Define God

DLH said:

Define God. Simple request. What is a god? Simple question, simple answers. Define what a god is. This should be pinned. to the top of this forum on Existence of God(s) IMHO.

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I like Jürgen Habermas definition. "It's a metaphor for our hopes and dreams".

Dan Harmon has God as a stand in for "the unknown" or rather "our hopes for how the unknowable is".

Lacan's is also good. God as an empty space to project whatever onto. So a version of Habermas. But one with space for an evil or destructive God.

I like all of these

bilby said:

We live in a universe that's suited to the existence of life. How could it be otherwise? If the universe wasn't suited to life, we wouldn't be here to question why not, or to ponder how likely or unlikely it is.

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That explains how we’re able to ask, surely it doesn't treat the how as if it were the why. I think the problem for some people is that they feel there has to be a ‘why,’ without considering that maybe, just maybe, there isn’t one.

Take the death of a child in an accident. We can explain how it happened, the physics, the sequence, the medical cause, but there’s no ‘why’ that satisfies reason or compassion. To see purpose in that kind of pain, you’d have to believe in a higher power who planned every scream, every breath, every second of suffering, and called it meaningful.

The ridiculous explanation I’ve often heard, especially from Christians, is that God has nothing to do with the suffering in this world. To that, I usually say: if you know the God of all that’s good, maybe you should go looking for the God of all that’s bad, and introduce the two.

Reality has a double aspect. On the one hand, there are reason, evolution and order. On the other, there are the irrational, entropy and chaos. These aspects are complementary: the one cannot exist without the other. However, it is the destiny of mankind to embrace reason over the irrational, evolution over entropy and order over chaos.

To him who looks upon the world rationally, the world in its turn presents a rational aspect. The relation is mutual.--Hegel

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