A practical definition for "God"

[robvalue]

As you know, I find "God" to be incredibly ill-defined to the point of being meaningless. However, I had a brainwave about how God could be described in real terms. It's probably far from original, but here I go anyway.

God is an unnecessary assumption.

It's an assumption because there is clearly no evidence such a thing exists, and it is carefully designed to be non-falsifiable. Therefor, belief in it amounts to an assumption.

It's unnecessary because it has no use or explanatory power. It becomes a placeholder for things we don't know instead of just admitting "I don't know", and it gets shoved in front of things we do know, to try and arbitrarily credit it. Either way, our understand of the universe is not in any way advanced by this assumption. Our practical models all work perfectly well without it, as does everyday life.

Some assumptions are necessary, such as the assumption that the world will still be here tomorrow and that the laws of nature will pretty much work the same way from one moment to the next. Without such assumptions, our ability to function sensibly would be impaired. Also, these assumptions are based on previous experience and evidence. However, removing the assumption that "God did it" or "God is doing it" in no way detracts from such function.

To go back to the laws of nature, I assume for example gravity will keep working. Why would I not? It always has. But as soon as I see evidence of gravity not working anymore like it used to, my assumption is challenged and must be altered. This is the crucial part. The assumption in God never gets challenged because it doesn't tell us anything. We wouldn't notice this assumption failing in the way an assumption about gravity suddenly fails, because it has no bearing on reality. This is, I believe, partly why the God belief persists. Reality does not challenge it.