Just floating this out there...

God is that which could not be otherwise.

The form mocks Anslem's ontological argument and has the slightly vague "...and this everyone calls God," quality to it. Application of the idea also makes for some very strange bedfellows...hard determinists and pantheists, comes to mind. Such examples do not support any classical nothing of God. There seems to be a problem of conflating God and what is necessity.

That said,...

Now the serious part,...

For me, the definition reflects the general criteria that I use to distinguish between the sacred and the profane...between the Creator and his creation.

Anything of a created nature has an arbitrary quality.
Anything of a necessary nature gets attributed to God.

In other words, if somethings at least appears that it could have been otherwise...from physical constants, like the speed of light, to historical accidents, then that is part of the created order. In contract to this, when I think about God I think about what must be and could not be otherwise...Being-As-Being, a Totality, etc. Then there are things like the efficacy of reason and intentionality that signify to me a rational order that transcends the particularity of circumstance. On a personal level, I wonder what are the absolutes of my life experience? What did I choose and what could not have been otherwise?

Well..there's a problem, immediately. I also believe in that which cannot be otherwise, and yet believe in no gods.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but gods seem to be in the category of that which could be otherwise..speaking to a category enthusiast, as I am.

It doesn’t strike me as a particularly useful definition, since we cannot reliably know that anything - a book, a rock, an opera - could not be otherwise. Similarly, I can easily imagine God being ‘otherwise’.

Furthermore, the bit about things of a ‘created’ or ‘necessary’ nature comes off as question begging.

Boru

(December 14, 2021 at 10:37 pm)Neo-Scholastic Wrote: Just floating this out there...

God is that which could not be otherwise.

The form mocks Anslem's  ontological argument and has the slightly vague "...and this everyone calls God," quality to it. Application of the idea also makes for some very strange bedfellows...hard determinists and pantheists, comes to mind. Such examples do not support any classical nothing of God. There seems to be a problem of conflating God and what is necessity.

That said,...

Now the serious part,...

For me, the definition reflects the general criteria that I use to distinguish between the sacred and the profane...between the Creator and his creation.

Anything of a created nature has an arbitrary quality.
Anything of a necessary nature gets attributed to God.

In other words, if somethings at least appears that it could have been otherwise...from physical constants, like the speed of light, to historical accidents, then that is part of the created order. In contract to this, when I think about God  I think about what must be and could not be otherwise...Being-As-Being, a Totality, etc. Then there are things like the efficacy of reason and intentionality that signify to me a rational order that transcends the particularity of circumstance. On a personal level, I wonder what are the absolutes of my life experience? What did I choose and what could not have been otherwise?

None of this is serious, not even half of it. Every religion in the world, when they cant argue outright "poof" and" magic" try to incorporate science to point to their particular club.

The speed of light was not invented by the Christian God, or the Jewish God, or the Muslim God or Hindu gods, or Buddha.

A worthless attempt at defining god into existence

How is a thread titled 'A Half Serious...' tagged 'serious? I think we need to pick a side...it's serious, half serious, or not serious.

All I read in the OP is dancing, a whole lot of dancing.

(December 15, 2021 at 10:33 pm)arewethereyet Wrote: How is a thread titled 'A Half Serious...' tagged 'serious? I think we need to pick a side...it's serious, half serious, or not serious.

The thread is "serious" to discourage the overt mockery. The content is half serious because it is speculative. Same word, different context.

Whenever you use the phrase 'that which' to define something, you need to *first* show existence and uniqueness. That is basic logic.

So, show that there is something that could not be otherwise and show that it is unique in that property.

Good luck. (half-seriously)

(December 16, 2021 at 12:05 pm)polymath257 Wrote: ... That is basic logic.

I'm using a different logic :-P