Beliefs about and definitions of gods and Gods

I really should have made this thread earlier, but I didn't. Here it is though.

The topic is simple. Share beliefs about and definitions of the terms god and God. I am operating under the idea that a god is different from a God. The capital G denoting the being as a supreme creator of the universe while the lowercase denotes that they are not such a being.

So.

First.

Buddhism.

There exist two species of sentient beings that we consider gods. The Deva and Asura. There may or may not be other species of gods. A rough definition of god by the Buddhist idea is "Any sentient and sapient being longer lived than a human being with greater understanding of the universe, physical strength, intelligence, or happiness and/or combinations of the above".

This means a few things. One, the gods can die. Two, the gods are flawed. Three, the gods didn't create the universe.

In fact most gods don't care about humanity at all and leave it alone. Out of those few that do there is an even smaller amount of gods given names. Then from that there is a smaller group of gods worthy of worship. The exact beings worshiped depends on school and branch. Mahayanan schools for example have their own Buddhist pantheons while Theravadan schools tend to just filch away Hinduism gods and consider them separate from Buddhism yet still worthy of worship.

Unless you are weird like Thailand and Burma in which case Guanyin worship is popular despite being Theravadan.

So, compared to the prhistoric folk who came up with those beliefs, we, people of tehe XX Ist century, are Gods.

I feel aweome for humanity.

Um... Ok.

Christianity

The Father: Oversaw the creation of the Universe, planned everything out. It is through him that Jesus can work miracles. Essentially the Supervisor of the Universe. Rarely does his own miracles, but without him, everything would cease.

The Son: Jesus Christ. The blue collar worker, if we follow the metaphor from above. He actually created the Universe. During his mortal ministry, he worked miracles and set up the church. Some sects see him as the complementary opposite of the Father, not being able to do anything on his own, but can get down and dirty to work.

The Spirit/Holy Ghost: The most mystical of the Trinity. Having no flesh and blood (Jesus does/did, but it's arguable whether he still does, and whether the Father does), he can inhabit a person's body (or several at a time, there's no limit), manipulating (I hate to say manipulate, but I can't think of a better word. He gently nudges them in the right direction) them to do God's will. It is also through him that people are convinced of the Gospel.

These three operate in their own ways, as one. It gets a bit complicated, but the basic gist is that they are three aspects of the same being, namely God. Basically, when God is doing stuff, it's the Father supplying the firepower, the Son doing the dirty work, and the Spirit doing HR.

Or, you can believe the Mormons, who say that they are three distinct beings, but they are alike in purpose. Always seemed like a bit of a stretch to me, but what the hell, right?

Is this what you were looking for? You mentioned 'beliefs about God', so this is what I came up with.

In Jainism, there are no deities, but every person has the potential to become god-like by following the three jewels and the five vows. A person who reaches perfection, a Tirthankara, ascends to a plane of omnipotence and escapes rebirth.

Yes that is what I was looking for.

As for another word beyond manipulate...how about "guide"? Or "direct"? Alternatively you can remove that sentence as a whole and replace it with "gently nudges in the right direction"?

edited 16th Aug '11 6:07:25 PM by Aondeug

"God" to me implies a humanistic, interventionist deity. Something that has humanistic traits, and with both the ability and the willingness to directly intervene in our world in some way. Neither deism or pantheism I see rise to the level as being a belief in "God".

[1]

You really just love abusing that link, Tomu...

I say that god must have the three O's, or it isn't even worth considering. That, or it's a Greek/Roman style god, which means it needs to be killed, not worshiped. Luckily, we have nukes for that now. Puny Earthlings my ass...

edited 16th Aug '11 6:41:29 PM by USAF713

As long as the link continues to answer the relevant questions, I shall continue to use the link.

If the supernatural exists, then I believe it is animistic in nature, with various spirits/gods/angels/whatever. For example, I like the Enochian sytem because, although it implies God, it is essencially about various angels acting independently from some higher plan and just being there for mankind to bargain with; they do have an hierarchy, but all pantheons do so I am not the least bit surprised.

And then there's the interpretations that the "demons" (cacodaemons) of this system are merely mindless beasts, which is indeed conforting compared to the actively malevolent ones from Christian Mythology.

I look at any theorized God through the lens typically applied to a Sufficiently Advanced Alien, speculating on its biology and origins.

Quran 112:1-4
Say: He, Allah, is One.
Allah is He on Whom all depend.
He begets not, nor is He begotten.
And none is like Him.
Allah is one. He is eternal, creates everything and have power over all things and knowledge of all things. Is not born and does not give birth and all His creations cannot be compared to him.

'Nuff said.

Yeah, Allah is the purest, most abstract form of the Abrahamic God. Makes Him all the easier to take down: Christians and Jews have the luxury of confusion, behind which they can take shelter... but Islam has the problem defined in very clear, unambiguous terms.

The problem with the three Os is that if any God is really Omnipotent and Omniscient then every terrible thing that happens does so because he felt like making it happen. He was able to prevent it without any impact on anything else but chose not to do so.

If there are multiple gods, however, maybe they just don't agree on the best way to go about things and some imperfections slip through the cracks while they're trying to work together.

I'm going to second Tomu's link and add this and this to join them.

Defining God or gods in any sense has to pass the relevance test as well as the truth/sensibility test, imho.

Since I am european, my understandting of the term "god" is mostly european: a mythological creature of higher power and importence than other mythological creatures, usually a personification of certain concepts.

The difference in writing is just an orthography-thing for me. "God" is just "god" used as a name or title, and thus written with capital "g".

edited 17th Aug '11 5:54:59 AM by Puphallo

I agree with this.

^^ You speak like Christians weren't a majority in Europe, and like Polytheism has been in any way relevant in Europe in recent times.

Personal beliefs and Personal Dictionary definitions:

I understand the word "god", generally speaking, to denote someone (or even something) that is worshipped, and revered to an extent that a normal human being would not be. I also recognise that the term may be used to denote a powerful supernatural being, but that is not my preferred definition, since it excludes a number of beings worshipped as gods and includes a number that aren't.

Outside of discussions of other faiths, I normally understand "God" with a capital "G" to denote the sole god that the speaker reveres above all others. Typically, if I talk about God, I am talking about the absolute best person imaginable, best in the sense of both morality and ability. I think this person is sufficiently excellent to command my worship whether or not such a person actually exists. That means that I am, at the very least, worshipping the abstract concept of God, which means that concept is a god (as defined above) and at the very least exists in the same sense as any other abstract concept that influences reality can be said to exist.

I do not know if God possesses a name, gender or physical form. I do not believe that God created the universe, because I do not believe that the universe is perfect. I believe it is reasonable to describe those who are closer to God as being in Heaven and those who are furthest from God as being in Hell, but I do not think that it is possible for anybody to say for certain where any given individual resides.

I never said god had to be good to be worth considering. I wouldn't worship a god either way, because as noted, god isn't doing a very good job if god has the three O's, and if god doesn't god needs to be killed, not worshiped.

Why do gods need to be killed? I don't understand.

Well, it makes more sense with my first post, but, I said if they were Greek/Roman-style gods... or, I suppose, Hindu-style, as well.

Those gods are not nice.

Those particular ones are suffering somewhat from Values Dissonance, I think. They have plenty of good deeds to their names as well as bad ones.

Certainly, but really now, when you have petty gods with the power to cause incredible harm to humanity and their leader is an unapologetic rapist, there is a problem.

The Greeks and Romans just couldn't do anything about it because they only had swords and spears. We have nuclear weapons now, so, if their gods are real, we have a little something to show them about that whole "humanity is our plaything" idea...