TOTALLY different topic, but kinda similar to the other one.

Without talking about any specific diety being wrong, right, or otherwise...what makes a god a god?

I was having a conversation with someone a few weeks back who was playing sementic games. Essentially what they were doing (no one here, no one you'd ever know) was redefining words to suit their purpose or taking actual definitions out of context. Ultimately it came down to: what is a diety?

And it's kinda like obscenity...in that I think we can all agree...all bullshit aside, we know one when one is being talked about. But really...what DOES make a diety?

When I tried to compile a list, I realized everything I came up with could also apply to Superman. So that's kinda my offset. What makes a god a god that's seperate (more than) Superman?

-All powerful?

No. There are dietys which we would say are clearly gods (whether WE believe in them or not doesn't matter...we'd admit that they are gods to someone) which are not all powerful. In fact most dieties don't seem to be all powerful. Or all knowing either. There are religions in which gods have been maimed or killed (Osiris, Balder, etc.)

-Worship?

I think this is kind of loose. There are people who worship things other than gods (rulers, special people, objects, etc.) In fact some of the saints (in Christianity) get worshipped, but are *not* considered gods by those who do.

-Prayer?

This fails the Superman test. If prayer is a wish for intercession by something more powerful than yourself, it fails the Superman test. Additionally people do rituals and prayer (verbal or non-verbal wishes for things to happen) which aren't directed at any diety, but rather other beings, 'magic', etc.

....

I ended up kinda stumped. I think the best thing I can come up with is that what makes a diety are people saying someone/something is a diety, and then acting accordingly. There's a comic based on D&D called 'Order of the Stick' where the bard comes up with his own god...a puppet named Banjo. He gets others in the party to worship Banjo, which then gives Banjo power.

Obviously we wouldn't consider Banjo a "real" god, as it's just a comic. But I think that followers are one of the things necessary for us to consider something a diety. One person claiming they worship...well something like Banjo...we don't treat it seriously. Even if we don't believe in other people's gods, we'd say they're gods (just not real ones). Like if someone said is Zeus a god...you'd say 'Yes', even if you don't believe Zeus is real (and you probably don't). But if I worshipped Banjo the puppet god, you probably wouldn't say 'Oh sure, Banjo is a god'.

So I think maybe it's possible to come up with a list of things that might be necessary for us to consider something a deity...things which are necessary or it's not a diety (by almost everyone's consideration) but I'm not sure if we could make up a list that works which ends up being inclusive to all 'dieties', and excluding all non-dieties.

Anyway I thought I'd toss it out there, because maybe someone had a better idea than I on it, or could come up with essentially: if all these conditions are met, it's a diety, which doesn't fit anything else. Maybe it's not even possible, but I would think it would be simply because we're able to say "Zeus is a god" and "Superman...not a god".

_________________

As dyslexic deity?
















--J.D.

Are you kidding me?

A god is that which intercedes.
A being that, through its actions or inaction, either defines the physical or can surpass it.
A being that, within the frame of refence of its mythos, is ascribed traits and responsibilities over the natural and social worlds.
A being born from or defining taboos.

Money, sex, a book, anything can be raised within human perceptions to be a god - it just needs a charismatic spokesman to convince others.

Ooo actually you raise a point I hadn't thought of. They have to be telling people something that affects them. There's no apathetic diety that doesn't either want something from people, or want people to do something. Other than a generalized 'there's a creator out there that's impersonal' concept...but that's not really 'a god' thing I'm trying to nail down.

And that passes the Superman test I think. While Superman enforces the law (in comics, etc.) he doesn't make laws or rules himself.

_________________

What about the Sun and the Moon? They may not be considered Gods now, but they used to be. Also, about about Janus, the God of Doors? I'd say that he was fairly apathetic, and didn't require anything.

The Sun and the Moon became gods when they began to be ascribed motive, emotion, and power. In quite the same way, but in reverse, they ceased being gods when science dispelled their divine origins and anthropomorphic traits.

In Shinto, Amaterasu was the Sun Goddess, born of the left eye of Izanagi. (Or fabricated by Izanagi and Izanami.) A fickle, flightly, fearful deity, she had to be coaxed out of darkness / the underworld to shine for humanity. Even now, the Imperial Court claims direct descendance from the Court of the Sun, but you could say that Amaterasu is worshipped only by the beachgoers, while the Family and Honor have replaced her as gods.

Janus, the God of Doors, was indeed worshipped at the beginning and the end of things. Planting seasons, births, weddings, and so on and so forth - it is thought that he was either related to or identical to Terminus, the God of Boundaries (but in a lesser aspect).

More here: http://www.livius.org/ja-jn/janus/janus.html

In my view, a deity is any entity that currently has, or had in the past, worshipers. To become any more specific than that I feel places you in a position of arguing that your imaginary friend is more real than someone else's imaginary friend. Granted, this does open up some human beings as being considered deities, but who is to say that a God cannot take human form for whatever purpose?

Good information, but I still do not see how that counters what I said (I could just be being dense though). While most don't feel that the Sun and Moon are Gods anymore, that isn't to say that they ceased to be Gods.

Either way though, with the many multitudes of Gods out there, I think it would be naive to attempt to say that all Gods must have a message and motive unless you want to say that their very existence is a message.

Both of these threads look way too practiced.

I agree.

The word is contrived.

Something that also passes the Superman test is that most deities serve as our connection between this world and the other world. In Christian myth God/Christ is the connection between our realm and heaven, and similar thing can be seen in other mythologies. Most deities also have the ability to exist in both realms/worlds/whatever if they wish to.

We define it as we do most words: the way the majority of people will interpret it when spoken of. Take all of the popular religions, examine the god(s) that they worship, and you come up with several common features. But even with that, those common features may not apply to all. If a god merely existed with no worshippers("powers" still being present), it would still be a god, would it not? Worship would not be a necessity either.

We can pin down a few distinct traits that accompany the word, but a god can be anything that anyone wants he/she/it to be. Generally I would suggest that a god has significant power over a typical human being, but that's about the only trait that seems to be near-universal. If I envision in a dream a magical octopus that can teleport and declare it a god, then it is a god just as much as any other god - except there would be fewer worshippers/believers.

Cram it up your ass.

_________________
Marauder Harabakc Goat

Well, a lot of places I go when there are debates like this, I often post these nice, well-thought out posts that basically inform people that everyone is different and should be allowed to think what they wish so long as they do not hurt other people in the process, force their ideas onto them, and that sort of thing. However, it often does not have the proper impact that is intended, so I shall add in something more amusing that is still very true.

http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/1477 ... ompbu1.png

Cheers. ;3

Your skills at in-line image posting are composed of Fail and Lose, ma'am.

MIT has some interesting perspective on this type of stuff...

Heres one particular:
http://ocw.mit.edu/NR/rdonlyres/Linguistics-and-Philosophy/24-00Fall-2005/BABECD0F-64B9-4ADF-9DE4-338FC3067478/0/ontarg05.pdf

Their philosophy section is pretty decently equipped:
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Linguistics-and-Philosophy/24-00Fall-2005/LectureNotes/index.htm
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Linguistics-and-Philosophy/24-00Fall-2005/Assignments/index.htm

I mean theres about a billion ways to look at it. Humans typically define god. If we are going purely on the basis of human inspiration for our definition of god I dont think we are ever going to get an accurate description.

My problem with god is how are you going to define something that is theoretically undefinable. I also have a hard time understanding how if there is no god or god-like being, how everything everywhere was created. This is not as simple as life on our planet, our solar system, the universe(and possibly further). How if there is nothing, did this get created... Something somehow had to create everything which is here. I doubt anyone will ever get to that point of understanding.

I also have a hard time understanding how impossible it would be for a god to do things like allow a 5 year old that has done nothing wrong to have cancer and die. What about plants and animals, how do they fit into gods scheme of afterlife, where do all these souls go in the afterlife...

Every different religion has some similar but alot of differing opinions on all of the questions... But I guess this long rant just leads towards what is the meaning of life debate, rather than how do you define a god...

_________________
My sig got eated by the bit bucket...
Fellenwhite Moonsong
Sixty-Something drunken freak of Lanys
Formerly known as:
Dashkast Justifyer
75 Gnomish Puppy kicker

Sorry, you have one thread that you can poke fun at my beliefs. I am not falling for another. This is way too contrived, since the hell post had started discussing monotheism you should have asked the question there.

Bleh it seems to come back to: A thing is a god when a group of people (certainly more than a handful, but no 'hard' number) believe or say a thing is a god, and treat it as such. I still feel like I'm missing something though.

Humans- can become gods, can be 'living gods' (Heracules and others 'become' gods, pharoahs and others were viewed as 'living gods'). It seems like in the earliest of human history, anyone really extraordinary (Gilgamesh, etc.) were viewed as either gods, part-gods (Gilgamesh was 2/3s god iirc), or "god-like". And quite a few cultures venerate the dead, not necessarily believing they're 'gods' but certainly that they become something that they should honor/worship etc. that can have some impact on their world. (Or if not, the veneration is honoring memory, as is common in our culture).

It just seems like I'm missing something obvious, that there's something more than "we know it when we see it" (IE: we would say, Sure Zeus was a god in this culture, etc., but Superman...no).

I wanted to say, 'must live in a special realm' since most dieties seem to...but then we have the problem of living gods. They're obviously not in a special realm. So maybe comes from a special realm and returns to it? But that doesn't seem to pass the Superman test.

Maybe I'm not missing something and it just boils down to that, but I just feel like I'm missing something huge and obvious somehow.

_________________

It is very contrived, but the question isn't bad one. I always considered God (not god) to be a being beyond time, omniscient and omnipotent and able to do things outside of physical laws. For me it does tie into the people that try to come up with real explanations for the plagues, kinda silly and useless. The only issue with my hypothesis that I can see is that if he is outside of time then the future is fixed. Now I imagine it would have value to read up on mythology and god, maybe something by Joseph Campbell, but instead I will watch something by the B-movie god Bruce Campbell.

I had no idea that discussing the properties of divinity somehow amounted to an assault on your faith.

Something tells me that pontification upon the polytheism of the HB will not be appreciated. . . .

--J.D.

To people whining about why they won't participate...fine don't. You don't need to expound upon how much you don't care etc.

Regarding anyone's beliefs...also don't care. It's a non-issue. Whether you believe in Zeus (for example) or not has absolutely no bearing. Zeus was a god of the Greek/Roman people (aka Jupiter, but really the same diety), and among some people is still treated as a god today. Whether or not Zeus is real...doesn't matter. We can all agree that Zeus is considered a god.

We can all also agree, Superman is not considered a god. Additionally with Superman we can all agree Superman is fiction, though that also doesn't matter in the discussion. Superman isn't a god, yet has many attributes which other gods have (super powers, faithful followers, people asking for help, etc.) Thus he's a useful tool as the 'Superman' test, in that if we say gods must have super powers, we could say that there are things (even in myth) which have extraordinary, supernatural, or magical powers...which clearly we don't see (even in fiction) as a diety.

It seems to me that we're at: "A diety is something which is believed in by some people (more than a handful, but not necessarily the majority in group of people in a tribe, society or culture...but we can't really give it a 'hard number') which is agreed upon to be a god."

And that seems like it's lacking ... well a shitload. I feel (as I said before) that perhaps I'm missing the obvious.

So far we've concluded:

-Dieties can be apathetic (no 'real' direct involvement with people). Sun worship would fall under this. But even then it's something important to people. The sun is of huge importance (obviously), and the moon also held a lot of importance. But it's not like as 'individuals' they interacted with people to any degree in some cultures. So maybe saying that the diety has to confer some benefit, some importance, or have some power that can either result in good or bad happening. But that sorta fails the Superman test (in that he has powers beyond that of human beings, etc. etc.)

-Dieties can be human, demi-human (part divine, part human), and many other things. They can be mortal or immortal. They don't necessarily need to have the power to 'create' (we can't say dieties are 'the creators' because there are many dieties which aren't).

I keep coming back to the rather simplistic "we know it when we see it" akin to obscenity. And as I said before, perhaps that is all there is to it.

I'd want to go with 'Dieties are that which offer explainations for certain things in the world that were not understood or still are not well understood', but I'm sure that there are dieties that don't fill that role. Pharoah as a living god (for example) had a huge role both in their kingdom and in the afterlife, and was hugely important to the concept of 'what happens after death'...but I don't think that concept fits right. I can't think offhand of any, but I'm pretty sure there are dieties which don't exist (even in a minor way) as some sort of explanation of something. I think you could probably stretch it, because their powers or attributes are related to it...but I don't think it's something that's 'always' accurate. Mars might be the god of war, but is Mars an explaination of war? Not really.

Anyway it has nothing to do with personal beliefs. You can simply make it about the metric fuckton of other diety concepts that have existed in mankind and exclude any *you* believe in...and it works just as well for discussion. It's not about what you believe in personally, just "what makes a god a god". What do we define a diety as...not whether or not it's 'real'.

_________________

Winner.

Next thread: "What is love?" =p

What?

--J.D.

P.S. It is definable, it is just people want to avoid that, because once you define a potentiality, you can disprove it.

P.P.S. In the rain.

It is something we can define. Is Superman a god? No. Clearly it's definable when we can include and disclude. If aliens showed up tomorrow who had amazing powers, and technology that made ours look like we were still banging rocks together...would anyone say 'wow, gods!' No. Well, maybe someone would, but we wouldn't consider them 'gods', merely technologically advanced aliens. (Which includes Superman!)

It's not a question of defining 'what is a real god'...that's a whole other question. It's what is a diety? What allows us to include Zeus, etc. and disclude Superman and techno-wizard aliens?

As an aside, technologically advanced people have presented themselves as dieties I know someone will bring that up, by mentioning Cortez. It's important to note though that the culture had specific prophecies about their dieties. They mistook Cortez for a god they already believed in. They thought he was that god who was showing up per specific prophecies, etc. I don't know of any instances where one group mistakes another for dieties without that (or without being lied to), though perhaps it may have occurred. I just don't know of any instance of it.

Anyhoo, that IMO disqualifies the 'sometimes advanced peoples' etc. because they didn't think they were 'gods' in and of themselves, they thought he was a specific god, and rather quickly figured out their error.

Anyhoo, I think the qualifiers it's stuck with currently are lacking. As I've said repeatedly, perhaps that's all there is to it.

And as another aside (though not wishing to leap into another topic) we can and do define "love". So that's not an undefinable either.

_________________

Which they can do.

There might be a slight distinction between deity and god. Deity often seems to refer to something that is worshipped, while a god is something that may not necessarily have that requirement.

A god need not be worshipped. If there is a "god" that exists without us knowing, yet retains the power and significance of anything we could define as a god - it's still a god, whether we know and worship it or not. What's the real difference between Superman and Zeus, anyway, in terms of fitting the definition? Or techno aliens? Worship is about the only thing I can think of, aside from some power differences perhaps.

Again, anyone can define a god to be whatever they want it to be. I can define someone to be a hero too, what's that mean? It means in my mind it has significance based on my own set of definitions for being a hero. A popular singer might be a hero to an aspiring artist. A greedy mastermind criminal a hero to a common thief. The definition of a god varies from person to person and their views of what amounts to one. Even a hero might be definable... but with a god, it is within everyone's mind unless they have actually been able to see one in person.

Christian god? We can probably look at and use a few defining factors from the Bible and elsewhere to come up with a very loose definition. Zeus? Same deal. Allah? Same deal. ANY god? There are infinitely many of them, with infinitely many opinions on what makes them a god.

That's what keeps it from being defined, and thus your very own struggles to define it in your original post =p I haven't seen it defined so far in this thread, and honestly I don't have my hopes up.

And to anyone who suggests it is definable, I ask for YOUR clearly-outlined definition. Not "well maybe this, no... maybe this... or maybe not... I dunno"

It's definable because we can include and disclude. I can parade many things under your nose, and you can say 'god' 'not a god'...and everyone else would agree it's obvious. Made that very clear in my previous posts. Doesn't matter whether it's "real" or not, we're not asking if Zeus was ever "real" or is "real"...but clearly you'd say Zeus: god. Superman: not a god.

I've suggested the limited thing I've come up with. It's clearly lacking. Which is the whole reason for the thread, I was hoping that people might have some ideas to offer that would be better than the one I've come up with. As I continue to say, I get the feeling I'm missing something hugely obvious...but clearly I don't know what that is (or I wouldn't be missing it). I've also said it's possible that's the definition...but it feels as though it's lacking.

Anyway I gave my "clearly" outlined definition...I just think it's lacking. Which is: A diety is that which is considered a diety by a group of people (more than a handful, though no hard number) and treated as such.

And that seems hugely lacking because if say 5,000 people decided Superman was a god, and treated Superman as a god...that would make Superman a god by that definition. Does it then elevate Superman to godhood (remember doesn't matter if it's a 'real' god or not as we are not concerned with any of the gods being actually "real" other than that those who believe in them believe they're real)? Or is the definition seriously lacking? I think it's the latter, but perhaps not.

_________________

Deification does not make some thing a god any more than anthropomorphization makes a chair climax when you sit in it.

Sarissa Candyangel

I think that definition works just fine for a *deity*.

Maybe I read a little too much into your question "what makes a god a god?". If you're referring to deities specifically, then it's just worshipped.

Like I said, "a god" generically is another matter altogether as far as I'm concerned. Under a number of different sources of definition you'll find deity commonly associated with being worshiped, while a god often does not have that requirement listed in high priority for part of its definition.

Because, after all, say you have a Zeus-like figure on Mars that possesses all of the attributes of Zeus but is not actually Zeus? He is not known about until he makes his first appearance on Earth. Was he not a god before he was worshipped or known about? As far as I can tell, absolutely not, because he possessed the traits with which the Greeks associated with a god. Same with other gods.

To be clear, a generic "god" is undefinable. But perhaps not a deity.

I mean just looking at this on the face of it... your definition of a deity is one that is being worshipped by a number of people.

Now take a deity, and remove that requirement of worship - what do you have? You are left with no definition. But it's still a god.

I've got 5 bucks in a pool that says this is the next thread in this series of spontaneous threads.

de·i·ty(d-t, d-)
n. pl. de·i·ties
1. A god or goddess.
2.
a. The essential nature or condition of being a god; divinity.
b. Deity God. Used with the.

If God had a name, what would it be
And would you call it to his face
If you were faced with him in all his glory
What would you ask if you had just one question

And yeah yeah God is great yeah yeah God is good
yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah

What if God was one of us
Just a slob like one of us
Just a stranger on the bus
Trying to make his way home

If God had a face what would it look like
And would you want to see
If seeing meant that you would have to believe
In things like heaven and in jesus and the saints and all the prophets

And yeah yeah god is great yeah yeah god is good
yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah

What if God was one of us
Just a slob like one of us
Just a stranger on the bus
Trying to make his way home
He's trying to make his way home
Back up to heaven all alone
Nobody calling on the phone
Except for the pope maybe in rome

And yeah yeah God is great yeah yeah God is good
yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah

What if god was one of us
Just a slob like one of us
Just a stranger on the bus
Trying to make his way home
Just trying to make his way home
Like a holy rolling stone
Back up to heaven all alone
Just trying to make his way home
Nobody calling on the phone
Except for the pope maybe in rome

Hopefully this clears everything up, and we can move on to things that arent fiction.

_________________
"We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home."

After thinking about the topic I would say that simply creating something makes you a god. While a diety is something that is worshipped.

If you create a robot then you are that robot's god.
Creating a child by this definition as well makes one a god.
Taking unorganized material and giving it purpose or creating something with intent.

Does it make someone or something worthy of worship? /shurg
I'm simply tossing out how I would define a god. When you get down to the basic reason of giving worship to God, it's because of a feeling of debt is owed for the creation of all things. The ability of giving birth is viewed as having been given a part of the power of God.

Before anyone jumps on me, please note the diffrence in God and god. God= christian god. god= what we are trying to define in this topic.
In the mormon faith it's taught that "as man is, God once was. As God is, man may become." Which in essence meant that those found worthy would be able to go on and create as God does. All have within them the potential to become gods.

At the same time the greek gods didn't really create they were immortal and simply meddled in the affairs of man. Could then the owner of a company be considered a god of that business since changes are made at his/her whim?

Somehow I get the feeling you are looking for much larger and cosmic definition of diety though.

The most important thing to always remember though is "Ray, when someone asks you if you're a *god*, you say "YES"! "

Stealing bandwidth again, Junior Douche? The least you could have done was gotten the picture correct.

Diety = god(s) (including feminine). It means the same thing. I'm only mentioning that because you're not the first person to say they're not the same thing. Anyway the way I'm using both words...they're the same thing.



It makes one a creator, but not a 'god'. I'm not saying that perception is wrong, simply that I'm not sure this would be something 'generally' considered 'god'. One could argue that we're all gods, or god is within us, etc. or god is everything literally...but that kinda weenies around the point.

In human culture, probably since literally the dawn of humanity, there's been god concepts. We have probably thousands upon thousands of 'gods' that various peoples have worshipped, believed in, etc. Many cultures had many gods, and the god concepts I think have varied tremendously. You have some gods (probably 'most' when we look at all of humanity) that seem human-like in that they have offspring, their own concerns, politics among themselves as it were, etc. But they're not 'human', they're gods. Then you have gods that are extremely scary (that one seems to worship out of fear), and gods that are by and large very benevolent. Some gods can be both those things.

I think if I told you about a god that you hadn't heard of...let's go with Banjo again (because he's so clearly fictional) and let's say Banjo was a god worshipped by a specific culture for 100 years. Then the belief in Banjo died out. But for that 100 years, Banjo had temples, priests, people worshipping, faithful followers, etc. The people shared a common understanding/agreement of what Banjo was, and believed in him. After telling you all this, if I asked you was Banjo a god...I think we'd all say 'yes'.

Using Superman as the offset, assuming you'd never heard of him and I told you all about Superman, and then asked the same question...I think we'd all say 'no'.

And by 'all' I'm discounting the odd egg who'd argue just to argue, I'm speaking always in the most general of terms.

So what I'm really trying to narrow down is; we can clearly identify "this is a god" and "this is not a god" (again whether or not they're "real" doesn't matter) but what are the parameters we use? Is it just what I laid out, or is there more?

I don't think including 'anything that can create' as a god of the thing it created works. My parents are great and all, but I haven't seen them as a 'god-like' being since I was a very small child. My pets think I'm wonderful, but other than, 'Thing with mop of red hair which provides yummy food' ... I don't really think I'm a god to them either.



I think why a god is worshipped or what's important about gods, etc. is a whooooole other topic. Not saying it's not interesting, and worth exploring, but think it ends up mucking up the point of trying to figure out parameters for how we can say a thing is or is not a god.



Yeah, I am. Though again, really interesting stuff on what roles gods might play in cultures, in beliefs, what niches they fill, etc. how they come about at all...all fascinating stuff (to me), the only thing I'm trying to get at here is a workable parameter of how we can determine what is a god.



That made me laugh really hard.

_____________________


To give a little more background into the discussion, I was actually debating with positive (or strong) atheists, who claim "there cannot be a god". That is a positive statement which requires evidence. They have to prove it. And of course...they can't. And yes, it is a belief if one says 'there cannot be a god'. It's a bit OT but generally such people will claim it's NOT a belief, it's simply a fact. Super duper, where's the evidence? And it becomes a circle jerk which often results in people either admitting that yeah, it is a belief (at which point hopefully they can stop mocking others for having beliefs when they have their own...not everyone mocks but the people I'm talking about do. They're kinda nasty about it actually IMHO). Or they become extremely rude and insulting, because it's easier to be a jackass than stick with the arguments.

Anyhoo, someone was playing word games, not so much to be a complete asshole, but to cloud the discussion. Rather than argue points, they'd simply get slippery with words as soon as it looked like his position was wrong (in areas of fact rather than opinion).

Anyhoo...what it boiled down to was that they ended up saying that their 'god' was the entire universe. That the universe, and the "laws" of the universe ... that was their god. To which someone else said, "That can't be a god".

Which of course made me think, "Well wait...what is a god?"

And no one could really define it in a satisfactory fashion without falling back on essentially "we all know what it is...really". Which I think mostly we do, but what parameters must something fit to be a god? What things could be apply to all gods which are not applicable to all 'non-gods'.

I've got the answer I've come up with, but as I've said...seems really lacking. Might be all there is to it, but it just seems like it's missing something huge and obvious...what that is, I can't think of. And it's a question I've been chewing on for a couple of weeks.

_________________

Well, in the context of your post, and only that because you are limiting the discussion, I would say that a diety usually involves some sort of power that life comes from and may govern as a patriarch/matriarch even though they aren't really involved. ie The rules revolve around them.

The only problem with the 'that life comes from' is that there are many dieties not involved in any form of creation or creation of life. Zeus fathered offspring (from gods to humans) but didn't really 'create' stuff in the way that one might imagine a creator god. And there are gods that didn't create anything like Loki or Thor.

That the rules revolve around them...I think that is an excellent point.

Actually looking at both again, when we have gods that aren't creators (of some sort) like say Zeus...there's still gods within that belief system that ARE creators. Again, sticking with Zeus and going purely off memory, I believe that the human creation story involved some gods (or supernatural god like beings) getting killed by the titans then from those ashes humans emerged (part of this story involves the 'spark of the divine' being present in humans). Anyway I think I might be too hasty in dismissing 'creator' because it's difficult to think of any gods of a particular belief system that doesn't include either creator gods, or stories of creation. While indivdual gods may not be involved...the belief system which incorporates those gods does have it.

So that might be the huge obvious thing I was saying I thought I was missing. Gonna think on that some more.

Anyway back to 'rules revolve around them', I touched on this before, and then sort of dismissed it when people brought up that there are god concepts which don't really have that. But I was looking more at "making the rules", rather than having rules/laws/things revolve around them. I think that's a more apt description. Maybe we can say (and include) that if they don't make the rules, then the rules (or whatever we want to call them, but we know what we mean by it) revolves around them. They may be bound by some of the rules themselves (as many dieties are, since most gods are not believed to be 'all powerful') but in those instances the rules pretty much revolve around them.

I'd wanted to say something about them also being 'top dog' as it were. But I think that fails the Superman test. Superman is clearly "higher on the totem pole" than humans, in that he's more powerful, stronger, etc. Though it's interesting to note with Superman his key foe is a human. Though the villian never wins, a human is able to go toe to toe with Superman by exploiting his vunerabilities. I'm trying to think of instances where that can happen with gods. There are many stories of gods being 'tricked' by humans, so perhaps that would qualify, and we can't say that a god is that which is invunerable to humans. I'm trying to think of an instance where there's a belief that a god was killed by a human, and I'm not coming up with any offhand. Jesus doesn't really count, because while in that belief he was really dead...it wasn't perm. All the 'death of gods' things I'm coming up with involve gods being killed by other gods, or by something higher than a human (but perhaps lesser than a god, such as the Titans).

Good points though. I think we can consider including:

A god is that which has followers (more than a few, no hard number) who believe in it as a god. In that belief system where there are multiple gods, one or more will be 'creator' gods responsible for creating life and/or the world/universe. The gods tend to be the ones who make the rules, or in cases where they do not, the rules appear to revolve around them.

I think that last is still a little wonky. And there may be examples of belief systems which have gods which do not have any creator gods...but as I said offhand I'm not thinking of any.

_________________

Gods rarely, if ever, create anything as in "the cosmos." They reorder.

This is a bit like arguing over how many twists exist on the horn of a unicorn.

--J. "There were Green Alligators, and Long-Necked Beasts" D.

Not really as my interest in defining what is considered a god doesn't include whether or not they're real. So it's more like arguing what attributes unicorns have that make them unicorns, when more than one unicorn myth exists. If not all unicorn myths include the necessities of a virgin (and they don't) then it's a simple as boiling it down to: a unicorn is beast which looks like a horse, is usually white, and has a single horn portruding from it's forehead. A unicorn often is purported to have magical properties, as is the horn. In some myths the horn of a unicorn can grant immortality, change a human into a unicorn, or if severed and dipped into any liquid, determine if it's poison by the horn changing color. Unicorns themselves are often considered to be magical creatures. But we wouldn't need to include in the definition that the unicorn must have a horn which detects poison, when not all unicorn myths include that attribute.

All of which addresses what is considered a unicorn in various myths. We don't have to examine whether or not unicorns are, or ever were real in order to define what a unicorn is in various cultures and their mythologies. Whether or not unicorns were, or are real is a completely different discussion. And a much easier one in that it's 'no they're not' and until we see evidence, they're simply mythological things. If someone turns up with a unicorn tomorrow, then we'd have to examine it to determine what it is. If it's simply a mutant horse that happens to have a single horn through a strange mutation or defect...some would still consider that a 'unicorn'. (Media reports would certainly be calling it that heh). But it wouldn't be a 'unicorn' as is defined by most popular myths (creatures of magic, or having magical properties, etc.). Or if we define it as excluding mutated horses, then we'd exclude it from being 'a unicorn'. Or we could redefine it at that point so it currently means 'mutated horse', but also means 'creatures of various myths' even though both are very different. As that hasn't happened yet, it's moot.

As far as why bother to define it, it's only of interest if one partakes of discussions involving unicorns. It makes it easier to then say, "No, horses with wings are not unicorns, no matter how much you insist they are", if we can conclude that even the loosest idea of a unicorn must include a single horn. If one has no interest in unicorns, mythology, etc. then certainly any discussion of such would be as boring to them, as most sports discussions are to me.

_________________

Just to clarify. I didn't say the source of all life, just a source of life.

Why more than a handful (sorry if this was already addressed)? Couldn't a deity exist with only a single follower? What prevents it?

To be more specific about my views of deities. When a person actively worships a deity (be it one that already exists such as the Christian God or one that they may have basically made up on the spot), that deity becomes empowered. From that point on, the deity in question has powerful sway over its follower(s). It can dictate the person's behavior and guide the person's moral compass. Whether or not that deity is able to act on its own for good or ill (in the form of miracles, etc) is irrelevant in my opinion.

Even if ultimately there are no Gods, that thing that the person created inside of their head (be it a real deity, imaginary friend, or alternate personality) proves to be very powerful. It is no small thing to completely take over a person's life and force them to do your bidding, especially if you don't actually exist.

I would add that people seek the gods for their benfit in all cases. I can't think of any mythologies that people didn't seek to gain the favor of the gods because they in some way control an aspect of reality. Long winters would bring petitions to the sun god to return heat and bring about spring. Traveling on the seas? Bring offering and pray that Poseidon will grant you a save journey.

Gods have the ability to control something that humans have no control over at all.

1) If superman was real, why would he not be considered a god. Even though superman is supposedly not real, who says that people are not currently worshipping him as a god? He is the god of crypton after all...
http://www.rambles.net/hildebrandt_krypton.html

If you go so far to define what you believe a diety or god to be, then you are going so far as to inserting your personal bias. You cannot say i do not worship superman as a god. Real or not, I dont believe that is your choice, on what grounds would you do so?


This is my problem, a god cannot use himself to define himself. This statement doesnt necessarily proclude that. However something could not say that it is god because god is it...

Also, would a god worship itself?

Google has a metric shit-ton of definitions though:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=active&rls=GGLG,GGLG:2005-44,GGLG:en&defl=en&q=define:god&sa=X&oi=glossary_definition&ct=title

Although if you check out some of the earlier linked philosophy papers, the perfect statement can make it rather difficult for that statement to be true.

Put simply, just a construct of Man. God(s) was/were created in Man's image.

Alternative gamer answer: Something you kill for phat lewtz.

The original cause; or, the creator of the universe.

The question of where the universe came from is, even to the scientific mind, among the fundamental unaswered (unanswerable?) questions. Cosmologists may study what the universe was like very near its beginning; astrophysicists may make predictions as to the ultimate fate of the universe, but how the universe began is an open question (what caused the big bang?).

Most cultures that espouse gods similarly espouse a creation myth that attempts to answer this question. In so doing, they describe a creator - generally anthropomorphic, but not necessarily - and this gives rise to the god concept. It could be argued that all other gods are representations of this prime mover - for instance, the Christian Trinity as three faces of the one God; the Hindu pantheon as plethoric representations of Brahman. Without ascending to too much abstraction, the Greco-Roman pantheon could be similarly regarded, and so on.

Any attributes assigned to the creator (or its alternate symbolic representations), i.e. benevolence, omnipotence, omniscience, anthropomorphism, et cetera, are just the imaginings of human minds - entertaining, but improbable.

Who created the tehom--the "waters of the deep?"

--J.D.

The simple act of calling something a god is all it takes to define a god. I can call this grain of sand a God. I don't even have to worship it I just have to name it. You may look at me like I'm stupid and i would just tell you you have to have faith.

I think your real question is not what makes a god a god but " How do you get other people to follow the same belief." I expect to have a hard and difficult time getting people to to believe in Sand Grain but never the less it is a god.

Since the object(s) of the question is/are creation(s) of the human mind, the answer is imagination. All deities result from human conceptualization. If one person worships an entity or concept as a deity, it is one. Deities, in the context of human societies, are imaginary. When real objects or individual beings are considered deities, it is typically an imaginary characteristic or attribute which deifies them.

If an omnipotent, omniscient god exists, it exists outside of the boundaries of human society, thought and imagination.

AFAIK, humans are the only part of the creation surrounding us who practice religion. Is it because we have so much higher thought processes than any other form of life around us, or because we are delusional?

Of course, in an infinite universe, anything imaginable must exist. So the real question is, do you believe in an infinite universe?

_________________

Agreed that requiring multiple people seems a bit odd. But I'd still say even one person is over the top. Assuming any god exists, would it make it any less of a god(or whatever you deem that enitity to be) if no one believed in it? What do you call such a being when it is not believed in? Take an exact replica of the Christian god, call it something else, and he/she/it has NO followers - what is different? It still maintains every aspect of the Christian god save for name and no followers - and now it's something entirely different? That makes no sense.



I'm not sure if control an aspect of reality would be correct, but I think superiority *in some way* to humans comes close...

Even then I'm not sure about that as a source of definition. As noted by several here, anyone with an imagination can come up with a god. Infinitely many perspectives creates indefinitely many different gods.

With that being said I might add.....

We're still waiting on a definition.

I'm kind of hoping DoctorX will throw in a few pieces of our definition so I can knock them down instantaneously with: I believe in a god without that attribute.

It all comes down to your personal belief system (beings we can't actually say for sure that Gods exist). My personal take is that we create Gods, and not the other way around. So a God that has never had followers cannot exist. If we were to assume that Gods are real entities brought about through some means outside of human intervention, then you'd of course be correct.

I would say a Deity/God is that which a human imbues with powers envisioned by the human that help him to understand the world around him.

In regards to the "superman test" and why he wouldn't be considered a god, if you took and survey of people and asked them to list as many gods as they can, how many do you think would add superman to their list. I know if this discussion wasn't going on when someone asked me to make that list I never would include him.

That is the point tarot is looking to define. What are the points that make us consider something a god or not a god. I misunderstood what she was trying to define before. Sort of like of like if you were going down a list of names on a list and after each name it had a check box for "god or "not a god"


For instance

god not a god
Spiderman

Holy Ghost

Hercules

Zeus

Shazam

Zuul

Living Tribual (marvel comics)


and so on...


Tarot is trying to define how we make the god or not a god decision.

Exactly.

And it would work for names you don't know. Let's say you'd never heard of Superman...and never heard of Zeus. You ask me to tell you about them. When I'm done describing them you would conclude:

Superman - not a god
Zeus - a god

So what criteria did you (we, everyone) use to come to that conclusion? What parameters do we use to make the determination?

It requires more than one, and more than a handful of 'believers' because people will not agree "Oh sure, the doorknob, it's a god, because the Smith family? Yeah, they worship doorknobs." Yet, if the Smith family was like 50 people, and instead of them living in Los Angeles, it was a tribe of 50 people in the Amazon rain forest who worshipped what looked like a doorknob (and had for some time) we'd say it was their god and include it in our 'a god' list.

So I think one of the keys there is, the size of the group depends upon the size of the tribe/society. But there's still no 'hard number'. And the longer it's treated as a god, the more likely we are to include it. Sorta the same way what we view as a cult (or fad belief, since cult can have severely negative connotations) shifts over time to 'a religion', as if time legitimizes it.

_________________

Tarot, I'm curious why you feel a diety is definable. I feel it's something so personal that everyone's going to have there own opinion on the matter, none which would be 100% accurate nor 100% inaccurate.

It's like trying to define love, happiness, success, grief. Sure you can slap a label on it, but people experience all those emotions differently. People also worship differently, and worship objects differently. What one may consider a god may seem silly to another. Space aliens for Scientologists.

You mention this arising out of a debate with pure atheists. Their sense is, if you cannot define a god or diety, then they do not exist. As you already mentioned, such a thing cannot be proven or disproven, especially in all circumstances. Even if space aliens landed on our planet and their leader came out and said "Hi, I am Xenu, how is Mr. Hubbard doing?".....that proves nothing except validating Scientology. It doesn't prove or disprove the existence of God, Allah, Buddha, the entire Indian cycle of reincarnation, etc.

So I have to ask....what's the point of even defining a diety? Especially when trying to debate the point with persons who don't even believe in dieties?

Strong atheists, or positive atheists (those that claim there cannot be a god).



No it's not.



I'm not discussing whether or not any or all or none of these gods are real that has nothing to do with it.



I'm not talking about proving or disproving any of these 'gods'. Read Junzo's post, apparently I wasn't as clear as I should have been on what I'm interested in. His post sums it up exactly.



I'm interested in it. Why do we include Zeus, and not Superman? What factors do we use? It's an 'obvious' thing, the old "I know it when I see it", but why not think about what factors we're using in order to make those determinations. Why not examine them?

And it has nothing to do with that debate, it was merely the circumstances which caused me to think about the question. I did pose the question, and after multiple false starts (people wanting to say there was no god but their god and all the rest were false, as there were religious people debating points. And some of the strong atheists saying it didn't matter as there are no gods) no one had an answer for it. That's certainly enough to make me curious.

Will seeking such things affect your day to day life? Probably not. But the "what does it matter anyway lol why bother" attitude could fit any question we ask in which we seek to know more or understand more about ourselves and the universe we live in.

_________________

And I'm new here to the forum, so granted, my opinion should be taken with a grain of salt, but I feel that I should concur with those of the belief that the definition of a deity is pretty darn subjective. Asking the definition from several different people will get several different answers, as each frame of reference skews the answer a little bit, don't you think? The "we know it when we see it" theory is, in my opinion, the closest one can get to defining a deity. The reason being, what you may see as a good solid definition (i.e. one who created life) may not be good enough for someone else's criteria (i.e. one who has worshippers).

This doesn't have anything to do with personal beliefs or if something is real or not. She isn't looking to validate any religion or disprove one.

I think Tarot that it's going to come down to is there historical records of people seeking guidance or favor from who ever is discribed. If I had never heard of superman or zues, and you told me about them. If I was asked to tell you if they were a god or not, I would then have to ask if anyone had worshipped them. When I look at the god/not a god choice then I choose god on names that I know have been worshiped in the past by a culture. A historical proof that they were viewed as real to a group of people.


Zuess

Born of Chronos
Hurls lighning bolts.
Immortal
Sires children with super human abilites

Superman

Can fly
Run almost as fast as flash
Heat Vision
Super breath
Super Strength
Born of normal parents but has has god like powers with a yellow sun.


When I look at both and their powers and history, the only reason I say zuess was a god was because I know there was historical proof of zeus being worshipped. Give me a couple of names that I've never heard of before and discribe them for me as a blind test. I'm curious now to see what I would say with powers and names that I'm not already familiar with. Since that is really the base of what you are trying to define. It's too biased for me when I already know the context of the origins of the stories.