Characteristics of the Christian God

[Amarok]

I will do my best to respond in sum to the OP and Neo here.

@Steve:

First, a point of clarification which perhaps was not as clear as it should have been in my original article.  In that post, one of the primary points is that the behaviors that an organism engages in depend a great deal on whether they pursue a K or r reproductive strategy.  My contention was that the traits of God most closely align with those of a K leaning species rather than an r leaning species.  Unfortunately, in hindsight, I'm not sure it's that simple.  One of the splits that I should have emphasized in addition to K/r distinctions is that between social species and solitary species.  When that split is examined, the behaviors that you want to suggest are associated with consciousness are not so cleanly split.  However I think we can draw a a line between certain behaviors like love and relationship directly to the benefit valuing such things has for an organism which benefits from group living and that which does not.   I don't know where or if you draw lines about what constitutes consciousness, but the behaviors don't seem to break down along those lines.  For example, the solitary giant anteater is unlikely to be moved by love or relationship.  There is no reason it should be.  And that distinction extends to higher orders of social behavior, such as worship and loyalty.  An alpha male only makes sense in the context of a social species.  But ultimately, the question of the contribution of consciousness by itself to the behaviors associated with God can be hard to parse out simply because in organisms that have behaviors, consciousness appears to be ubiquitous (depending on how you define it).  Ultimately, I don't think I need to draw that line, however, for the reasons I'll make clear in my response to Neo.  

@Neo:

In your first response to my article you contended that the points I was making were dependent upon anthropomorphisizing God, and that a conception along Neoplatonic lines avoids the bulk of this difficulty.  While I'm not sure this counter is entirely valid, as we are supposedly made in the image of God, so God must of necessity share certain human traits in common with us, I think this ignores the larger point that God's values seem to lack foundation.  By making God less human, and more a product of pure spirit, you end up simply further disconnecting him from any potential justification of his values.  The supposed dual nature of man began with Plato and the Greeks postulating that we are both spirit and flesh.  This theme is even more fully developed in Neo-platonism, in which we are split between that aspect which is in touch with God, and that which concerns the world and the flesh.  Over time, the boundaries of this split have been more clearly defined as a split between reason and emotion, with the emotionally based behaviors having their genesis in our nature as a biological being.  As a result of that clarification, things which Plato attributed to spirit, such as love, have been shifted toward being matters of the flesh, rather than the spirit.  It turns out that when you eliminate emotion, the individual becomes less functional, rather than moreso (See Damasio, Descartres Error).  If we eliminate emotion altogether, we end up with a being devoid of values, or, as Dostoevsky remarked, "If everything on earth were rational, nothing would happen."  A God that is pure spirit would seem to have no basis for valuing one thing over another.  A God of pure spirit can only appeal to the arbitrary happenstance of its nature.  So, I think, in fleeing the anthropomorphism of classic belief, rather than deliver your desired end, you've simply said goodbye to Scylla in order to turn more strongly toward Charybdis.

That, ultimately, is, I think why we cannot source God's behaviors solely in his existence as a thinking being, because thought alone, without emotion, will not get you there.

[I think my original article is due for a rewrite.  This will simply have to do in the meantime.  Thank you, Steve and Neo, for your responses.]

But even if he has emotions with his thoughts why should we believe those thoughts or emotions are like ours. Just a thought .