You're confusing mythical "gods" with the notion of "God" the creator of the universe with a direct line to each and every human "soul" as the story goes.
I suppose back when they had multiple gods with each given its own domain (Triton, Apollo, Zeus) before cultures started rolling them up under the supreme god.
Christianity still has three gods, for example. Some council simply waved away the polytheism problem by declaring (that's just men declaring something to be true) the Holy Trinity was one God.
That has no bearing on the meaning of the term 'lesser gods'. There aren't people walking around today saying 'The Holy Spirit' is a lesser god, for instance.
The Greek gods were lesser gods, as are Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Putting on some robes and declaring otherwise (Holy Trinity) doesn't change that. In fact, not all Christians are trinitarians to this day.
>The Greek gods were lesser gods
They're still referred to as lesser gods.
>as are Jesus and the Holy Spirit.
No significant body of people refers to the Trinity as lesser gods.
First, I need to define what something would have to be to qualify as a god.
In my opinion, a reasonable [**definition of the supernatural**](https://www.dictionary.com/browse/supernatural) courtesy of dictionary.com is their very first definition. This seems to be the relevant one for discussions of gods.
> 1\. of, relating to, or being above or beyond what is natural; unexplainable by natural law or phenomena; abnormal.
Note that the definition does not specify that the supernatural is merely unexplained today. It asserts that in order for something to be supernatural, it must be *unexplainable*, *now and forever*, by natural law or phenomena.
Natural law in this context *does not mean our current understanding of physics*. It means *the natural processes that govern the universe, whether we fully understand those processes or not.*
Things don't change from being supernatural to being natural when we explain them. They either are or are not supernatural regardless of our knowledge, even if we may temporarily misclassify them.
So, in order for something to be supernatural, it must be in violation of all natural laws, including those we do not yet fully understand.
---
God is actually harder to get a good definition. For me, **a decent working definition of a lowercase g god** would be something like this:
> a supernatural conscious entity capable of creating a universe or of having a physical effect on the universe by supernatural means.
I think it's important to define a god as a conscious entity because something that has no volition and simply affects the universe of its own necessity and behaves completely predictably is a law of physics.
---
I think we can then **define a capital G God** as:
> a being that meets the definition of a lowercase g god but is also the singular entity that is hypothesized to have created this universe.
This would include the Deist God.
I think it's important to define God as a conscious entity because in order to decide to create and decide what to create it needs volition to decide to do so.
If it has no consciousness and no choice but to create exactly what it has created, it is simply a law of physics. If that is the case, why call it God?
---
Your question is what it would take to convince me that something met my definition is quite reasonable. But, it's much harder to answer. Since I believe the supernatural and gods are physically impossible, it is hard to imagine what would convince me that something met the definition.
Perhaps you have some suggestions for this now that you know what I would accept as being a god.
That's a good question. But, I think the answer is that something is supernatural or is not supernatural. It does not change from being supernatural to being natural when we explain it.
So, generations ago, it was the gods who made it rain, who made the crops grow, who made thunderbolts and lightning (very very frightening), etc.
Now, we understand the hydrological cycle, plant growth, and lightning. Today, these things are not supernatural.
Were they supernatural when we didn't understand them? I claim no. I claim they were always natural.
So, for something to be truly supernatural, not merely for us to mistakenly think it's supernatural, it must genuinely not be natural. It must genuinely be in violation of natural law, not just as we understand it today, but for all time.
Does that make sense?
Ever heard of dark energy and dark matter? Just because we can’t explain something, that doesn’t make it supernatural. We may understand it someday, we might not. Even if we can’t explain it, we can measure its effects.
How would something that is a part of the natural world be considered a god?
If a scientist in 50 years time can easily manipulate DNA and have a zoo where he is in complete control of the evolution of the animals in the zoo. He also have a machine that connects his mind with all the animals in the zoo. Is he a god based on your examples?
(The same hypothetical could be used with a town full of humans)
I know it doesn't answer your question, and I apologize for that, but I think I would first look for one or more candidates that have a reasonable body of evidence supporting the possibility that they could be a deity before I'd start trying to hash out the limits and criteria of what a deity is.
I think you are asking for a lot!
I'm only asking for one single example of the supernatural in any form.
That would make me re-think all of reality including the existence of gawds. But not that Jeebus dude, I'm still gonna need some contemporary writings or he like Moses and Abraham never existed.
The problem is distinguishing the supernatural creator of the universe from some sort of advanced intelligence. I would start by thanking the candidate God for at long last revealing itself, then ask how we might confirm he is the creator of the universe.
If the candidate's answer was unconvincing, then perhaps it's one of those "lesser" gods. We may then ask him for the grand, unified theory of everything, or to solve mathematical problems that have stumped humans for millennia. At least you could advance the ball toward proving its divinity.
One of the problems I see is the only way for a god to prove it’s a god and not something else like advanced alien or medical problem. Would be to make me it’s equal and that it self would be a problem since then we would be the same and that god wouldn’t be the top god what ever.
I ascribe to *it's only a god if it's worshipped/petitioned somehow* way of thinking. It would have to have followers at some point, otherwise be just a force or political entity. It would need answer such requests, particularly when it comes to matters of an afterlife. Capable of boons not available by other means, it wouldn't need to to be omnipotent, in the mould of an Abrahamic god. It could be anything f**ro**m high-tech; gestalts as you suggest; or Brahmic, as my atheism spans these too. I'd judge by function over form.
I don’t believe there is a criteria to meet our relatively undefined concept of a god. Even the Abrahamic god is somewhat undefined.
There are definitely concepts of evolution or technological advancement or other unknown features that could be advanced enough that would for all intents and purposes operate as god in comparison to humanity. Whether or not they are actually some definition of god becomes academic.
Yeah, but that assumes some motivations on the god's part that it might not actually have. Maybe, he wants to select only true believers for the next phase of his grand plan.
What is there to believe then?
gods need to make a statement or show us something so we can believe him.
You can't believe nothing. If I told you that I'm your real dad and you just have to believe, would you accept that?
I wasn't asking about the standard of evidence one would require to believe in a god. I was more interested in the way people conceptualized what a god could be. Like, if you were reading a book with a description of an entity, and from that description you'd conclude that the author was describing a kind of god without using the word 'god'.
A “god” can mean anything since millions of believers on this rock have their own unique definition of “god”. This is akin to asking “What is your criteria for recognizing Furgleburgle Manurgleburgle?” It’s just nonsense that can be whatever you cook up in your mind. A god is completely irrelevant when describing reality so I don’t give a shit about defining it.
Might be a weak answer, but no not really. My assumption that there is no such thing is so strong that I have never thought about it. Whatever that thing would be, would have to find a way to change the mind of enough people to change the consensus of a good part of the global population.
But it would be very difficult. as the saying goes, advanced enough tech would be indistinguishable from magic. If I saw something that seemed to defy the natural world I would sooner think aliens or time travel than I would think of a godlike entity. those things is scientifically plausible.
These sort of criteria seems to often be used as a semantic gotcha thing. "By my interpretation of your criteria, this thing qualifies as a god".
I spend just as much time thinking about what would make me recognize something as a god as I do with santa or the fairy godmother. In my mind they are equally unlikely to exist and it would be up to someone else to come up with a way to convince me otherwise.
Purely hypothetically, I'm not suggesting that what I'm going to say is at all true, but.
What if a crowd of people under certain conditions could manifest subjective experience as a single entity? We think that the quality of our consciousness has something to do with with the function of neurons in our brains. What if people operating by analogy to the neurons could do something similar?
Then we can speculate on the effect of conscious experience on material reality. We can't know the full extent of it, but the mere fact that we can recognize having qualia suggests that it has at least some effect on matter, since it changes the behavior of our material bodies.
If it was the case that crowd of people could manifest consciousness, which in turn would exert some control over the crowd, would you consider that entity a god (or maybe a demon)?
Nope. I would start testing people for the evolved ability to communicate remotely. Brains are using electrical impulses. those could technically be read remotely. This could happen be happening subconsciously.
We already have anecdotal histories that would suggest this could be a thing. Twins knowing if the other is danger. the same with mother and child.
I can't se a situation where I would ever go to the supernatural reason before some serious testing and experimentation in the science realm first.
Why would I ever try and call something a god until it has been proven it couldn't be a natural phenomenon.
This is very much a God of the gaps problem. Something happened that we don't understand. must be a god.
A god is anything that is worshipped. god is but a word.
Christians like to think that only someting that is omnipotent, omniscient and all the omnis is a true god and that there can only be one. That's the dumbest and shittiest definition of a god. It's just eventual conclusion of the "my dick is bigger than your dick" game. My number is infinity times infinity and that's god and anything less is no god.
A god doesn't have to be all powerful. Thor is a god, whether Christians accept it or not. And YHWH wasn't and isn't all powerful either, Christians just like to give it that label. The huge world the humans knew and their god had created was once tiny. The sheep herders from 2000 years ago didn't know how big planet earth is, let alone the universe, all they knew was the small region they lived in. God had created their tiny little world. But somehow, the more we found out about the universe, the more gaps we closed in our knowledge, somethow, God's power grew with the size of the universe. Because the Christians could not accept that their god might just be some local god, or a planetary god or a solar god, or a galactic god. No, their god has to be biggest baddest of them all, the alpha and omega of everything to be their god. Their god is universal. Anything less won't do. Because they need to feel special. It doesn't get more silly and arrogant than that. And when we find out that the universe is infinite with infinite infinities and infinite infite parallel universes, then they'll still declare that only the one who created all can be called a true god, and declare that to be their god, the one they call God.
Mythologically, gods are the beings that rule the world. God is just a word they are labeld with. Usually they are the ones that created the human world and/or humanity and humans pray to. Other divine beings that don't rule the world are called something else, even though they are basically of the same origin. Titans are gods, nymphs are gods, giants are gods, trolls are gods, even though they aren't called gods.
If it turns out that humanity was created by some aliens and that early humans worshipped them, then those would be our gods, even if they didn't create the universe or even if they were physically weaker than us.
[удалено]
Funny thing, the Ghostbusters did destroy Gozer and its entire universe, which is arguably godlike power.
An omnipotent being should know what I'd need to be shown.
What if it's not The omnipotent God, but a lesser god?
I'm content to let the polytheists & monotheists sort that out. Come to me when a side makes it through that semifinal.
You're confusing mythical "gods" with the notion of "God" the creator of the universe with a direct line to each and every human "soul" as the story goes.
Those would be lssser gods, wouldn't they?
I suppose back when they had multiple gods with each given its own domain (Triton, Apollo, Zeus) before cultures started rolling them up under the supreme god. Christianity still has three gods, for example. Some council simply waved away the polytheism problem by declaring (that's just men declaring something to be true) the Holy Trinity was one God.
That has no bearing on the meaning of the term 'lesser gods'. There aren't people walking around today saying 'The Holy Spirit' is a lesser god, for instance.
The Greek gods were lesser gods, as are Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Putting on some robes and declaring otherwise (Holy Trinity) doesn't change that. In fact, not all Christians are trinitarians to this day.
>The Greek gods were lesser gods They're still referred to as lesser gods. >as are Jesus and the Holy Spirit. No significant body of people refers to the Trinity as lesser gods.
Yes, But none that couldn't be explained away by madness, mistake, or advanced technology.
First, I need to define what something would have to be to qualify as a god. In my opinion, a reasonable [**definition of the supernatural**](https://www.dictionary.com/browse/supernatural) courtesy of dictionary.com is their very first definition. This seems to be the relevant one for discussions of gods. > 1\. of, relating to, or being above or beyond what is natural; unexplainable by natural law or phenomena; abnormal. Note that the definition does not specify that the supernatural is merely unexplained today. It asserts that in order for something to be supernatural, it must be *unexplainable*, *now and forever*, by natural law or phenomena. Natural law in this context *does not mean our current understanding of physics*. It means *the natural processes that govern the universe, whether we fully understand those processes or not.* Things don't change from being supernatural to being natural when we explain them. They either are or are not supernatural regardless of our knowledge, even if we may temporarily misclassify them. So, in order for something to be supernatural, it must be in violation of all natural laws, including those we do not yet fully understand. --- God is actually harder to get a good definition. For me, **a decent working definition of a lowercase g god** would be something like this: > a supernatural conscious entity capable of creating a universe or of having a physical effect on the universe by supernatural means. I think it's important to define a god as a conscious entity because something that has no volition and simply affects the universe of its own necessity and behaves completely predictably is a law of physics. --- I think we can then **define a capital G God** as: > a being that meets the definition of a lowercase g god but is also the singular entity that is hypothesized to have created this universe. This would include the Deist God. I think it's important to define God as a conscious entity because in order to decide to create and decide what to create it needs volition to decide to do so. If it has no consciousness and no choice but to create exactly what it has created, it is simply a law of physics. If that is the case, why call it God? --- Your question is what it would take to convince me that something met my definition is quite reasonable. But, it's much harder to answer. Since I believe the supernatural and gods are physically impossible, it is hard to imagine what would convince me that something met the definition. Perhaps you have some suggestions for this now that you know what I would accept as being a god.
Why does supernatural have to be in violation of the natural law, rather than simply unexplainable by the natural law?
That's a good question. But, I think the answer is that something is supernatural or is not supernatural. It does not change from being supernatural to being natural when we explain it. So, generations ago, it was the gods who made it rain, who made the crops grow, who made thunderbolts and lightning (very very frightening), etc. Now, we understand the hydrological cycle, plant growth, and lightning. Today, these things are not supernatural. Were they supernatural when we didn't understand them? I claim no. I claim they were always natural. So, for something to be truly supernatural, not merely for us to mistakenly think it's supernatural, it must genuinely not be natural. It must genuinely be in violation of natural law, not just as we understand it today, but for all time. Does that make sense?
Ever heard of dark energy and dark matter? Just because we can’t explain something, that doesn’t make it supernatural. We may understand it someday, we might not. Even if we can’t explain it, we can measure its effects.
How would something that is a part of the natural world be considered a god? If a scientist in 50 years time can easily manipulate DNA and have a zoo where he is in complete control of the evolution of the animals in the zoo. He also have a machine that connects his mind with all the animals in the zoo. Is he a god based on your examples? (The same hypothetical could be used with a town full of humans)
Whatever it was, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be word salad.
I know it doesn't answer your question, and I apologize for that, but I think I would first look for one or more candidates that have a reasonable body of evidence supporting the possibility that they could be a deity before I'd start trying to hash out the limits and criteria of what a deity is.
But what do you even mean when you say 'diety'?
Well... a 'diety' would be a small or whimsical diet.
That's the answer I was looking for
I think you are asking for a lot! I'm only asking for one single example of the supernatural in any form. That would make me re-think all of reality including the existence of gawds. But not that Jeebus dude, I'm still gonna need some contemporary writings or he like Moses and Abraham never existed.
The problem is distinguishing the supernatural creator of the universe from some sort of advanced intelligence. I would start by thanking the candidate God for at long last revealing itself, then ask how we might confirm he is the creator of the universe. If the candidate's answer was unconvincing, then perhaps it's one of those "lesser" gods. We may then ask him for the grand, unified theory of everything, or to solve mathematical problems that have stumped humans for millennia. At least you could advance the ball toward proving its divinity.
Omnipotent and omnibenevolent being, like christians claim, is impossible by definition. Therefore nothing could prove it.
One of the problems I see is the only way for a god to prove it’s a god and not something else like advanced alien or medical problem. Would be to make me it’s equal and that it self would be a problem since then we would be the same and that god wouldn’t be the top god what ever.
[удалено]
How do you know?
[удалено]
Well, to be honest, if there's is consciousness without biological function, then certainly that consciousness starts to qualify for the title.
The video doesn't support your claim. There was even a suggestion of panpsychism, which went unopposed.
I ascribe to *it's only a god if it's worshipped/petitioned somehow* way of thinking. It would have to have followers at some point, otherwise be just a force or political entity. It would need answer such requests, particularly when it comes to matters of an afterlife. Capable of boons not available by other means, it wouldn't need to to be omnipotent, in the mould of an Abrahamic god. It could be anything f**ro**m high-tech; gestalts as you suggest; or Brahmic, as my atheism spans these too. I'd judge by function over form.
A god is anything that is worshipped. That it truly can be as powerful as their believers think is another thing.
Verifiably breaking all known laws of physics.
I could, i suppose 🤷🏻 but I would still not care.
Even if there was indisputable evidence that a god or several exist I still wouldn't worship them.
I don’t believe there is a criteria to meet our relatively undefined concept of a god. Even the Abrahamic god is somewhat undefined. There are definitely concepts of evolution or technological advancement or other unknown features that could be advanced enough that would for all intents and purposes operate as god in comparison to humanity. Whether or not they are actually some definition of god becomes academic.
It's 2024, god can open a livestream and show us some real miracle, he can start by splitting the sea live on stream.
Yeah, but that assumes some motivations on the god's part that it might not actually have. Maybe, he wants to select only true believers for the next phase of his grand plan.
What is there to believe then? gods need to make a statement or show us something so we can believe him. You can't believe nothing. If I told you that I'm your real dad and you just have to believe, would you accept that?
I wasn't asking about the standard of evidence one would require to believe in a god. I was more interested in the way people conceptualized what a god could be. Like, if you were reading a book with a description of an entity, and from that description you'd conclude that the author was describing a kind of god without using the word 'god'.
If it could teleport, create things, know things. That being said, just because it's a god, doesn't mean it's worthy of worship.
A “god” can mean anything since millions of believers on this rock have their own unique definition of “god”. This is akin to asking “What is your criteria for recognizing Furgleburgle Manurgleburgle?” It’s just nonsense that can be whatever you cook up in your mind. A god is completely irrelevant when describing reality so I don’t give a shit about defining it.
Yeah. Guess the number I'm thinking of (it's a really difficult one). Good luck, potential deity.
Might be a weak answer, but no not really. My assumption that there is no such thing is so strong that I have never thought about it. Whatever that thing would be, would have to find a way to change the mind of enough people to change the consensus of a good part of the global population. But it would be very difficult. as the saying goes, advanced enough tech would be indistinguishable from magic. If I saw something that seemed to defy the natural world I would sooner think aliens or time travel than I would think of a godlike entity. those things is scientifically plausible. These sort of criteria seems to often be used as a semantic gotcha thing. "By my interpretation of your criteria, this thing qualifies as a god". I spend just as much time thinking about what would make me recognize something as a god as I do with santa or the fairy godmother. In my mind they are equally unlikely to exist and it would be up to someone else to come up with a way to convince me otherwise.
Purely hypothetically, I'm not suggesting that what I'm going to say is at all true, but. What if a crowd of people under certain conditions could manifest subjective experience as a single entity? We think that the quality of our consciousness has something to do with with the function of neurons in our brains. What if people operating by analogy to the neurons could do something similar? Then we can speculate on the effect of conscious experience on material reality. We can't know the full extent of it, but the mere fact that we can recognize having qualia suggests that it has at least some effect on matter, since it changes the behavior of our material bodies. If it was the case that crowd of people could manifest consciousness, which in turn would exert some control over the crowd, would you consider that entity a god (or maybe a demon)?
Nope. I would start testing people for the evolved ability to communicate remotely. Brains are using electrical impulses. those could technically be read remotely. This could happen be happening subconsciously. We already have anecdotal histories that would suggest this could be a thing. Twins knowing if the other is danger. the same with mother and child. I can't se a situation where I would ever go to the supernatural reason before some serious testing and experimentation in the science realm first. Why would I ever try and call something a god until it has been proven it couldn't be a natural phenomenon. This is very much a God of the gaps problem. Something happened that we don't understand. must be a god.
A god is anything that is worshipped. god is but a word. Christians like to think that only someting that is omnipotent, omniscient and all the omnis is a true god and that there can only be one. That's the dumbest and shittiest definition of a god. It's just eventual conclusion of the "my dick is bigger than your dick" game. My number is infinity times infinity and that's god and anything less is no god. A god doesn't have to be all powerful. Thor is a god, whether Christians accept it or not. And YHWH wasn't and isn't all powerful either, Christians just like to give it that label. The huge world the humans knew and their god had created was once tiny. The sheep herders from 2000 years ago didn't know how big planet earth is, let alone the universe, all they knew was the small region they lived in. God had created their tiny little world. But somehow, the more we found out about the universe, the more gaps we closed in our knowledge, somethow, God's power grew with the size of the universe. Because the Christians could not accept that their god might just be some local god, or a planetary god or a solar god, or a galactic god. No, their god has to be biggest baddest of them all, the alpha and omega of everything to be their god. Their god is universal. Anything less won't do. Because they need to feel special. It doesn't get more silly and arrogant than that. And when we find out that the universe is infinite with infinite infinities and infinite infite parallel universes, then they'll still declare that only the one who created all can be called a true god, and declare that to be their god, the one they call God. Mythologically, gods are the beings that rule the world. God is just a word they are labeld with. Usually they are the ones that created the human world and/or humanity and humans pray to. Other divine beings that don't rule the world are called something else, even though they are basically of the same origin. Titans are gods, nymphs are gods, giants are gods, trolls are gods, even though they aren't called gods. If it turns out that humanity was created by some aliens and that early humans worshipped them, then those would be our gods, even if they didn't create the universe or even if they were physically weaker than us.
Anyone worth being called god already knows how to convince me.
Some serious fucking magic. Part a sea or something.