Evidence and causes for doubt

[robvalue]

I never really understood the argument that God must be supernatural or he's not God.

How many phenomena were once believed to be supernatural before they were properly understood?

When I believed, I thought that God was natural but beyond human comprehension.  I've read that scientists believe there may be more than 10 dimensions, despite the fact that we humans can only function in three.  I just assumed that God could function in every dimension, making him natural but too complex for us to understand.

To this day I have no problem imagining that an infinitely more complex being could exist who would be to us like we are to the single celled organism.  I just don't find any compelling reason to believe that any particular world religion knows anything about him or that he could be known or that he is a "he".

Yep. This is why I insist the word "God" is meaningless. "Supernatural" is meaningless. They are the stuff of fantasy.

I've asked many times what the difference is between a "God" and an arbitrarily powerful non-God. What does it actually mean? I've received no sensible answer.

The nearest I've had is that it's something that can create realities. If that's the case, we may well be gods. My brain is a god, as it creates a VR based (probably) on an objective reality. I don't live in that reality, I live in my simulation of it. My brain creates dreams when I'm asleep. They are self contained realities which I am transported to, and are as real as this one when I'm in them. We may be inadvertently creating realities all the time, as emergent processes manifesting themselves somehow.

I've decided on this:

Almost all the time God is split into two parts.

"Intelligent being that was responsible for creating this reality" + "Meaningless nonsense that no one could possibly know even if it made sense"

Note I say responsible. It wasn't necessarily intentional. Why would we assume that?

If people would just stop after part 1, we could have a sensible (although very short) discussion. But except for straight-edge deists, people can't help themselves. They pile on extra rubbish, and it makes the conversation ludicrous. I highly suspect they don't understand what they are even saying most of the time. It's neat phrases they have heard. Because people generally agree on part 1, they think their personal gibberish in part 2 is the same thing other people mean by "God". Hardly.

Of course, sometimes "God" is used in other ways, such as to label something that already exists like the universe. So I can't be sure what any person means by the word, and can't rule this pointless possibility out either until they clarify.