why should he or she be beyond that?

They didn’t have science back then so they were even stupider than today.

Projection?

I had a car that didn’t like when the weather was cold and damp. It wasn’t too happy about being parked on a slope, either.

Did the car actually have human emotions? No, of course not, but as a human it was both easy and natural to frame and process it that way.

Instead of it simply being “God made made in his own image”, the truth is probably that there’s more than a little of “man made God in his own image” too.

You can make the characters do whatever you want when you’re writing fiction.

Going down the God rabbit hole is frustrating and ultimately unsatisfying. Every answer boils down to faith, which is basically belief without proof.

To paraphrase someone: If God is all-good, then God can’t be all-powerful. If God is all-powerful, then God can’t be all-good.

I probably sound like I’m being dismissive of people who believe in God. That’s not my intent. Faith can be a healthy source of strength in difficult times, and when dealing with our chaotic world. I only have an issue when blind faith is allowed to override common sense, like not getting your kids vaccinated, or drinking raw milk.

Most importantly is to ask why is he subject to time? Our only concept of existing or being alive is tied to time: thought is a change of state, and change is defined by a progression of time. But if God is everything, why is he subject to time? What’s “outside” time?

Maybe we’re endowed with Godly emotions.

I asked a Christian friend of mine how an all knowing god could be jealous or angry if they were all knowing and the actions of the people they were angry/jealous at were part of his plan.

I never got an answer other than ‘mysterious ways’

It’s all made up by humans

Assuming we’re discussing the Abrahamic God, He used to be much smaller in scope; in fact, He was the ancient Jewish War God, back when they had a full polytheistic pantheon. So if we’re going back to the original myths, He didn’t really create humans, nor was He all-powerful or all-seeing, or ‘above-it-all’ in general.

(This is back in the days when Gods were more seen as local clan/town sponsors, like how Athena is the patron God of Athens. He was just a tribal patron god, one they prayed to in order to be safe and successful in war.)

Also, back then Gods in general were written as being much closer to humans, in term of emotions and motivations—again, Greek mythology gives a good showing of this, but you can read a lot of ancient myths and see it in play.

As Jehovah became more and more popular (due to all the wars in the region), He started to absorb many of the myths and abilities of the rest of the pantheon, which is why He seems kind of schizophrenic in the older stories. YHWH was actually the head of the pantheon, and as Jehovah supplanted Him as the ancient proto-Jewish tribes moved towards monotheism, the two Gods ended up essentially being merged with each other.

Still, back then, while Gods were seen as powerful, they were still somewhat seen as limited and fallible. In fact even today there is a strong Jewish tradition of questioning God (albeit politely and a bit indirectly so as not to get turned into salt or whatever).

But, as Judaism grew, and split off into Christianity and Islam, God’s followers began tack on more and more powers and abilities to make Him sound cooler (and increase the power of the Church). So that’s where the ‘all-seeing’ and ‘all-powerful’ Great-God-of-Everything business comes from, really.

TL;DR ‘God wasn’t all-powerful and was ‘written’ to have emotions much closer to humans when those creation myths were first being told.

The answer depends on your religion, but in the monotheistic traditions of the major religions, the notion of God might be better aligned with “oneness” or “integration” than a personification as we think about them. In that way, God is “everything” (including the contradictions) which would also mean emotions. To say God feels things, it means “God has the capability to feel, because God is all powerful.”

Whether God is impacted by those emotions or their reasoning changes because of them, I think the realities and contradictions are a part of faith. If it all made sense, faith wouldn’t be necessary. You’ll find reasoning similar to this in someone like Kierkegaard.

I’m a UU (raised Catholic, was an atheist for 20 years, followed Buddhism for a few years). My internal conception of God has changed a lot over that time: mostly expanded and includes more grace about this “grand everything” rather than “Old man in a cloud who can be sorta weird and spiteful.” I like that the UU lets me ask questions and develop my own faith.

Human is created in God’s image.

Therefore human emotions are similar to God’s emotions (this does not tell whether or not God’s emotions are superior in some way or other)

Man saw his ego and named it God.

Why are we satisfied with the idea that God made man intelligent in his image, while being all-knowing, but not this? Isn’t this the same thing? God could have made man with emotions in his image, while being in no way limited to those emotions himself. Why would we limit ourselves to an uncaring God above all that when he could also be all-caring, all-feeling

(Insert misogynistic crack about an all-emotional God being proof God is a woman)

The answer to this is going to differ heavily from religion to religion. You’ve already been inundated with the atheist and agnostic response. Christian theology could give you a few different answers.

The Bible could been seen as man’s interpretation of God, therefore God’s will is placed in terms we understand: emotions. Calling God jealous, angry, sorrowful, or joyful is a lot easier than asking you to understand a four-dimensional physical space. The latter is beyond your perception, much like understanding the “feelings” God exhibits, so it is simplified to terms you can understand.

The second potential answer would be: why wouldn’t he/she be? You’ve made the assumption that emotions are bad or wrong, but if you throw out that assumption, there’s nothing wrong with an emotional God. Maybe being “beyond that” is in fact a mistake? If he/she made us in his/her image, then of course we are given emotions similiar to God. Ultimately, who are you or I to judge whether such feelings are good or bad, or make a being imperfect?

Admittedly, I am deeply agnostic myself, because I ultimately don’t buy any of the explanations I’ve provided here. But I’ve taken time and energy to understand Western theology, rather than dismiss it out of hand, and these are the explanations I suspect you are likliest to find.