Who is god?
Some interesting tidbits showed up on the Google 2007 Year-End Zeitgeist. When searching for answers regarding “Who is… ?”, god, jesus, and satan all made the Top 10.
Who is…
- who is god
- who is who
- who is lookup
- who is jesus
- who is it
- who is buckethead
- who is calling
- who is keppler
- who is this
- who is satan
Now, I’m not sure I understand the expectation in asking who “who” is, or “it“, or even “this“… but, regarding “who is calling“, well, sure. Who doesn’t want to know that? Related to that, I completely understand the ever popular “who is lookup“. Or, more specifically, my favorite WHOIS lookup.
It’s fascinating that “buckethead” has somehow managed to make a mark on the world such that he shows up at #6 for all of 2007. Why didn’t I ever pick up guitar? Now I’m stuck with getting shamed by my kids on Guitar Hero.
Amazingly, “keppler” shows up at #8 — the last name of the character that is taking the place of Grissom on CSI. Wow. CBS should be very proud that they have created that much buzz around a fictional character. Although, it would appear that the entire Top 10 consists solely of concepts, pronouns, and characters. Not a single actual person – only personas.
This snapshot looks a little different if you use Google Suggest to see what’s hot. On the date of this post, if you start a search with “who is”, Google will helpfully offer, the stig, tila tequila, the monkey, stig (again), ip, ron paul, who, the stig on top gear (seriously?), and finally, god, and jesus… in that order.
I plan to explore the idea of “who is god?” in future writings as that is a question I have thought about a lot over the past few decades. My journey has taken me a great distance from traditional belief. I would go so far as to say, non-belief. But I’ll save that for another day.
The other notable query I saw was for the “What is…” category with the winner being “what is love“. Other than the painfully obvious Haddaway lyric, “baby don’t hurt me”, I think Love is a fascinating topic as well. As my non-belief has grown, so has my capacity for love and my outward expression of love… for my family, my children, my wife, my friends, and my fellow man. If I stick to this blog thing, maybe I’ll find a way to articulate some of these ideas that will resonate with you too.
Notice they are searching for, “who is god” rather then “what is god.” They have already concluded for some reason or another that god is a “who.” Interesting indeed. That is why I labeled one of my posts, “who is god” rather then “what is god” because “who is god” is what people are searching for. The fact that they already think god is a who tells you something about such state of affairs.
Update!! As of today, Google Suggest does not have any religious suggestions. If you enter “who is…” Google will suggest:
who is barack obama
who is kim kardashian
who is domain
who is tila tequila
who is dating who
who is database
who is my senator
who is chuck norris
who is in jail
who is kimbo slice
Maybe the world is changing after all…
Wacky. As of this morning, Google searchers are back to looking for religion, but also politicians:
who is ip
who is god
who is who
who is domain
who is jesus
who is john galt
who is joe biden
who is my congressman
who is the richest man in the world
who is obama’s running mate
Update inpsired by the Fox News piece that I just blogged about (http://www.laytheism.com/blog/2010/what-is-islam/)
who is lady gaga
who is my congressman
who is big poppa
who is ip
who is john galt
who is the richest person in the world
who is the richest man in the world
who is big papa
who is on the dime
who is taylor swift dating
Back to no one caring about god… but they do want to know who has all their money. And why all the mystery about the dime? Eisenhower, right?