God(s) =/= Supernatural

[GoodbyeDave]

While you can you can point to actual physical objects that have been worshiped/respected as gods, generally doesn't the mythology, lore surrounding this gods usually include supernatural elements?

This comment, too, shows Christian influence, albeit from those Christians who take the Bible literally, talking snakes and all!

Myths are stories. Stories about gods, admittedly, but stories nevertheless. Some were just told for entertainment, but many make a point. Clifford Geerts described a myth as a story that was useful to think with, Joseph Campbell described it as something that never happened but was always true.

 

[Earthling]

There is often debate on whether the writers of the Bible were monotheistic or polythiestic, when, in my opinion they are henotheistic. The ancient Hebrew, common Greek, Latin and English are all in agreement regarding the definition of gods.

1. (in Christianity and other monotheistic religions) the creator and ruler of the universe and source of all moral authority; the supreme being.
2. (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.
3. an adored, admired, or influential person; a thing accorded the supreme importance appropriate to a god.
4. the gallery in a theater or people seated therein.

The Bible itself mentions many gods. Jehovah, Jesus, angels, the judges of Israel, Moses, even ones own belly.

 

[Nakosis]

This comment, too, shows Christian influence, albeit from those Christians who take the Bible literally, talking snakes and all!

Myths are stories. Stories about gods, admittedly, but stories nevertheless. Some were just told for entertainment, but many make a point. Clifford Geerts described a myth as a story that was useful to think with, Joseph Campbell described it as something that never happened but was always true.

Ok stories told for entertainment. Fictional characters can have supernatural abilities as well. What's the point of point of calling a fictional character/entity a god if supernatural abilities is not part of the story?

 

[Earthling]

Ok stories told for entertainment. Fictional characters can have supernatural abilities as well. What's the point of point of calling a fictional character/entity a god if supernatural abilities is not part of the story?

Because god, in it's basic sense, from the Hebrew root of the word, simply means mighty or venerated. It seems that the confusion is a very few number of really well known gods having been of a supernatural origin been given the title has wrongly convinced people that the term necessarily implies the supernatural when it doesn't.

 

[Nakosis]

Because god, in it's basic sense, from the Hebrew root of the word, simply means mighty or venerated. It seems that the confusion is a very few number of really well known gods having been of a supernatural origin been given the title has wrongly convinced people that the term necessarily implies the supernatural when it doesn't.

Ok, that's fine.

What god do you have in mind which has no associated supernatural aspect? For example...

I'm not saying anyone is wrong, I'm just trying to understand what such a god would be and really why call it, him, her a god in the first place.

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

Prove me wrong, or check your assumptions at the door next time before you go thinking gods must be supernatural.

I think one of the main reasons you don't see much movement in (what you probably feel is) disrespect of these beliefs, is that there isn't a big push one way or the other on these ideas. You don't have a whole lot of people adhering to these models of worship, so not only is there not a large group advocating for anything regarding the belief-systems, there is literally no "threat" to believers in major religions, or non-believers of religions (think "creationism in schools" kind of threat). Like it or not, that's where you're going to see a lot more action - because of the numbers those wheels are just a whole lot squeakier.

You're also not going to find a lot of other types of (other) theists or atheists really worrying themselves all that much over what you want to call "god" that isn't a claim to something we currently consider "supernatural." I'm certainly not going to try and disprove "nature" for example - there is no point whatsoever. I would be more one to argue that it has no effect to call "nature" by the name "god." You're not making any fantastic claims there that anyone is eager to try and knock down or help you support.

And the example in which someone calls one of their ancestors, or themselves "god" - they most certainly pose no threat to any other major belief (or nonbelief) system. Again - why would anyone challenge or even address these people's beliefs outside of some specific degree of curiosity? They are literally out there, "on their own", with a belief that is ultra-specific and personal, and they have to know that.

Lastly, not even fringe activities get the kind of "respect" you seem to be expecting here. Think on the lines of some obscure miniature-figurine board game that a handful of people are putting their life savings into collecting and painting every figure in the game's "universe". Sure, it's great for those people who get involved... fun, brings them together, whatever... but almost no one who doesn't play cares if they even know the name of that board game. Why should someone's belief system be treated so much differently than a hobby to others who have no intention of subscribing, honestly? In your estimation, are people allowed to not care about information that is not important to them?

 

[Quintessence]

That still raises the question of why we should still call such concepts "gods" then.

That's a question for each individual to answer for themselves. The point of this thread is that there are people who do regard such things as worthy of worship and use the word "god" (or a culturally/linguistically equivalent term) as a label for them.

Surely it'd be more beneficial for shared understanding to use different words and descriptions for truly different ideas?

Maybe, but here's my beef with this line of thinking - ethnocentrism. The vision folks have of "god" in Western culture is grounded in monotheist (specifically Christian) assumptions. They weren't the first theists, they won't be the last theists. I see no reason to fossilize our understanding of what "god" means based on Christian norms. And as a non-Christian, I see a lot of reasons not to.

Could the problem not be others rejection of the word god for these concepts but your refusal to call them anything else?

Not sure where you got this idea from. I use the culturally-specific words for gods where they're present and I'm aware of them (e.g., "kami" for the god-concept of Japanese culture). Keep in mind for the purposes of this thread, even though I use the term "god(s)" I don't intend to exclude "deus" or "theoi" or "gott" or the words used in any other culture or language. But I speak English, so... yeah.

 

[David T]

There are many assumptions folks carry about god(s) based on where they grew up. In English-speaking cultures, the prevailing understanding of god(s) comes to us from various Abrahamic religions, particularly the many varieties of Christianity. In those traditions, god is typically understood to be a singular, supernatural entity. As such, when the word "god" is mentioned, we tend to assume that god is (or even must be) supernatural.

From time to time, you'll see me challenge this assumption around the forums. That's because it's wrong. It's not really my style to be so "this is how it is, the end" about things, but given how easy it is to demonstrate that the equivocation between "god" and "supernatural" is wrong, I feel like making an exception for the sake of this thread. I used to equate "god" with "supernatural" too, but as I learned more about the different varieties of theism, that perspective became untenable. In particular, I became familiar with these forms of theism:

• Autotheism. Some theistic traditions elevate a human person to the status of a god. It could be elevating yourself, or elevating some other human (e.g., ancestor worship). I don't think many of us would suggest that humans are supernatural entities.
• Pantheism. These theistic traditions remove the typical divide English-speaking cultures place between "god" and "nature." Nature is god. Nature is, by definition, not supernatural.
• Polytheism. In many cases, polytheistic gods are mythic personifications of various natural forces or aspects. For example, Nyx is the night; Helius is the sun. Raise your hand if believe that the sun or nighttime are supernatural. Yeah, that's what I thought.

Prove me wrong, or check your assumptions at the door next time before you go thinking gods must be supernatural.

I just wanted to mention that in context to the discussion "belief" "non belief" agnosticism is the default starting element in context to the term God for normal culture. But that most certainly is not everyone. Some people start with experience as being fundemental..

If I were to use say the analogy music. We would have All parties that makes up the larger majority mutually agree without being aware that they mutually agree that music theory creates music. And we would have no music without it.
Not everyone understands the topic like that..

 

[HonestJoe]

That's a question for each individual to answer for themselves. The point of this thread is that there are people who do regard such things as worthy of worship and use the word "god" (or a culturally/linguistically equivalent term) as a label for them.

Sure, but if they're not talking about some kind of individual sentient "supernatural" being(s) I'm not sure they're in any position to complain when people presume that's what they do mean.

Maybe, but here's my beef with this line of thinking - ethnocentrism. The vision folks have of "god" in Western culture is grounded in monotheist (specifically Christian) assumptions. They weren't the first theists, they won't be the last theists. I see no reason to fossilize our understanding of what "god" means based on Christian norms. And as a non-Christian, I see a lot of reasons not to.

I totally agree with that, I just think you're stretching it too far. Extending the word god to cover beings defined by any religion or philosophy isn't a problem, and is accounted for by any modern formal definition of the word. Extending it to some of the very different concepts you listed fails to meet any part of any recognised definition so can only lead to confusion. It's the exact opposite of the reason we have different words for different things.

Not sure where you got this idea from. I use the culturally-specific words for gods where they're present and I'm aware of them (e.g., "kami" for the god-concept of Japanese culture). Keep in mind for the purposes of this thread, even though I use the term "god(s)" I don't intend to exclude "deus" or "theoi" or "gott" or the words used in any other culture or language. But I speak English, so... yeah.

I'm not talking about using words from other languages, it's more about how they're translated. It's the difference between saying "the Japanese believe in gods" and saying "the Japanese have a term kami, which is like god but...".

 

[Apologes]

When I read the title I was expecting a useful reminder that one doesn't need to adhere to theism in order to hold to supernaturalism. Instead, what I see is a rather trivial semantic game.

Sure, you can take the word "god" to mean anything you like. If you want to call humanity "god" then be my guest. If you want to call energy "god" be my guest. But this word play comes at a cost of having to greatly modify the way you speak or think about gods. It will no longer make sense to say that some evil is a result of the "will of gods" for energy doesn't have a will and a human is too puny to orchestrate the cosmos to suit their needs.

It makes just as little sense to pray to gods, so understood, as there is little hope that a tree or some other natural inanimate object one calls divine will answer your prayers.

One by one, most all religious practices fall apart so unless one is talking about gods as a metaphor to express some material or humanistic view there doesn't seem to be much meaning to it. But if that's so then why not just cut out the middle man and just endorse that humanism or naturalism and drop the farce with divinity?

It is for a good reason, that deities have been understood in the supernatural sense and it has nothing to do with some academic conspiracies against your prefered (world-play driven) concept of divinity, but simply with the fact that the predominantly discussed views of classical theism are just that much more useful and meaningful to talk about.

 

[paarsurrey]

It seems much of how we view this depends on our ontological perspectives. That is, how we understand reality and its various dimensions (if any) strongly impacts how we approach the idea of god(s) and the assumptions we make about them. The belief that there's some sort of separation between "physical plane" and "not physical plane" fuels the idea that gods must reside in just one of these areas. If this dichotomy is rejected or muddied, the insistence that gods must be "not physical plane" (aka, "supernatural" in the colloquial sense) falls apart and is untenable.

G-d is attributive, His presence is manifested in every dimension with the manifestation of His attributes only.
Regards

 

[Quintessence]

Sure, you can take the word "god" to mean anything you like. If you want to call humanity "god" then be my guest. If you want to call energy "god" be my guest. But this word play comes at a cost of having to greatly modify the way you speak or think about gods.

While I do also happen to agree that "god" simply means "that which a person or culture deifies" and ergo can basically be anything, that's not really what I was getting at with this thread. The main intention of this thread is to highlight the "cost" is you talk about here - I want us to expand our thinking about what theism is. I don't think that's a "cost," I think that's a benefit. It's not word play, it's understanding that what "god" looks like varies across different types of theism and taking the time to acknowledge that instead of ignore it and make assumptions.

It will no longer make sense to say that some evil is a result of the "will of gods" for energy doesn't have a will and a human is too puny to orchestrate the cosmos to suit their needs.

Such statements never made sense for all types of theism to begin with - that's the point. I could make another thread titled something like "god(s) =/= benevolent" or "god(s) =/= omnipotent or any other number of assumptions people often make. Attributes of god(s) vary across different types of theism and different religions. The intent of this thread is basically to call that out so that crap like this becomes less of a thing:

It is for a good reason, that deities have been understood in the supernatural sense and it has nothing to do with some academic conspiracies against your prefered (world-play driven) concept of divinity, but simply with the fact that the predominantly discussed views of classical theism are just that much more useful and meaningful to talk about.

Yes, I'm well aware that some classical monotheists think talking about any other type of theism is not useful or meaningful. That's their bias, and its an expected bias. Everybody has their biases, but let's not say something isn't worth studying or talking about merely because it's not in the cultural majority in one's time and place. I don't believe in whatever this academic conspiracy is you're talking about, but there's no such thing as a useless or meaningless avenue of inquiry in academia.