When you say you believe or do not believe in "God", what exactly is your definition of "God".

[smirkymonkey]

I always thought that having a discussion about God was pointless unless you first defined exactly what you meant by the term "God". I think many people have different interpretations of God so they may not be discussing the same thing when they argue or debate. What is your concept or definition?

[Act_of_Reparation]

1. My definition of god...

...is "something that doesn't exist."

If apologists get to use weasel definitions, then so do I.

[smirkymonkey]

3. FYI, I am an athiest agnostic.

But definitions can range from a big man in the sky to a numinous life force. I am just curious as to how other people define it.

[Act_of_Reparation]

10. It wasn't directed at you, specifically.

The point is I don't think there is much variance in how people, broadly, define god, beyond the aforementioned cosmetic differences. While you can always rely on the apologist to show up spouting some crap about the "universe is god",it is important to remember two things: 1) these alternative definitions aren't worth consideration because no one beyond the apologist actually believes it, and 2) the apolgist's motive is to win an argument and it is likely they doesn't believe such definitions themselves.

People who believe in god generally believe in some sort of supernatural intelligence or force that created and/or guides the universe in some way. Everything else is just window dressing.

[Foolacious]

2. Any omnipotent OR omnipresent supernatural sentience.

Doesn't have to have both omni-characteristics, and doesn't have to be omnibenevolent.

[thucythucy]

5. I'm closer to the "omnipresent sentience"--

doesn't have to be supernatural in that it might be part of the natural order but not yet detectable to any of our senses or instruments (as gamma radiation was undetectable two centuries ago).

Perhaps omnibenevolent but not omnipotent, or if omnipotent then certainly not omnibenevolent, at any rate not in this sphere of existence.

I'm an agnostic. I've seen no independently verifiable evidence of such a sentience as yet, but also believe in the old cliché: "Absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence."

[Foolacious]

16. That's why I'm unwilling to rule out God UNLESS...

... I'm also willing to rule out a manatee-shaped butter sculpture orbiting the star that is currently the 10,000th most distant from the central black hole of the Andromeda galaxy. I haven't seen any evidence of such a sculpture, but that's not necessarily evidence of its absence. Still pondering....

[thucythucy]

20. Well, if such an object was either observed by at least some people

or came as the result of some theory (as various sub atomic particles were postulated to exist before we had the ability to detect them) then I might agree.

Keep in mind that many people--perhaps millions--have had what can be described as a religious experience. Ever read "The Varieties of Religious Experience" by William James, or Maya Deren's book on Haitian theology? Religious inclinations are one of the most commonly shared features of the human experience. It could be mass hallucination, evolutionary detritus, or evidence of something we can't yet explain. Besides which, I'm not sure I'm willing to dismiss the belief of people as astute as Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr. or Sophie Scholl or Barak Obama quite so blithely. Hence my agnosticism.

But your sarcasm is duly noted and appreciated.

[qazplm135]

9. to me one kind of gets you pretty close to having the other

certainly if you are omnipotent you should be able to be omnipresent.

Maybe not vice versa, although either should help you with omniscience.

I don't think such an entity is per se omnibenevolent, although cruelty and arbitrariness don't seem to go well with high intelligence.

[Pope George Ringo II]

17. I think this is still too narrow to handle polytheism.

If Tyr showed up in my living room this afternoon, I'd have to call him a god. He's not omnipotent enough to re-grow that hand, omniscience seems to be Heimdall's domain, but Tyr is as much a god as any.

Zeus would also qualify, but the Titans were more powerful than the Greek gods. Even there, Prometheus had his liver torn out every day and while it's true that recovery from that would be impressive, having it happen to you all the time shows some limits.

Heck, even within the xian pseudo-monotheism, the Jesus character is supposed to be a god, but that whole, "Why have you forsaken me?" routine does not suggest either omniscience or omnipotence. More broadly, are the offspring of male gods and mortal women (always seems to work that way for some reason...) actual gods? Demi-gods? Demi-semi-skinny-half caf-gods?

I'd almost feel better treating gods like pornography and falling back on "I know it when I see it."

[nancy1942]

4. I am clueless.

The older I get the more I simply do not know. This particular question is one I've struggled with all my life. I wish I knew the answer.

[MineralMan]

6. It's difficult to get an answer to that question, even from religious people.

It's easier to get a clear definition from atheists, who will tell you that all gods are imaginary entities created by the human mind. Since they don't believe any such entities exist, there is no reason to define them further. One cannot define what does not exist. Everyone seems to have a different idea of what the deity they believe exists is like.

Some simply refer to it as "The Creator," and won't answer any further questions regarding their deity. Perhaps that's the safest definition of all.

[smirkymonkey]

12. I just think it is something that is completely beyond the realm of human understanding.

I do think there is something greater than us, I just have no fucking clue what it is. I will never know. Neither will anybody else.

[MineralMan]

14. Almost everything is greater than us. Truly.

We are greater than us. The fun is in studying all that. We're lucky enough to be able to do that.

[ghostsinthemachine]

7. God

God is a concept
By which we measure
Our pain
I'll say it again
God is a concept
By which we measure
Our pain
I don't believe in magic
I don't believe in I-Ching
I don't believe in Bible
I don't believe in tarot
I don't believe in Hitler
I don't believe in Jesus
I don't believe in Kennedy
I don't believe in Buddha
I don't believe in mantra
I don't believe in Gita
I don't believe in yoga
I don't believe in kings
I don't believe in Elvis
I don't believe in Zimmerman
I don't believe in Beatles
I just believe in me
Yoko…

[thucythucy]

22. I love that song.

Of course, the same man wrote the words "God bless our love" and "the Goddess really smiled on our love" in subsequent songs.

Sounds like another agnostic to me.

[qazplm135]

8. You've hit on it because it's a range

GOD: Omniscient. Omnipresent. Omnipotent. Creator of the universe. Ability to violate the laws of physics at will. Miracles. The whole shebang. Present before, present after, ruler of the afterlife. Burning bush. Yadda yadda yadda. As an agnostic, I find this version extremely unlikely.

God: An entity that is so powerful and so intelligent that it can do anything in the universe within the bounds of the laws of physics. A creature of the universe, but not necessarily a creator of it. Whatever an entity can be within the universe at the most powerful. Imagine a civilization that rose early on and has been progressing for say 8 billion years. At some point, they could reach a level of knowledge and power so vast that it becomes God-like to someone like us. I find this version unlikely, but theoretically possible. I tend to lean more towards the idea that it takes at least a second generation star to have the necessary building blocks for life and then it takes billions years more for that life to become a civilization, and thus we might be one of the first in the galaxy or even the universe and anyone ahead of us is "only" a few million years at most.

*god: A special case in my view where it turns out that the universe was created via a natural act in another or higher universe. See e.g. the theory that the universe is really a black hole in another universe that split off. If some highly intelligent, but otherwise mortal entity created that particular black hole that became our universe. Technically they created our universe. I rate this as somewhat unknowable, but possible.

Anything else. "A diffuse life force spread throughout the universe." Or the universe as a single living entity. None of those are really "God" definitionally to me.

[trotsky]

11. Lack of a coherent definition is one of the reasons to reject belief in god(s).

Basically, I don't believe in any god that anyone has proposed so far.

[smirkymonkey]

13. Exactly!

What is the point of arguing over that which is undefinable?

[trotsky]

15. If it was just "god vs. no god" I agree there wouldn't be a point.

But the problem is that so many who insist "god" also insist a whole shit-ton of ridiculous and harmful baggage come along with it, because... well... god!

[uriel1972]

24. That's the thing...

If they just quietly pondered the nature of the universe etc... then no big deal.
However, many seem to think that what they believe in gives them the right to torture, rape, murder, plunder etc.
I wish it was just an academic quibble, but in the end it seems to be a life and death struggle.

[smirkymonkey]

21. Neither do I, but for some it is a very specific "being" and for others it is an abstract concept

of "all that is". Those people are not having the same conversation. I just find it curious that when people speak of god they all assume that they are on the same page when they assume they have the exact same concept of what "god" means.

[qazplm135]

41. except

for atheists, none of the possible definitions exist...so even if theists have different definitions, or an agnostic like me can come up with different definitions as ranging from extremely unlikely to theoretically possible...it's all the same to one side of the conversation.

So while I agree with you that people can have a different idea in their head what the word god means, not sure it really matters in the main argument as it were.

[marylandblue]

44. I imagine that atheists don't agree that your theoretical gods meet your range of possibilities.

They may consider the range to be between impossible and extremely unlikely. I am agnostic like you, but I consider "theoretically possible" gods to be extremely unlikely.

[qazplm135]

45. which was my point

since they think it's all more or less impossible, then what definition you give it really doesn't matter to any "conversation" between an atheist and theist.

[Iggo]

18. "Any god I've ever heard of."

(And all the ones I haven't.)

[MarvinGardens]

19. God is the thing that caused the laws of nature to be what they are.

All else, including us, exist as a consequence of those laws of nature.

[edhopper]

25. Does it have intelligence?

And can it violate those natural laws?

[MarvinGardens]

27. I tend to think it is intelligent.

And logically, if it is bound by the natural laws as we are, then it is not God. Thus, it can violate the natural laws.

[Bretton Garcia]

33. So where did God in turn come from?

[MarvinGardens]

37. It's a good question.

This brings up the question in my mind: Was there a point of origin of the universe, or is the existence of the universe an infinite series of events stretching back in time forever? The cosmologists can't see back before the big bang, but that does not mean there was no existence prior. Infinite series exist in mathematics, so why not even in the physical world? In Western religions, the answer is that God is eternal and has always existed, thus God Himself had no creator. But if we instead ascribe that property to the physical universe, then it can be argued that the universe needs no creator.

Even if the universe is an infinite series in time, it is possible that it has a creator. This may at first seem absurd, but consider that time itself is a part of nature, treated as a fourth space-like dimension in some of Einstein's equations. It is possible that God created a universe that had always existed, forever, from our perspective.

Why is such a fanciful explanation necessary or desirable? For me, it is because I have repeatedly had the following profound revelation while lying in the dark contemplating such things: None of this should exist, yet it does. To me, this is intuitively true. Why then is there existence rather than non-existence? An intelligent creator is the best explanation I can come up with.

But I still have not answered your question. Where did God come from? If indeed He created time and exists independently of it, no answer is needed. He was there B.T. (before time) or outside of it. But because I'm on here answering questions I don't really know the answer to, I'll entertain the possibility that God had a creator, an Ubergod. In that case, perhaps the Ubergod also had a creator, and so on, ad infinitum. In that case, we could have a universe that appears either finite or infinite in time, and in addition have a God who is one in a series of infinite God-creation events.

[trotsky]

35. "God is the thing that caused the laws of nature to be what they are."

Says who? What is your supporting evidence for this statement?

[MarvinGardens]

38. Says me.

The OP asked us to define God. That is my definition. It does not ascribe any other properties to God. It does not even say whether the thing exists. Unicorns probably do not exist, yet they have a definition.

[MineralMan]

36. Really? Please show your evidence of that.

That may be what you believe. Without evidence, though, it's just not a statement that is necessarily true.

So, what evidence do you have of this?

[MarvinGardens]

39. It's definitional, not requiring proof.

There are definitions for things that do not exist, like unicorns, or the luminiferous aether. The latter was once presumed to exist, based on logic (light waves must propagate through something), but without evidence. According to modern physics, it is not needed to explain the behavior of light.

But if you've read my other posts, you know that I do lean toward the existence of God meeting the aforementioned definition, and that does require an explanation. My belief in such a thing is not an unshakable faith-based belief, but rather a presumption, or a logical placeholder, needed by me (but certainly not everyone) until we figure out what the heck is going on.

[Voltaire2]

23. Lulzd.

[Doodley]

26. A Republican will tell you God has their values.

[Mariana]

43. So will most religious Democrats. nt.

[Croney]

28. God has many names.

Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, etc. If you can disprove one, you've disproved them all. If you can prove one, you've proved them all.

Magical unicorns in the sky... nah.

[keithbvadu2]

29. Descartes proved with logic that God exists but the Catholic Church rejected it because logic and pr

Descartes proved with logic that God exists but the Catholic Church rejected it because logic and proof negate the need for faith.

[Act_of_Reparation]

32. "Proved"

I can conceive of a René Descartes ten feet tall with lasers for eyes and Honda Civics for legs, and because it is better to be ten feet tall with lasers for eyes and Honda Civics for legs than it is to be a skeleton in the ground somewhere in France, René Descartes must therefore be ten feet tall with lasers for eyes and Honda Civics for legs.

[Voltaire2]

34. You cannot prove that such a Renee Descartes

does not exist inside a universe spawned from a black hole by a super intelligence.

So there! Your non belief is just as faithy as worshipping the triplet zombie gods.

[Act_of_Reparation]

42. I can concieve of a universe where I am right all the time.

And because it is better to be right all the time than it is to be wrong even a little bit, I must therefore be right. All of the time.

QED!

[gibraltar72]

30. Somebody who

wouldn't let a Dick Cheney live let alone thrive.

[Docreed2003]

31. I like to think of Jesus...

(Just adding a smile to the thread!)