Define " GOD "

[TheRootOfDavid]

Define " GOD "

[Data]

God is a word, the definition of which given by Oxford Dictionary is as follows: (in Christianity and other monotheistic religions) the creator and ruler of the universe and source of all moral authority; the supreme being; (in certain other religions) a superhuman being or spirit worshiped as having power over nature or human fortunes; a deity; an image, idol, animal, or other object worshiped as divine or symbolizing a god; used as a conventional personification of fate; an adored, admired, or influential person; a thing accorded the supreme importance appropriate to a god; the gallery in a theater; used for emphasis or to express emotions such as surprise, anger, or distress.

Prior to Christianity's spread through occidental culture the English word God was a pagan word which meant libation, from to pour, as in sacrifice. (Source)

So a god is anything or anyone that is venerated. One would use the stylistic upper case G if in application to a specific God of the audience. For example God doesn't mean the same god in every instance. Much like King or President. There isn't just one King, there isn't just one President and there isn't just one God.

[Purple Knight]

Something that should be worshiped.

Reason?

If I were omnipotent and a bad person, it would not be right to worship me, therefore I am not God.

If God were stripped of all his powers, but remained the incarnation of good, it would still be right to heed him. He'd still be God.

[Dimmesdale]

[Replying to TheRootOfDavid in post #1]

The Supreme Person.

Because God is a Person.

There is nothing ontologically higher than personality.

We look at the world and see stones, plants, animals... but human beings are practically and rightfully given pride of place.

Why? Because we as fellow human beings recognize, intuitively, that humans possess something infinitely higher than other entities. That we are in a class where love and relationships predominate over mere instinct or dumb existence.

Now, take God. If humans rank so high above animals and inanimate objects, it can be reasonably inferred that God is even higher than that. And we, too, can apprehend this intuitively. We see in our mundane life that relationships, wonderful as they are, do not satisfy us to an infinite degree. Something is lacking. No where in nature is there found the fount of all happiness, the cure to our restlessness and agitation. All fulfillment of desires is short-lived, temporary, ephemeral. Can we say that Reality just stops there? That there is nothing else?

But we have poetry, and art, and mathematics, and beauty, and Heroic Love, and so many other things, which Inspire us to look Forward and Deeper into a greater dimension of life. The unfathomably immense span of the universe itself implies, it seems to me, the greatness of existence, that it is not small, or meagre, or circumscribed, but that things are etched out in greatness.

Naturally, this points to a source. Could the universe have come out of nothing? Despite the fact that we see all life coming from prior life, or physical processes from antecedent processes, and so on? Could the universe itself have been the exception? The one miracle of the atheist?

I think the answer is obvious. It is only our paltry little minds that obfuscate it.

[TheHolyGhost]

Define " GOD "

THE WORD