Define God

Great Debates
41

[QUOTE=Liberal]
Well, there can. But then you’d have to concede that unicorns are a part of the universe. I can conceive them. You’d have to believe in God, too, at least as something that exists (however you might define it). In fact, you’d have to believe in all of them. And in contradictions as well. I can conceive those.

ETA: To clarify, that’d be if you used “universe” as that term.
[/QUOTE]
Ah. I see the problem then. Would you object to defining the universe as everything that exists, conceivable or not? This does not require unicorns or gods but it does not preclude them either. It doesn’t solve any ontological disagreements but it is still a meaningful term. Based on what I’ve read of his, I’d say this is closer to SentientMeat’s definition.

42

[QUOTE=Liberal]
I don’t really know that I can do that, but I hope that, after this thread, I’ll be able to. When someone tells me they believe in multiple gods, I really don’t know what they mean. Sentient beings more highly evolved than man? I just don’t know.
[/QUOTE]
Well, let’s see. You believe in your own God, and presumably he fulfils all your definitions of what a god would be. Are there any particular beings considered gods by other people who you would also acknowledge as gods, were they to exist?

I do see your point about pantheism; the problem with that with regards to a definition of god is that often one god can thwart another, so none can be considered a truly “supreme” being. OTOH, there are belief systems encompassing many beings considered gods, while still keeping an overall, “big” god who has dominion over all of them.

Under my system, a godlike being as part of a pantheon could be considered a god. If each god is independent to the extent that they are totally outside each other’s influence (unless they choose to be), they’d be “gods”. Not really something that’s reflected in the classical Greco-Roman gods, for example, since they tend to kill each other off and meddle in each other’s affairs pretty regularly. Under my system it would probably be fair to say that Zeus (for example) is technically not a god, since he can be thwarted by other gods. We could move the definition down one space and say “A god is a being that cannot be affected by anything else, except another god” and that would work. On the other counts, a pantheon of gods can easily be “outside” existence, and have a personality.

Is it the “no higher power” part that you find the biggest obstacle to considering a pantheon of gods?

43

Supremacy is not a necessary part of defitional critera for deities in some pantheistic systems. In some strains of Buddhism, for instance, people may pray to gods for help and guidance, but none of those gods have any ultimate moral authority. They’re just as subject to the laws of karma as anybody else. A god does not have to be the "most powerful or the “most” anything to meet the dictionary definition. A god doesn’t have to be a creator either.

44

That’s why I was careful to talk about my own personal definition of a god. Supremacy is a necessary part of *my * defitional criteria of a deity.

45

Atheist here, but I’ll throw in a couple.

If there is purpose and intention underlying the Universe, then God is the Intender or Intender(s).

Analogy - regarding the Universe as software, then God is the programmer. The analogy implies a metauniverse for God and the structure running the software to exist in, of course…

46

God is everything that is good in me. The devil is everything bad in me. When I do good, it is I who has done good, and no one else, not even God gets the credit. When I do bad, that is me too. No one else gets the blame.

God to me is math, and science, the human tendency for empathy, sympathy, passion and love.

Yes, I do realize how corny I am, but my philosophy makes me able to experience heaven right here and now. Which is a heck of a lot better than waiting till I’m dead.

47

Atheist.

Any god I’ve ever heard of has been a supernatural entity with powers well beyond those of humanity.***** All of these powers in some way involved the suspension or incomprehensibly fine manipulation of the laws of physics and/or the creation of those physical laws in the first place (whether or not there was any subsequent manipulation of those laws).

I believe God exists only as a concept in the minds of people. To clarify: I believe that the idea of God(s) originated in our tendency to seek or impose patterns in and on the world around us; that the concept of God(s) was an attempt to create a master pattern which could be used to parse meaning from (and thereby increase chances of survival in) a sometimes seemingly chaotic world.

I think our understanding of the world has reached a point where we can discard the concept of God(s) as meaningless and unnecessary. And I think we eventually will do just that.
*****This is not quite true. Julian Jaynes postulated possibly the most fascinating concept of God I’ve ever run into in his 1976 book, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, which I just read recently and have not yet absorbed completely so I am not yet sure exactly what I think of it.

48

Based on all of the posts above…

“If God created us in his own image, we have more than reciprocated.” (Voltaire, I think)

49

Lib, good thread in premise, but as an atheist, I can’t possibly have a god definition that makes any sense to me. Otherwise, I’d be a believer of said definition.

Does that make any sense to you? Hope so.

OTOH, if you’d like, define your* god (generally speaking, I get the sense that a great majority of believers has their own brand of 'god’®.That’s why I am asking for yours in particular) in detail. Only then will I be able to asses how real such a being is, or could be, incorporated into my way of thinking. Tough task methinks, because there’s simply no way you can come up with evidence.

IOW, ‘god’ is meaningless to me – might as well say I believe in Superman. Lots more plausible anyway, due to the fact that is exactly what I am – hell’s bells, I even do him one better. I’m actually immune to kryptonite. :wink:

*But if you do, I beg of you to keep it in plain English. If you go off on some metaphysical tangent I am afraid we’ll never even get close to some sort of middle ground, where while incapable of sharing and/or believing in said definition, it at least has some merit and logic to it from my POV.

On second though, forget the ‘logic’ part. I’ll simply settle for ‘merit’…because as I am sure you’re well-aware, there’s nothing logical about god-beliefs. OTOH I can think of at least a couple of logical reasons that justify religion/s themselves.

50

[QUOTE=Liberal]
For me, God in the broadest sense is that which exists necessarily, which means that He cannot not exist.
[/QUOTE]

Sorry, but I don’t see how the one follows from the other. Why does anything have to exist necessarilly? Except possibly for nothing, I don’t see that anything in particular has to necesarilly exist? Therefore by your definition God must be nothing. At least nothing in particular.

Sorry, but again, I don’t see how you reach that conclusion from the premise. Why does universal existence imply truth? And how did you go from there to a personification by the word “Him”?

Why does free and moral follow? I see no logical necessity of these attributes. Perhaps you’re forcing your definition of God to conform to a preconceived notion you’ve developed from other causes and for other reasons.

Well, it’s hard to understand the discussion of you’re going to redefine terms without consideration of their normal meaning, especially if that redefinition is simply intended to align with your premise. Can’t something be good because it is consistent and unchanging? You’re implying that if something isn’t getting always better then it’s no good. Is that really what you wanted to say?

What aesthetic does God believe in? Not necessarilly what you think God believes in. Can you accept that God’s perception of the world differs from your own, and therefor motivation of “goodness” has nothing to do with yours, and may in some ways be diametrically opposed to yours? His How can you imagine that God’s aesthetic and notions of “better” aligns with yours?

I don’t mean to be insulting, but your definition seems like an attempt to elevate yourself, or at least your beliefs, into God. In my experience, that’s the common mechanics of faith, the elevation of one’s primary beliefs into God. Belief’s don’t come from God, God comes from prior beliefs.

51

[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
I have no definition of God. It’s a nonsense word to me. At best it’s a superfluous hypothetical contrived explain things which can better be explained by natural processes. At worst it’s an appeal to an undemonstrated moral authority by which some individual attempt to control others.
[/QUOTE]
But which is it then? Is it nonsense? Or is it something describable?

52

[QUOTE=BobPi]
Sorry, but I don’t see how the one follows from the other. Why does anything have to exist necessarilly?
[/QUOTE]
I don’t understand what you mean. I said I believe that God is “that which exists necessarily, which means that He cannot not exist.” The latter is just a restatement of the former. No implication was made, so why would one thing follow from another?

53

[QUOTE=the PC apeman]
Ah. I see the problem then. Would you object to defining the universe as everything that exists, conceivable or not?
[/QUOTE]
Yes, I really would. What I wouldn’t object to is defining the universe as everything physical.

54

[QUOTE=Revenant Threshold]
Is it the “no higher power” part that you find the biggest obstacle to considering a pantheon of gods?
[/QUOTE]
Just to be clear, I find no obstacle “considering” them in the sense of listening to what someone has to say about them. I just have a hard time comprehending in what sense they are gods unless, as I said, the person means simply something equivalent to super-human (as opposed to super-natural). I wouldn’t deny the possibility of such gods out of hand, even while believing as I still do.

55

[QUOTE=RedFury]
OTOH, if you’d like, define your* god (generally speaking, I get the sense that a great majority of believers has their own brand of ‘god’®.That’s why I am asking for yours in particular) in detail. Only then will I be able to asses how real such a being is, or could be, incorporated into my way of thinking. Tough task methinks, because there’s simply no way you can come up with evidence.

[…snip…]

*But if you do, I beg of you to keep it in plain English. If you go off on some metaphysical tangent I am afraid we’ll never even get close to some sort of middle ground, where while incapable of sharing and/or believing in said definition, it at least has some merit and logic to it from my POV.

On second though, forget the ‘logic’ part. I’ll simply settle for ‘merit’…because as I am sure you’re well-aware, there’s nothing logical about god-beliefs. OTOH I can think of at least a couple of logical reasons that justify religion/s themselves.
[/QUOTE]
I already tried to do that in the OP, so I’m not sure if I can. But I’ll try. My belief is as follows:

There is no way that God could not exist because what He does is edify. Without Him, there would be only deconstruction. He desires to edify because He believes edification is beautiful and valuable.

56

[QUOTE=matt]
The analogy implies a metauniverse for God and the structure running the software to exist in, of course…
[/QUOTE]
As an atheist, you’ve hit on a key point from my perspective. I think that a number of the comments offered thus far presume that the universe is all there is. Thus, there are demands for “evidence” and such, which make sense only in the context of God being made of physical stuff, like atoms. But if that were the case, then He would not be supernatural.

57

OK, let’s be fair to Lib here - he’s not really able to argue anything about the true definition of God, only those who try to deny God’s existence. So here it is.

God is Jesus Christ. Who was born in a stable 2000 years ago. As the son of God. (Even some Jews say so!)

Who was a few thousand years older, and who created the world, and then all the creatures of the world, and then made man in his own image. And then punished man for the sin of eating the forbidden fruit. And then put his spirit into a human woman to give birth to his offspring in order to redeem humanity.

And God is also just that nice feeling you have when you know that maybe everything in the world is not pointless and futile, and that your life has meaning. And you sit there and just GLOW in the knowledge that God is life and love and every feeling that you’ve ever enjoyed.

But God is also the one who gave the world rules that matter, and without which you could not really live your life in a productive manner. Such as ‘Thou Shalt Not Murder’ and ‘Thou Shalt Not Covet Your Neighbour’s Wife’. So God is the creator of history, and of morality, and of mythology.

And God has appeared in many cultures in completely different, complimentary forms which are appropriate for that culture, and that time. Sometimes as an image, sometimes as a force of nature, sometimes as a collection of beings who served the same purpose.

So God is everything good in the universe, even when we think that it’s not good.

Is that the sort of answer you were after, Lib?

58

God or gods are part of a human condition, that is used to explain physical and psychological phenomena when that knowledge is not immediately apparent. Some adherents take this to a further level, where they cling to these (often archaic) beliefs even despite the expansion of human knowledge to encompass those phenomena that previously had been ascribed to that god or gods.

In other words I am not convinced that there is any qualitative different between a cargo cult and belief in the world’s major gods.

59

It all presupposes that ‘I’ must have a greater meaning than the meaningless of my current existence.

Dangerous presumption. Not necessarily tinged with arrogance, but it helps.

Fwiw, I think I’m an interesting combination of energy and matter, but it will all end in fertiliser.

60

[QUOTE=BobPi]
Sorry, but I don’t see how the one follows from the other. Why does anything have to exist necessarilly? Except possibly for nothing, I don’t see that anything in particular has to necesarilly exist? Therefore by your definition God must be nothing. At least nothing in particular.

Sorry, but again, I don’t see how you reach that conclusion from the premise. Why does universal existence imply truth? And how did you go from there to a personification by the word “Him”?

Why does free and moral follow? I see no logical necessity of these attributes. Perhaps you’re forcing your definition of God to conform to a preconceived notion you’ve developed from other causes and for other reasons.

Well, it’s hard to understand the discussion of you’re going to redefine terms without consideration of their normal meaning, especially if that redefinition is simply intended to align with your premise. Can’t something be good because it is consistent and unchanging? You’re implying that if something isn’t getting always better then it’s no good. Is that really what you wanted to say?

What aesthetic does God believe in? Not necessarilly what you think God believes in. Can you accept that God’s perception of the world differs from your own, and therefor motivation of “goodness” has nothing to do with yours, and may in some ways be diametrically opposed to yours? His How can you imagine that God’s aesthetic and notions of “better” aligns with yours?

I don’t mean to be insulting, but your definition seems like an attempt to elevate yourself, or at least your beliefs, into God. In my experience, that’s the common mechanics of faith, the elevation of one’s primary beliefs into God. Belief’s don’t come from God, God comes from prior beliefs.
[/QUOTE]

I agree. There is plenty in this world that I consider bad, but others consider good, and vice versa. Applying one’s personal opinion of what is good to a concept (god) only speaks of that person’s values; not those of a supernatural being. If god is a “personal relationship” then it really doesn’t exist outside your own mind, and therefore is irrelevant to the rest of us.