beyond them?
Would a god that could fit neatly in your mind give you solace?
Would that god make you feel secure?
What power, then would such a god have?
Why, that god would have fewer powers than men have.
That god would, in fact have fewer powers than any living organism on earth, because no man is even capable of understanding even the simplest thing such as life.
How then could man, who can not even understand life, possibly hope to understand the Creator of life?
God was one of us, His name was Jesus. He was the Christ and our Redeemer. And James Dean approached “the Presence” no closer than any of us.
But, I'm still wondering what James Dean has to do with this.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 10 Dec 2005 11:24:17 +0000

You know, we can argue all day long about whether or not there is even a God. The solution is so simple. If Jesus was God – He's alive today. If he wasn't – he's not. All I know is that if you let this go deeper than just an intellectual argument and truly try to find out – you will.
I don't know what country you guys are from but if you'd like to know once and for all whether or not God/Jesus are real – Do an alpha course, then make your decision. But don't just decide he's not without considering it.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 14 Oct 2005 03:40:42 +0000

James Dean does not exist
your all a figment of my imagination.
and reality is a simulation created by an over active artifical intelgance.
life is a monofoletic.
and death is an infinate transition of that life
energy is indestructiable.
the meaning of life is to pay tax
tax is put there to support the people who live life
life is only as full as the people you meet in it
you only meet enough people if you travil far enough
you only travil if you are outgoing enough
travilers dont blend with a monopheletic socioty and as such are doomed to egasencial oblivion.
and god is the product of a hiratical socioty dedicateing the pending fall of thier prowess to the instabilitys of that human psychi, to which is debatable if it truely exists or if life is truely a simulation……

By: Vince Williams

Vince Williams — Thu, 06 Oct 2005 20:32:44 +0000

Seeing that this thread had already
degenerated into a pseudo-religious
debate(?), I thought I'd throw my two cents
in to further confound the status quo.
Who's to say God wasn't, or isn't one of us,
whether you believe in deity or not?
Even the very strange text of the Hebrew Bible says that God walked around on
planet earth at times.
And you never know if the pretzel vendor
is a manifestation of Krishna Consciousness
or not.
In fact, I believe that our eternal friend,
Mr. James Dean,was just that:
an ordinary farm boy who got so high
that he became a walking avatar
of the many-formed Lord.
This is no blasphemy.
Many spiritual men and women
have achieved it.
It doesn't mean that James Dean was God,
just that he approached the Presence
more closely than most of us.
Having cast off this earthly garment,
James Dean surely lives.