Loll, what thread so I can see?
A lot of great answers in this thread. I’m in agreement with most of it.
The perception of god being male is engrained in the collective consciousness…(sun god for example as chaos mentioned) and keep in mind, the past 2,000 years, the world has been dominated by the monotheistic religions (islam, christianity) in which god is male. The world has been patriarchal throughout human history in general so there’s that. The perception of god is very much shaped by culture.
Now, in certain sects of Shivaism for example, god is multifaceted. Shiva is the active/masculine part & shakti is the passive/feminine part of it. Shakti is the physical universe, shiva is the mind experiencing/creating it. Both are one. This is the yin and yang.
I guess many people might inately refer to god as male because god is the masculine/active aspect of creation.
I believe god can be intepreted in many different ways. I’ll share my current viewpoint of it.
I believe the universe to be one consciousness. If everything in the universe is conscious, then there are different levels of consciousness that make up the layers of the ‘all consciousness.’ For example, all the beings in this planet’s consciousness make up the consciousness of the earth. Then you go up to galaxy then solar system, ext… so to this same extent, the entire universe has a consciousness as well. It’s the highest level awareness in the net of cosmic consciousness. That level of awareness, is what I would refer to, as ‘god’.
The conscious mind of the all. The manifester and the manifested. God is not separate from its creation. It is creation experiencing itself. God experiencing itself.
Although I should say, I’ve come to not like the word god much over the years. ‘The tao that can be named is not the tao.’ Once you label it as god, you also label what god is not. If god is everything, then it is beyond duality. It is the void and the manifest at once.