More food for thought on Pullman's The Amber Spyglass (the last installment from His Dark Materials)
The Authority, God, the Creator, the Lord ... the Almighty -- those were all names he gave himself. He was never the creator. He was an angel like ourselves -- the first angel, true, the most powerful, but he was formed of Dust as we are, and Dust is only a name for what happens when matter begins to understand itself. Matter loves matter. It seeks to know more about itself, and Dust is formed. The first angels condensed out of Dust, and the Authority was the first of all. He told those who came after him that he created them, but it was a lie. One of those who came later was wiser than he was, and she found the truth, so he banished her."
"Conscious beings make Dust -- they renew it all the time, by thinking and feeling and reflecting, by gaining wisdom and passing it on.
And if you help everyone else in your worlds to do that, by helping them to learn and understand about themselves and each other and the way everything works, and by showing them how to be kind instead of cruel, and patient instead of hasty, and cheerful instead of surly, and above all how to keep their minds open and free and curious ... Then they will renew enough to replace what is lost through one window."
