A pantheistic argument.

[Edwardo Piet]

I don't understand what you are trying to say. My main question is this: why would you want to define 'god' as 'universe'?

Well, I gave my explanation: to help demonstrate that changing the label doesn't change the belief. Some people seem to get confused and think that it does.

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I think for many people, using [a] particular word with long standing connotations to describe certain independent concept of his would, overtime, subtlely shape and change his conception to more closely match the connotation of the word.

So are you suggesting that by merely labeling the universe as "god" that makes it more likely that overtime oneself shifts closer towards typical definitions of god? So naturalistic pantheists that merely believe god is "the universe" are more likely to convert to other types of theism than atheists are? That's an interesting point of view, but I wonder why it's the case.

I think Christians are well aware of this, and often with conscious duplicity try to leverage the fact to the advantage of their silly god concept.

So are you saying that Christians would see pantheists who define god as the universe as closer to them than atheists? I would agree that they probably do, because pantheism implies theism but what I find rather odd is that the atheist who believes in the universe and the pantheist who defines god as the universe believe in exactly the same thing. It is merely that the pantheist has an extra label for "the universe" and the atheist doesn't. So, if there is no difference in belief between the two, such pantheism is the same as atheism - it's merely a different label.

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What is the basis of this assumption?

Well, perhaps it is something like how throughout history gods have often been about forces that have power over our lives. Thunder has power over our lives for example and Zeus is a typical example of the deification of thunder. Gods seem to have originally been based upon the notion of power or influence.

I'm merely starting with one of the pantheistic definitions of god, which is a definition of god that is used by enough people for it to count I would think.

I am not sure this leads anywhere except its own anus.

I'm just making an argument - is it invalid?

Why apply additional names with unfortunate cultural baggage for reference to exactly the same thing? "Universe itself is the universe" not good enough?

As I said, I'm making an argument and my premises are merely to demonstrate that the conclusion that follows from it, and my purpose is to help demonstrate how changing the label doesn't change the belief, despite the fact that some people seem to think it does, in my experience at least.