God

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“”God was a dream of good government. — Morpheus, Deus Ex

In English, God is the name given to the deity of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. When used generally, god can refer to any deity. Gods may be credited with being animate or inanimate, or even having a nature which transcends existence itself. It would seem to make little sense to seriously discuss the existence of a particular god, as gods tend to be mutually exclusive.

How gods evolved

Humans long ago lived in the grips of forces they could not understand: the sun, the moon, storms, natural disasters, seasons. Additionally, as human intelligence grew to the point of comprehending past and future, humans began to contemplate the idea that they personally would die, news that depressed them.

The ideas that all the forces they could not understand were in the hands of possibly sympathetic spirits, and that their soul would live on forever in some paradise or other, were comforting and alleviated depression. Thus, those with a susceptibility to comforting woo were more likely to get on with their nasty, brutish and short lives.

Thus: evolution created gods.

This tendency was also reinforced when religion was used as a way to get the stupid to act sensibly, e.g. the dietary laws of Leviticus - where they had to make the rules into religious injunctions to get idiots to follow them. Additional reinforcement was occasioned by a desire to control by threat of the god's displeasure.

Gods were constructed by humans to explain what was inexplicable to them. As scientific knowledge increases, the role of the gods decreases, there being less and less that is inexplicable to us. (This correlation is so obvious that only those who choose to ignore it don't see it.)

Ideas of God

God looks remarkably like an elderly Italian man

• Monotheists (Abrahamic religions, with the possible exception of trinitarian Christianity) believe that there is a single entity which is the supreme being, responsible for the creation of the Universe. This god usually nurtures its creation, watches over proceedings, and intervenes. Claims made for such a god can verge on the dramatic: omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent. Such claims may be hyperbole inherited from less-enlightened times. Adherents of the religion wishing to honour their god credit him with supreme powers, without considering whether or not such powers might be self-contradictory.
  • The Holy Trinity doctrine of Christianity is seen as polytheistic by Judaism and Islam, as well as some small branches of Christianity itself such as Oneness Pentecostalism, Marcionism, and Unitarianism. Most Christians strenuously disagree, going so far as to assert (as the Eastern Orthodox churches do) that it's not supposed to make sense.

• Polytheists (Hinduism, Maya and Aztec mythology, ancient Greco-Roman mythology, and numerous others) believe that there are multiple divine entities, which are usually responsible for different aspects of human life and the natural or supernatural world. There are, broadly, two sorts of polytheism:
  • Hard polytheism holds that all the gods are distinct and separate. Many ancient pagan religions and some neopagan religions, such as Asatru, fall into this category.
  • Soft polytheism holds that while there are many gods, they are all manifestations of a single god. Modern-day Hinduism falls into this category.

Pure polytheism implies that these entities are worshiped more or less equally, according to the needs of the individual worshiper, but several other subtypes exist:

• • Henotheists, like pure polytheists, recognize a pantheon of gods, but only worship one of these at a time.
  • Monolatrists believe that while multiple gods of similar power exist, only one of these is worthy of worship. (many ancient Middle Eastern religions, possibly including proto-Judaism)
  • Dualists are midway between monotheist and polytheist, seeing nature as being ruled by opposing forces in a constant struggle for domination (Zoroastrians, some aspects of Norse mythology, many Christian fundamentalists (see spiritual warfare))

• Pantheists and Animists believe that God is Nature and Nature is God. Pantheism is sort of a theologized ancestor to vitalism, but is embraced by many neopagans as well as native religions around the world. Greek mythology, though polytheist, included hints of pantheism in its nymphs, naiads, and other assorted nature spirits.
• Panentheists believe that God exists inside of everything, but is at the same time, transcendent of everything. God is seen as an eternal spark of all things, the Prime Mover, the First Wind from some native American religions, etc. God is not creator, for all things are part of God (god), the manifest, physical parts of god.
• Deists believe that God exists but is irrelevant to the workings of the universe, sitting behind the scenes but seldom if ever interacting with the material world (it is a common misconception to think that this means that God may as well not exist - some deists, such as Thomas Paine believed in the immortality of the soul in a condition outside the universe) . Many of the people of the Enlightenment, particularly American revolutionaries such as Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson were deists.

• Agnostics would contend that it is impossible to determine whether or not God exists, and that arguments about the existence or non-existence of God are counterproductive. Other agnostics maintain that, as it is very difficult to prove a negative, and hence absolutely disprove Gods (or God) exist, then the most logical scientific position is that of extreme skepticism. This is a position just barely short of atheism.
  • Fideists (a term coined by Martin Gardner, one of the few prominent theist skeptics) are essentially agnostics that have chosen to believe in a god despite an acknowledged lack of evidence.

• Atheists do not believe in deities. There are many types of atheism, discussed elsewhere, but generally atheists can be classified as pragmatic (or "weak"), where they live life as if no gods exist, or theoretical (or "strong") where they make an explicit statement of lack of belief in gods and back this up with logical arguments. It is generally believed that "strong" atheists are rather uncommon, though most arguing in favor of God's existence believe that they are the norm.

Proof of gods' existence

Our God is an awesome God

Throughout history, various arguments have been proposed that supposedly prove God's existence. Sadly for their proponents, not one of these arguments has yet been successful.

• Thomistic cosmological argument
• Ontological argument
• Oenological argument
• Argument from morality
• Argument from molarity

There's also the question of which God to prove exists. Islam's theory is that Allah is powerful, remote, and unfathomable by man. Judaism's theory is that Yahweh is focused on the descendants of Jacob. Christianity's theory is that God is united with humanity in the flesh in the person of Jesus. Pantheists say that God is the whole universe. Deists say that God created the universe in the beginning but now has nothing to do with it at all. Mormons say that God and man are the same species at different levels of advancement, and God was once a man, and man will someday be a God. Before this God's existence can be debated, both sides have to agree on that God's attributes.

Discussion

The concept of the God of classical theism, with what Anselm described as its 'perfections', may lead to logical impossibilities. There is a great deal of debate, to put it lightly, over this topic - one of the most common contentions is that the problem of evil renders God's existence with the above attributes impossible.

For many rational believers however, there are versions of God which appear to be at least logically possible, and as it is impossible to prove that something does not exist, even the most hardened skeptic has to concede that there is a remote possibility that such a being might conceivably exist in some form or another.

However, in rational terms, logic and evidence appears to dictate that there almost certainly is no requirement for God to exist in the monotheistic sense, and it can be argued that the existence of God leads to logical contradictions.

God, in the meantime, has usually declined to participate in this discussion. This is unfortunate, as it is certain that she would have many fascinating insights to add. However, she is just too busy. (After all, being god, she has other civlisations and even alien races to attend to. You wouldn't expect her not to be busy!)

God and her agents of death

Apart from the people whom God personally claims to have killed, all men are godly agents of death; for everyone who is an agent of death always wants to justify their actions by citing a power beyond question which provides that justification. There is no better power than god, who has, since the beginning of time, been invoked to justify every mass slaughter -- and can also be called, in addition to the creator, the killer. Some religions actually recognize this.

German soldiers marched into WWI with the words Gott Mit Uns ("God is with us") on their helmets. During the Nazi period, soldiers in the German Wehrmacht also wore belt buckles inscribed with this slogan.

In Hitler’s Mein Kampf, volume I, at the end of chapter 2: "Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord."

Both George Bush and Tony Blair claim to have consulted God about the invasion of Iraq. It appears that She gave them the go-ahead. What a kidder!

Al-Qaeda claim that She is on their side, so it may have been a set-up.

The Yorkshire Ripper has also claimed that God approved his activities as a serial killer.

Physicists on god

“”God is subtle, but he is not malicious. — Albert Einstein

“”God does not play dice with the universe. — Albert Einstein

“”It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. — Albert Einstein

“”The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this. — Albert Einstein

“”Einstein, stop telling God what to do. — Niels Bohr

God on physicists

“”Niels, stop telling my man Al what to do. — God

God at the movies

"The Supreme Being" in Time Bandits is played by Sir Ralph Richardson.

Now he is usually played by Morgan Freeman (or, on one regrettableimpressively iconoclastic occasion, Alanis Morissette).

Dawkins

“”The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.

—Dawkins; The God Delusion

See also

• Babel Fish
• Eric Clapton
• God on earth
• GodTube
• Idolatry
• Essay:What God would have to be (an opinion piece by User:EVDebs)
• Essay:of Islands (a piece by Eira arguing that a perfect Christian God could not exist in a finite universe without an intelligent designer establishing the rules of existence)
• Examples of God personally killing people

External links

• The "Official" God F.A.Q.
• God's official blog
• One Conservaoedian view of God
• Over Three Hundred Proofs of God's Existence (Silly)
• Over Three Hundred Disproofs of God’s Existence (Also Silly)