Historically? Lower-case “g” gods are quite comprehensible in many cases. And limited in power.
Given our current technology one of Bank’s Culture GSV space-ships might achieve this.
Back in the old days it was perfectly acceptable to have a war god – who could not doubt beat anyone in combat – be unable to escape from a net created by the forge god; a net he was trapped in while cuckolding said forge god with the goddess of love. Or have a god slain by a spear make of mistletoe. Or have a goddess get pissed at a mortal for arrogantly comparing their beauty or weaving skills with that of an immortal and in a fit of pique transmogrifying the mortal into a monster.
The inevitable end result however of “my god’s bigger / better / stronger” than your god claims is that God (now with capital G) is supposedly unique and super-pan-omni-max. And baffling because of the problem of evil and so on. (And yet still apparently cares who sleeps with whom). :rolleyes:
I see this as little more than god “munchkin-ism”.
God would be the greatest of all beings whether they be gods or not.
Jesus was asked by His disciples “who among us is the greatest.” Jesus replied: “He that serves all of you, He would be the greatest.”
So God, in order to be the greatest must be the servant of all mankind. He would create us, sustain us, protect us, and yet give us free will to make our own decisions.
It would not be a religious god that serves only the Christians or some other religion, that god would not be the greatest. Nor any god that served only a certain minority of humanity.
God must serve all of mankind and all that lives. Look for that God and you will find the Greatest.
Would that be ‘the greatest being within its own light-cone?’ In a relativistic universe, any being can only affect, or be affected by, a certain limited region of the universe, a region which is defined by the speed of light. If the Supreme Being is the Supreme being within its own c-horizon, there may be even greater beings outside that region, but they can never affect anyone or anything within it , assuming that nothing can exceed the speed of light.
There is no good reason to expect that our local god or God can affect things beyond its own c-horizon, except wishful or magical thinking.
I personally think of god as the embodiment of all the pro-social emotions that conscious organisms feel. If the universe is a closed system, our thoughts and emotions do not disappear into nothing, they go somewhere so I think of it as god the embodiment of all the pro-social thoughts and emotions that are felt by organic creatures (love, forgiveness, compassion, mercy, empathy, trust). I assume if that is true, that is why god always wants us to have these emotions. Not just for our benefit, but to make itself stronger because it feeds on concepts like compassion and forgiveness.
Now is that what I’d ‘want’ god to be? no. I’d prefer god be a powerful entity of infinite compassion and wisdom who can affect the outcome of organic life. But a basic reality check shows that is not the case.
