Define God

Post Reply New Topic

Define God ? In my perspective, the "First Cause" or "Origin". Sentience, supernatural or being "outside" are just facultative properties made because people like the idea.

God would be more than that only in traditional theism. We tend to "christianize" our definition of God too much.

but then again a word has to have some widely accepted meaning. or else it's just gobbledygook

which, yes, i think would be a valid argument against the very use of the word "god" to mean anything in particular or anything at all. take the words "love" and "empathy" for instance. they're similar cases

If you want an universal definition, yo've got to reduce it as much as possible. For example, if God is the creator, nothing forces the creator to be present "after" the First Cause.
There is also an unsolvable contradiction between some Pagan definitions and Abrahamic definitions. Greek gods are fundamentally different in nature from the Christian God. Add the Pantheist God definition and there are at least 3 fundamentally different entities that can be called "God", and trying to merge them means unsolvable definition conflicts. The Abrahamic definition is just the traditional one, but that doesn't mean that it should be THE definition because it's currently the most popular one.

yes, but i still think that continuity (be it finite or infinite) coupled with either sentience or intent are features shared by all of those notions of what a god is. there has to be some humanly relatable feature. creation / beginning is an event instead. it's more akin to an action than it is to an agent or observer

Not necessarily. A "human" definition of God is pretty recent. It doesn't fit some Pagan definitions and it definitely doesn't fit the Pantheist definition other than "humans are part of God". God doesn't even have to be personal or sentient the way sentience is the most commonly defined.
My personal definition of God doesn't include these criteria at all (I'm a Pantheist), and I personally have a very inclusive definition of sentience.

that's where that quote i posted comes in: "then why call it god?". sure, you can if you want. but then what meaning does it have?

also, if you're part of god, then that means god has continuity. okay, maybe not sentience or intent. but continuity is a fundamental feature of the concept in any of its possible forms. or else it devolves into something completely redundant, and then there's not even a point in having a separate word for it

I can return the question : you can consider that you have the right definition of God and that mine is wrong, or I can consider that my definition of God is right and that yours is wrong. In the end, all personal definitions of God are equally valid, no matter how mutually incompatible they are.

which is precisely my definition of iusdfwrfdwa

I am surprised no one went to the source of the most accurate and most succinct definition of God. Jesus is quoted as saying "God is a spirit." Some within Judaism describe God similarly. Simple. More people should consider the ramifications. But, this simple description is too often missed by others.

And, not only have many atheists talked mistakenly about an "old man with a white beard floating in the clouds, and playing a harp" got it wrong, so too, have many theists of a variety of faiths done so, too.

okay, i'll bite