# What is a "god"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 8, 2013, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-god/655153 "2013-04-08T14:16:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2013, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-god/655153/61 "2013-04-09T03:17:48Z")
> [@Apollyon](#): > > Urrmm? The Norse gods were considered gods too, as were the very fallible Greek ones, and so forth. Ok, I’ll take your word for it. > [@Apollyon](#): > > It seems more than a little odd to me to draw up a list of god criteria that would preclude historical / mythological gods. Though I’m an atheist, my exposure to religion has been pretty much limited to Protestant Christianity, the dominant form of religion in my area. That informed by thinking on this matter. If the Norse gods can die, they aren’t gods in the sense in which I use the term. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2013, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-god/655153/62 "2013-04-09T03:20:22Z")
> [@Ranchoth](#): > > Maybe [nearer](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiegelman_Monster) than [you think](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycoplasma_laboratorium). OK, so a bunch of scientists pay a call on God, and their leader tells him, “We think You should retire. Nowadays, You can’t do anything that science can’t. We can even make a man – look, we’ll prove it, we’ll challenge You to a man-making contest right now.” God says, “All right, but I’m an old-fashioned guy, and if We have a man-making contest, it’ll have to be the old-fashioned way – starting with nothing but dirt.” The scientists go into a huddle, and then the leader says, “OK, we can handle that.” He bends down to pick up a handful of dirt. And God says, “Oh, no! Oh, no! You have to get your **own** dirt!” ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2013, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-god/655153/63 "2013-04-09T03:25:17Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > OK, so a bunch of scientists pay a call on God, and their leader tells him, “We think You should retire. Nowadays, You can’t do anything that science can’t. We can even make a man – look, we’ll prove it, we’ll challenge You to a man-making contest right now.” > > God says, “All right, but I’m an old-fashioned guy, and if We have a man-making contest, it’ll have to be the old-fashioned way – starting with nothing but dirt.” > > The scientists go into a huddle, and then the leader says, “OK, we can handle that.” He bends down to pick up a handful of dirt. > > And God says, “Oh, no! Oh, no! You have to get your **own** dirt!” Good stuff, but see post #25. ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2013, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-god/655153/64 "2013-04-09T03:34:41Z")
> [@Blaster\_Master](#): > > \*\*All it really takes to be a “god” is that someone’s belief structure holds that to be true. It doesn’t require any minimum specific set of powers or, in fact, even any powers. As for “God”, it depends on the context. \*\*For my own beliefs, it only requires that he created the universe and that there is some purpose or intent to it. I believe that, by virtue of being powerful enough to create the universe, he is also able to manipulate the physical laws within it by will, that either he doesn’t as it violates the fundamental property of omniscience. That is, from our perspective, if he’s changing his mind mid-stream, and form his perspective any “changes” God makes would be transparent to us in the sense that they’re changed for our Space-Time and all in which we exist are derived from those conditions. [Emphasis mine] You had me at ‘god’. The capital G “God” you mention in the latter part of the bolded section is part of the lower-case g “god” set you presented in the former. Because by your own definition: _“All it really takes to be a “god” is that someone’s belief structure holds that to be true”_, your “God” is merely one of many other “gods”. The ‘context’ you mention (_“As for “God”, it depends on the context”_) is simply the fact that in your own head, your idea of “god” elevates it to “God”. This is a perfect illustration of my long-held definition of God: God = _X_ With _X_ being whatever any individual wants it to be. This makes defining God a venture that is effectively fruitless outside ones own worldview. I know that my definition of God is not helpful to what **Czarcasm** is getting at in this thread, but I mentioon it because it pertains to the widespread “My idea of God is more important than your idea of God because it is in my mind” sort of opinion that **Blaster Master** presented. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2013, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-god/655153/65 "2013-04-09T04:08:34Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > \*\*What is a “god”? \*\* Believe in Me! \*No, believe in ME! Believe in ME! Believe in ME! [small gods quarrel]\* ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2013, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-god/655153/66 "2013-04-09T04:30:06Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > The scientists go into a huddle, and then the leader says, “OK, we can handle that.” He bends down to pick up a handful of dirt. > > And God says, “Oh, no! Oh, no! You have to get your **own** dirt!” Moving the goalposts when a mortal starts to best him…now _that_ sounds like a god, all right. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2013, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-god/655153/67 "2013-04-09T13:49:47Z")
Maybe this thread shows why God doesn’t show himself anymore. People are making ridiculous demands of him, demands he can’t meet. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2013, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-god/655153/68 "2013-04-09T17:02:30Z")
> [@Latro](#): > > Maybe this thread shows why God doesn’t show himself anymore. > > People are making ridiculous demands of him, demands he can’t meet. And once he realizes he can’t meet them, and is not omnipotent, he vanishes in a puff of logic. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2013, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-god/655153/69 "2013-04-09T17:09:26Z")
A god should be supernatural. Aliens are scientific ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2013, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-god/655153/70 "2013-04-09T17:29:52Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > A god should be supernatural. Aliens are scientific I’d rather say that aliens are natural. Normal life, just from another planet. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2013, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-god/655153/71 "2013-04-09T17:38:07Z")
What does supernatural even mean, though? And how would we know the difference between natural-and-very-powerful and supernatural? ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2013, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-god/655153/72 "2013-04-09T17:57:33Z")
> [@Human\_Action](#): > > What does supernatural even mean, though? Yes, well, I don’t think it exists, so no gods. Yet some ‘strange stuff’ might still exist but prove to be natural, because ‘natural’ might encompass more than we now understand. Some of this ‘strange stuff’ might be ‘6th sense’, ‘déjà vu’, maybe even outer body expierences, I dunno. > [@](#): > > And how would we know the difference between natural-and-very-powerful and supernatural? I would say that the difference is that natural-and-very-powerful would still be powerfull through technology. Technology that would, to us, \*seem \* like magic but still technology. ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2013, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-god/655153/73 "2013-04-09T18:27:19Z")
I don’t think it’s at all useful to define god in terms of attributes of something, such that if that something has those attributes, that something is a god—godliness has never been defined that way, after all. Rather, a god is something that is worshiped, believed in, revered, etc. by humans. Godliness is a relation between something and human beings, not an inherent characteristic, in the same sense that aesthetic appeal is: there is no specific set of characteristics such that if something meets those characteristics, that something is beautiful. ‘What is a god?’, in many ways, is a question like ‘what is art?’ or ‘what is good?’; a question that, if answerable at all, can’t be answered by appealing to inherent properties. There is no art in a vacuum, and nothing’s good in and of itself. Similarly, there’s no god without worship or faith: it’s what makes some particular being a god. God is ultimately a human concept (whether or not some particular being itself is), and depends on humanity to be actualized. Thus, a god is whatever stands in the appropriate relation to (some subset of) humanity. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2013, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-god/655153/74 "2013-04-09T18:28:48Z")
> [@Latro](#): > > Yes, well, I don’t think it exists, so no gods. Yet some ‘strange stuff’ might still exist but prove to be natural, because ‘natural’ might encompass more than we now understand. > > Some of this ‘strange stuff’ might be ‘6th sense’, ‘déjà vu’, maybe even outer body expierences, I dunno. Ok, that’s sensible, supernatural = unknown, rather than unknowable or somehow separate from the natural world. > [@Latro](#): > > I would say that the difference is that natural-and-very-powerful would still be powerfull through technology. Technology that would, to us, \*seem \* like magic but still technology. Right, but how would we mere humans ever hope to tell whether the dazzling, miraculous powers of a god-like entity are technology or magic, or if there’s even a difference? ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2013, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-god/655153/75 "2013-04-09T18:35:33Z")
> [@Human\_Action](#): > > What does supernatural even mean, though? And how would we know the difference between natural-and-very-powerful and supernatural? Let’s say we don’t and that this is like that saying “Any significantly advanced technology will seem like magic”. We can understand aliens, they’re like us but from another planet. So far, we have no clue to even start to try to understand a god. Maybe someday. So a god at least has to be totally baffling to us, to affect phenomenon we believe cannot be affected, and display a level of understanding and power far beyond even our wildest dreams ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2013, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-god/655153/76 "2013-04-09T19:22:03Z")
Definitely a good question, and one that should come before the usual questions about whether you believe in one and so forth. For a god to exist, there must really and truly be goodness, meaningfulness, purpose. Even _those_ things are damn difficult to define, but I can get to them better by juxtaposing the notion of their ABSENCE. Now where did I put that spell for conjuring up a straw man? Aha, here it is. \*\* cue flash of lightning and puff of smoke \*\* I offer you the perspective of Joe Existentialist Poststructuralist. [QUOTE=Joe] You really can’t say that anything is inherently good, or better than anything else. You personally may look at the accomplishments and objectives of Martin Luther King and contrast them with those of Adolf Hitler and say that _in your opinion_, seeking equality and social justice and being willing to risk dying to make things better for a whole bunch of other people and trying to bring opposed people together in peace is better than craving and attaining authoritarian power by fomenting hatred against an out group and rounding them up and killing 6 million of them in gas chambers and invading multitudes of other countries and trying to conquer the world. But that’s all it is, is _your opinion_. Which you hold only because of the context in which you were raised, the things you were exposed to that made you who you are. Just as Mssrs. King and Hitler were just acting in accordance with the ideas and other stimuli to which they were exposed which made them as THEY were, and if you’d switched theirs places you’d have ended up with Martin Luther Hitler and Adolf King, and if you’d been raised in the right strata of Germany at the right time you’d be saying Heil yourself, and no one can say the beliefs you have now are the better ones or the nicer ones or whatever. There is no goodness, only notions of goodness. And just as there is no good there is no god. Only notions of god. Nothing intrinsically matters or has meaning. Everything is what it is due to prior cause but there’s no original cause, nothing has a purpose, and nobody does anything because of their intentionality but rather their behavior is a predictable response to stimuli, and everything works like a mechanical clockwork, even if a somewhat complicated clockwork at times. And it’s all running down and will become nothing anyhow. [/quote] GOD does not have to be an entity, a conscious or deliberate agent separate from people and any other (real or hypothetical) actors who may or may not believe in a god, may or may not use that term as part of their understanding of what life and world is really about. Nor does god have to possess any power as such, nor be in some sense the cause OF the meaning or goodness or purpose. God could be all of those things, but if there is true goodness apart from notions thereof, then notions thereof can be said to be correct or incorrect, accurate or inaccurate. And the desire to understand what, indeed, IS good can be abstracted as a search for god. It is personal and the experience of being so engaged is (often, probably usually) to the seeker as if trying to engage in communication with an entity that answers back and comforts and so on. I sense that if it is true, in this sense, that there is a god, then it is also true that there are consequences for being or not being aligned with this goodness, that it would end up mattering on some level to us, individually and collectively, if we managed to understand it decently well and align ourselves with it decently well, or if instead we did not. Perhaps most important of the things god does NOT have to be is demonstrable, provable. Were any method to be proposed for establishing whether there is or is not a true goodness, or, even more so, for establishing what that goodness consists of — defining the good, if you will — then the method replaces the search. I reject the notion that a method should exist or must exist. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2013, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-god/655153/77 "2013-04-09T19:29:45Z")
Actually, the question is about _any_ “god”, not just the “GOD” of Jews and/or Christians. ---
**Author:** ![Cheshire\_Human](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Cheshire\_Human](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheshire_Human)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2013, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-god/655153/78 "2013-04-09T19:30:19Z")
The OP actually brings up a question that needs to be clarified, first, before I can answer the rest. What’s the difference between ‘God’ and ‘god’. Small ‘g’ god is anything anyone has ever thought of as a god. Big ‘G’ God is ‘the supreme being’, whatever it might be, as long as it meets some minimum requirements. Now I can answer the question. The minimum requirements for ‘God’ are: a) There can be only one. If there’s more than one, and they can interfere with each other or each other’s creations (even if they never actually _do_ so), none of them are God. b) It has to be intelligent, conscious, and possessed of will. c) It has to be sufficiently powerful to have created our universe (or the superverse of the things that were ruled out by a). d) It has to have intentionally designed and created our universe (or, again, the superverse) for some purpose. ETA: Oh, yeah, and e) It has to be the top dog. If there’s something like the first 4 that created our universe, but it was created in its turn, it ain’t God. God has to not have a creator. There may be other necessary conditions I haven’t bothered to think about, but until someone shows me something that meets those 4, and demonstrates that it actually exists, then it’s really worth no more consideration of what those conditions might be than for idle time-killing conversation. Like this thread. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2013, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-god/655153/79 "2013-04-09T20:17:36Z")
> [@Keeve](#): > > My feeling is that the Creator Of The Universe should be able to change the laws of physics at will, but NOT the rules of logic. > . I disagree. Not only are there religious beliefs that defy our logic (like the Christian triune god) but also there are verifiable physical realities (say, in quantum mechanics) that do the same. If a mere photon can go through two slits at the same time while respecting physical laws, I’m not sure why a god who can ignore them couldn’t do things that don’t make logical sense to us (like creating a rock so heavy that etc…). ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2013, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-god/655153/80 "2013-04-09T20:51:39Z")
Regarding the OP, I would call “god” whatever has been historically called this way. So no need to be omnipotent, or benevolent or immortal, or to have created the universe, etc… I don’t know how this could be summed up. “Very powerful, conscious and supernatural being that attracted a religious following”, maybe? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-god/655153.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-god/655153.md?page=5)