This is mainly aimed at theists, but everyone is welcome to chime in. I'm still totally lacking any coherent notion of what a god is.

Is it defined by its qualities? Or by its achievements? Its status? What?

Consider this scenario. A long time ago, all that existed was a slug. That's it, a slug. Nothing predates the slug.

Suddenly, the slug creates all of the rest of reality around it somehow. Maybe this was deliberate, maybe it did it by accident. Now it exists alongside everything else. Along with this creation came the rules regarding harm and death, which previously did not apply. The slug lives out its days, then dies. Fast forward several billion years, and we have the present day.

So my question is this: would this slug be a god? If not, why not, and what else would make it into one?

It's irrelevant how the slug did this, or if it's possible, since these are never considerations when gods are discussed.

Quote:So my question is this: would this slug be a god? If not, why not, and what else would make it into one?

It would only be a god if it killed people for worshiping other slugs.

But seriously (odd for me, I know), this is a very good question.  Theists, even within the same franchise, have a helluva time coming up with what 'God' means, and then proceed to bag the rest of us for not believing in something they can't define.  Huh?

Boru

(May 14, 2016 at 4:41 am)robvalue Wrote: [...]So my question is this: would this slug be a god? If not, why not, and what else would make it into one?[...]

I'd say - most theists would not accept the slug as one and only god, because it's not emotionally appealing enough. They'd ask "Well - and who made the slug?" and proceed with shameless violations of semantics until they reached the preconceived notion of an anthropomorphic, immortal god, terribly preoccupied with their well-being...

I mean - if you're not bound by facts, or evidence, when constructing your model of reality, then why would you stop making sh*t up at something as mundane as a slug?

Thanks guys

Yes, my idea here is to work from the bottom up. This slug satisfies all the stupid Kalam arguments and such. And you can't coherently ask what created it, because I've defined it as having nothing pre-dating it.

I'd love to hear the objections. In this state of affairs, is there no God but there was a creator?

God is just hopes and dreams.
It will exist as long as humans will.
It's the human condition.
No physical bearing on reality whatever.

Yes the slug would be the God, for god is not bound by shape or form but recognizable only as the eternal creator of all.






(I need to practice better word salad)

Hehe, yeah

I'm interested to know what they would call the slug instead, and if they can justify it.

Sorry, I'm also asluggist.
I believe in the historicity of slugs of course, but none of the woo associated with them.
I also cannot put my faith in something slimey.
(But I do put other things in something slimey)  

I don't see why not, and I doubt it even has to meet the scenario you set forth...since a large number of gods that people worship aren't even proposed to have been creator-god - and ofc many gods (my favorites come from the meso-american pantheon) were said to have died long before the cults which centered around them practiced their faiths.

The only -actual- requirement for a god seems to be that somebody somewhere believes that "x" is a god.

Yes a slug can be god.