How do you define God?

Whether you believe or don't believe there is evidence for a god, how would you define "a god" or "god's"...

I'm not asking what religious texts say. Although you may use that if it's part of your definition. I'm asking YOUR opinion. Not someone else's definition. Even if you do not believe, you must have some framework from which you've decided you don't believe in X....I'm asking your definition of X.

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Permalink Reply by Davis Goodman on January 24, 2017 at 5:28am
It's pretty offensive to be told I MUST have a framework for a definition of God.frame Then I guess you must have a framework to define the the meddling moon goddess. I don't have a definition for God and I never had. I've heard all the bullshit theists have invented and retold about God...but I've never definedtheist-existing thing in my life unless it was a useful thought experiment or creative-fiction. I'm not going to use my creativity and malicious arguments to generate a definition about something believers canmalicious define. When I think of the Abrahamid god a description would be: bullying bipolar unstable cruel murdering hissyfit throwing sexist homophobic assholeasshole who sometimes does things he says are good for us. That's basically Donald Trump only in the sky. But that's not a definition.

It's up to those who posit there is a god to define their absurdity...something they never ever do. Once wewe atheists start having to define God for them (cause THEY never do) we get sucked into their narrative and debate about an absurdity. I'm not playing that game cause there's nothing special about that game over say the how do you explain how Elvis is Alive game?
Permalink Reply by Simon Paynton on January 24, 2017 at 6:27am

An intelligent creator of the universe. 

Permalink Reply by Davis Goodman on January 24, 2017 at 7:11am

That is quite insufficient.

Permalink Reply by Simon Paynton on January 24, 2017 at 4:19pm

@Davis, how would you extend this definition? 

Permalink Reply by Reg The Fronkey Farmer on January 24, 2017 at 4:28pm

Would “an intelligent creator of the Universe”……..who can read my mind because I have a personal relationship with “Him” and who will give me everlasting life……add to it? That seems to be what most Muslims or Christians suggest. I am not being trite. They all tell me this at some point as if it should amaze me.

Permalink Reply by Davis Goodman on January 24, 2017 at 6:36pm

I wouldn't extend the definiton myself...cause then I'd be using my imagination and creativity to define something that is fictional and absurd. It is a tedious and useless task, as would be "properly defining good luck" or "giving an adequate definition of ancestor spirits". Ugh. It's for the deluded spirit believers to do that. It's their job.

Your definition is insufficient because things other than God fit that definition (before Zeus came along Erbus the first intelligent being who slept with night (the third intelligent being) and from them day and heaven's light was born etc) I don't think Erbus would be called God. Or how about some guy named Bob once accidentally farted the world into existence (would we call that guy God?).

You've also left out highly important details about God that differentiates him from other rediculous man-made fiction like the way he interferes in man's affairs, what his own particular brutality and genocides were like, his moments of love, his way of demanding things and the kind of things he demanded, his unique offerings, his form of all or nothing judgement, where he exists, how he communicates with man, how he spies on us all the time, his total absence on the world stage for the last 2000 years etc. These are all essential things that differentiate him from other supernatural human inventions.

Permalink Reply by Tom Sarbeck on January 24, 2017 at 9:00am
Intelligent?

Caries, cancer, West Nile fever, dropsy, halitosis, alternate factism, etc, etc and etc?

An inveterate fuck-up.
Permalink Reply by matt.clerke on January 24, 2017 at 4:53pm

What do you mean by "the universe"? Does that mean a regular being from another universe can create a universe and is then a "god" in that universe? Why call such a being a god?

Permalink Reply by Simon Paynton on January 24, 2017 at 4:59pm

OK, the multiverse.  I would have thought that to intelligently create a multiverse is pretty God-like by definition. 

Permalink Reply by matt.clerke on January 24, 2017 at 4:59pm

By accurately I mean so that someone reading the description experiences the same feeling as the author.

Why would you expect a definition of something like love to evoke that feeling? I can read the definition of an apple but it doesn't make me feel the taste, smell, or satisfaction of taking a bite.

Although we can use language to try and define love as best we can (our foremost poets have attempted to do so for generations with more success than I) we can never accurately describe it

Chemicals in the brain. That's all that's needed for love.

Any attempt to define God gets lost in translation.

Sounds like a pretty poor excuse to me. You didn't even try... you just gave up.

Permalink Reply by Davis Goodman on January 24, 2017 at 6:21pm

Why would you expect a definition of something like love to evoke that feeling? I can read the definition of an apple but it doesn't make me feel the taste, smell, or satisfaction of taking a bite.

Beautiful retort!!!

Sounds like a pretty poor excuse to me. You didn't even try... you just gave up.

Theologists have had 2,500 years to come up with a definition...and they haven't all given up. Maybe after 2,500 more years...they'll have a partial definition? Let's hold our breath!

Permalink Reply by Sagacious Hawk on January 26, 2017 at 8:03pm

It's an interesting take, but I'm curious: do you think that it is possible to describe characteristics of God? Would you say that God has a sense of agency and can freely act in the world or on people or do you consider God to be more of a universal emotion that people experience in their own way?

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