What is a God?
They’re worshipped in nearly every culture on the planet. They have been one of the most popular subjects for art and literature in the history of mankind. This site is dedicated to not believing in them. That’s great, but what are they? When we talk about “gods,” what do we mean? The differences amongst the beings we (humans) put into this category are immense. So, if we had to set up guidelines for membership in the god club, how do we do it in such a way that all the right beings get in without affording entrance to any other supernatural riff-raff? I don’t know yet. (Really, I have no idea where this post is going.) Let’s try to figure it out.
1. Supernatural – This is probably safely applicable to all gods. Dictionary.com gives these definitions…
1. Of or relating to existence outside the natural world.
2. Attributed to a power that seems to violate or go beyond natural forces.
3. Of or relating to a deity.
Definition three clinches it, but even utilizing only the first two definitions, I can’t think of a counterexample. So, a god is a supernatural being. We’re not done yet, though. There are plenty of supernatural beings that aren’t gods. Ghosts, angels, jinn, leprechauns… not gods.
2. Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnipresent – I’ll deal with these all at once because they all have the same problem. These adjectives only apply to monotheistic deities like Yahweh and Allah. Gods in polytheistic faiths are more limited, better reflecting human nature. So, these are out of the definition.
3. Benevolent – No way. Not only is this not a requirement, but I can’t think of a single god that’s totally benevolent. If anyone can cite a deity I’m missing here, please do so.
4. Immortal, Invincible – I use both of these words here because the meaning of immortal varies. To some, an immortal being cannot die under any circumstances. To others, an immortal being will not die of old age, but can be killed (not invincible). I can’t think of an example of a god dying from old age, so I think this second definition is a valid addition to our profile of a god. However, invincible doesn’t hold up. There are several gods killed in Norse mythology (e.g. Balder, Loki, Odin). Jesus is killed, and remains dead for three days. This may not seem to count, but remember that the dead (humans) will be raised after the second coming in Christianity, so if they’re not invincible, than neither is Jesus. It’s only a difference of duration. So far then, we have supernatural and immortal (but not necessarily invincible) as characteristics. We have still not eliminated ghosts, angels, etc., so there is more work to do.
5. Creative – In the west, we’re familiar with an all-powerful creator god from the religions of the book, but a god need not be a creator. In polytheistic faiths, most gods do not meet this criterion, so we can throw it out.
6. Superhuman – This word can mean many things. What I mean by it here is that gods are somehow above man in the hierarchy of the universe. They rule over us. However, this is not always the case. In Buddhism, a Buddha (a man) is above the gods. In fact, when Shakyamuni first achieves enlightenment beneath the bodhi tree, there are gods who come to pay homage to him. Beyond that, there is the additional difficulty of gods who blur the line by becoming human. If you look at Jesus or the avatars of Vishnu, it’s very hard to say that those gods are superhuman when they are partially human.
7. Immutable – This works for a god like Allah, but it fails in many other religions. Even the Christian god changes dramatically from the Old Testament to the New Testament. Polytheistic deities are generally dynamic characters who grow and change as they move through their mythic lives.
8. Worshipped – This one is probably valid. Even evil gods (Kali, Loki etc.) usually have their following. We can add this to the definition, but we’re not done. What we have so far is supernatural, immortal and worshipped, but this also applies to angels, the Catholic Mary, the ancestors in Shintoism and nature spirits in animistic traditions.
9. Otherworldly – By this I mean having an origin (and some existence) outside of our world. This is obvious for creator gods. They cannot arise from their own creations. However, some gods come from the earth. If we look at the lineage of the Olympian gods, they all come from the Titans, who came from Gaia (the Earth). So, the Greek gods are of the earth, eliminating this characteristic from contention.
That’s it. I’m out of possible attributes. I have a seriously flawed definition of gods as supernatural, immortal and worshipped. These seem to be true of all gods, but they are also true of some other beings who are not gods. My conclusion, therefore, is that the word god is meaningless. It is a hollow semantic echo of an idea that has no real definition. For this reason, debating the existence of gods in general is an exercise in futility. One must limit oneself to debating the existence of a specific god or set of gods or the possibility of any given attribute or set of attributes.
Wow, that turned out a lot better than I expected back in the first paragraph.
~I AM~
January 21st, 2006 at at 6:14 pm
About benevolence: that depends largely on whether you consider benevolence towards the god’s followers as qualifying. It is not uncommon that gods like their followers (sometimes well done, admittedly), but they all want their follower’s best. Which, in turn, means that they want their follower’s enemies’ worst. Hence benevolence in the general sense of “benevolent against everybody” is impossible for gods. Benevolence in the personal sense is not.
About invincibility/immortality: gods lose a fight or their life only to get it back some way or another. This, of course, makes perfect sense if a god is created to uplift the followers. Gods are slaveholders’ best tools.
About creativity: I shouldn’t think that the criterion of creativity is only met when the god created everything. Rather any invention should be qualifying. That includes wheels, fire, art and breeding.
If I needed to define gods, I would attribute them with:
)
1. have and enable an us-vs-them worldview
2. are worshipped (I agree with you on this one
3. are more powerful than the worshipper in at least one given ability
4. are jealous and demand obedience
“Spoiled child” would meet the definition as well
January 21st, 2006 at at 7:04 pm
I agree with your comments on the nine attributes, and that therefore there is no set of attributes that is shared by all gods and only by gods. However, your conclusion that the concept of god is meaningless is unwarranted; by the same token, most of the concepts we use would be meaningless, for they don’t have strict definitions either.
To repeat the standard example, which goes back to Wittgenstein, there is no set of universal conditions that defines the concept of a game. Many games are competitive, but some are not; many are for more than one player, but some are not; many are played for recreation, but some (professional sports) are not. And so on. There is no set of sufficent and necessary conditions for being a game, but this does not make talk of games to be meaningless. Rather, all games are related by what Witgenstein called a “family resemblance”. We can move continuously from any game to any other game by a series of games in which each is similar to the previous one in many respects, just as the people in a family tree.
The same is true of the gods of different cultural traditions. The politeistic gods of Greece resemble the politeistic gods of Hinduism, and these resemble a lot the gods in Buddhism, even if the latter are below Buddha. The Jewish God resembles the supreme god in many politeistic religions if you forget about the other gods or declare the unworthy of worship. The Christian God resembles the Jewish God with a couple of additions. And so on.
January 21st, 2006 at at 11:28 pm
Good post, I Am.
January 21st, 2006 at at 11:40 pm
“To repeat the standard example, which goes back to Wittgenstein, there is no set of universal conditions that defines the concept of a game. Many games are competitive, but some are not; many are for more than one player, but some are not; many are played for recreation, but some (professional sports) are not. And so on. There is no set of sufficent and necessary conditions for being a game, but this does not make talk of games to be meaningless. Rather, all games are related by what Witgenstein called a “family resemblance”. We can move continuously from any game to any other game by a series of games in which each is similar to the previous one in many respects, just as the people in a family tree.”
I’m interested in this.
(This comes from the intro to constructing definitions chapter in my Logic textbook)
“A game is a form of recreation constituted by a set of rules that specify an object to be attained and the permissible means of attaining it.”
Some interesting parts:
“Now let’s consider recreation… The common element in any given type of recreation, therefore, will have to be a goal intrinsic to the activity itself…”
“The activity is an end in itself, something we do merely for the sake of doing it. This would be true even for a professional athlete, who is being paid to play the game, to create an exciting spectacle that other people want to see. In that sense the athlete is working, not playing. But the game itself (football, golf, or whatever) is still a form of recreation because the goals internal to the game (getting a touch down, sinking the putt_ are not valuable in and of themselves. They have value only as elements in an activity that people value for its own sake.”
Reference:
Kelly. The Art of Reasoning. (3rd Edition). 1997
Chapter 3, pg. 49-52
January 22nd, 2006 at at 1:37 am
Interesting. You are onto something which is correct, your last phrase, “I AM”. You are perhaps planning to add the remainder, “Who AM”, later on? When the lightning strikes? And of course, you have quoted a selection from the Bible, as short as it is…..
January 22nd, 2006 at at 8:46 am
Excellent beyond words!!! Finallly someone with insight and intelligence to speak the truth.
January 22nd, 2006 at at 11:34 am
Belathor,
Many games do not specify an object to be attained, e.g. role-playing games.
As for the “recreation with a set of rules” part: would you call a puzzle such as Sudoku a game? It satisfies your definition, so perhaps yes. But if I try to solve just for recreation a math problem (say I find solving differential equations fun), that does not seem to be playing a game but engaging in some other kind of intellectual recreation. However, Sudoku is also a mathematical problem from a formal point of view -the only difference is that it is populary known and marketed as a game. I challange you to find a definition of games that includes Sudoku and excludes differential equations.
January 23rd, 2006 at at 12:34 pm
Hmm…I think Gia could be considered complete benevolent by not caring one way or another (or would that just make her indifferent)?
And I don’t think it’s fair to call Kali “evil”: she’s no worse or better than any other blood-appeased being.
January 23rd, 2006 at at 3:00 pm
I would refer anyone here to the episode of Futurama where Bender is jettisoned into space and struck by an asteroid that is carrying microbial life forms. They develop into an advanced civilization on his chest and backside and start worshipping him. Eventually, the people on his butt get jealous and decide to strike out against the ones he can directly assist (or more often crush by accident
) on his chest. Bender’s true followers strike out against the others in a mutually-assured spate of nuclear destruction and wipe themselves off of the face of the bender (or more to the point, chest and shiny metal ass). Ultimately, bender learns that the best thing a deity can do to help his followers is absolutely nothing whatsoever. I think that episode was up for some sort of award. So, my definition of god: bender…all hail bender and the foamy goodness of ale. Any god who digs porn and gambling is one I can respect 
January 23rd, 2006 at at 4:21 pm
Hmm…I think Gia could be considered complete benevolent by not caring one way or another (or would that just make her indifferent)?
I’m assuming you mean Gaia. Now, I haven’t undertaken any serious study of Greek mythology, but I didn’t think Gaia was a goddess exactly. I thought the gods started with Zeus, and Gaia came before. I believed her to be on the same level as Chaos. Either way, I don’t think indifference counts as benevolence. If I fall down, a benevolent person helps me up. An indifferent person watches me laying on the ground.
January 24th, 2006 at at 10:26 am
Belathor,
Kelly’s definition of a “game” fails to account for every possible meaning we give that term. Two kids holding sticks and saying “pow, pow” is a game the children are playing. This “game,” however, would have little in the way of discernable rules or an “object” as we traditionally define it.
Also, I think it is odd to say that a professional athelete is not “playing” a game, but rather “working” it. Wittgenstein mentions atheletes in this context and it seems Kelly is trying to exclude normal uses of the language in order to force his definition. Also, consider that not everyone who watches a professional sport does it for recreation. “Bookies,” for instance, watch games for work, not recreation.
Also, according to Kelly’s definition would some reading be considered a game? Couldn’t I say, “Reading is a form of recreation constituted by a set of rules that specify an object to be attained and the permissible means of attaining it,”? Some reading is purely recreational. It is constituted by a set of reading rules–e.g. read from left to right, a phoneme/grapheme correspondence. It also, often, has “a goal intrinsic to the activity itself.”
In Wittgenstein’s thinking, definitions cannot contain the precision we have historically thought was necessary. Instead, words carry loose, family resemblances that connect words in a complicated way. This does not mean that communication is impossible (language gets us close enough), but simply that it cannot be thought of as perfectly delimiting.
January 24th, 2006 at at 12:20 pm
I wouldn’t consider two kids with sticks going “pow pow” to be engaging in the playing of a “game” as much as they may be role-playing or just goofing around/blowing off steam. A game has structure and a method through which you can score or win.
January 24th, 2006 at at 12:39 pm
Oh, well, obviously, you haven’t studied game theory.
January 24th, 2006 at at 11:52 pm
Jahrta,
Not a game? The kids would surely disagree with you, I bet. They would, certainly, say they were playing a game.
Wittgenstein says the same thing better (from Philosophical Investigations 66-67a):
And the result of this examination is: we see a complicated network of similarities overlapping and criss-crossing: sometimes overall similarities, sometimes similarities of detail.
I can think of no better expression to characterize these similarities than “family resemblances”. . .
January 28th, 2006 at at 12:04 am
“Many games do not specify an object to be attained, e.g. role-playing games.”
“Kelly’s definition of a “game” fails to account for every possible meaning we give that term. Two kids holding sticks and saying “pow, pow” is a game the children are playing. This “game,” however, would have little in the way of discernable rules or an “object” as we traditionally define it.”
Thanks for the replies Alejandro and bleedingisaac.
To defend Kelly, he points out in his conclusion that “we cannot demand that a definition have sharper boundaris than the concept it defines.” Perhaps that is the concession to Wittgenstein.
As for role-playing games: wouldn’t role-playing be the object to be attained?
Thanks
January 28th, 2006 at at 5:08 am
[...] I have to begin by quoting the Evangelical Atheist who said recently: [T]he word god is meaningless. It is a hollow semantic echo of an idea that has no real definition. For this reason, debating the existence of gods in general is an exercise in futility. One must limit oneself to debating the existence of a specific god or set of gods or the possibility of any given attribute or set of attributes. [...]
January 28th, 2006 at at 10:52 am
VS,
I think I would, respectfully, disagree that “… debating the existence of gods in general is an exercise in futility.” As Wittgenstein has shown, the word “game” also “has no real definition.” And this is true of most, if not all, of language.
That does mean that we have to remain quiet, though. Wittgenstein explains, “One might say that the concept ‘game’ is a concept with blurred edges.–’But is a blurred concept a concept at all?’–Is an indistinct photograph a picture of a person at all?. . . Frege compares a condept to an area and says that an area with vague boundaries cannot be called an area at all. This presumably means that we cannot do anything with it.–But is it senseless to say: ‘Stand roughly there’?. . . The point is that this is how we play the game. (I mean the language-game with the word ‘game’.)”
In other words, sometimes an indistinct definition is good enough to carry the conversation forward. There is no need for complete precision.
January 31st, 2006 at at 5:03 am
IIRC, the Norse actually believed that their gods would die of old age eventually. I remember reading that an important part of Norse religion was that NOTHING is truly eternal, but all things eventually pass away.
February 1st, 2006 at at 9:38 pm
Your wrong about the supernatural bit, some pantheists have proposed a god that is immanent and natural ( i.e spinoza).
February 1st, 2006 at at 9:38 pm
Your wrong about the supernatural bit, some pantheists have proposed a god that is immanent and natural ( i.e spinoza).
February 17th, 2006 at at 4:16 pm
You are right in that your definition does not distinguish between angels and “gods.”
Maybe you can add something like “And people call this being a god.” Maybe there is no real difference between an angel and a “god,” other than how people label these beings. At the end of the day, we are dealing with something that doesn’t exist, so it isn’t surprising that part of our definition of what is a god depends on people calling them “god.”
Or maybe the difference is people think that “this being is more powerful than other supernatural beings,” or “this being is sufficiently powerful to be considered a god.” People may worship an angel, but consider “God” superior and more powerful.
October 31st, 2006 at at 7:20 am
recreation and sports…
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October 31st, 2006 at at 8:04 am
recreation sports…
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October 31st, 2006 at at 9:06 am
sports recreation…
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October 31st, 2006 at at 10:03 am
sports and recreation…
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October 31st, 2006 at at 11:53 am
golf course sports recreation golf course…
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