Meanings of “God” in some scriptures

[The Grand Nudger]

... in communicating with people who believe in gods, even. ... They might think you’ve been talking about something...or someone....else, all this time.

Yes. I’ve learned that the hard way, many times.

What communicative purpose does the term hold, then?  It cant be reliably employed with fellow believers...and it;s risible to many atheists.

Again I have to ask why you wouldn;t simply say what you mean, instead?  Seems like you;d get more traction from every angle.

As an in-thread example:

"Hey guys, what do you think about god?"
or
"Hey guys, what are your opinions on this ethical postulate"

Of the two...which is going to yield a more productive discussion on the topic of ethics? Which clearly communicates what you want to discuss?

If it's just "An intelligent creator of our environment", then there's no way to test the existence of such a thing, as far as I'm aware. I personally don't care either way. There are methods I could think of for the creator to make us away of their existence, but it would have to come from them. I've seen nothing so far.

If it's, "A magical character from a religious book", then no, these are as fictional and (more) ridiculous than Spider-Man.

Is there a difference between the two cases?  The "intelligent creator of our environment" is found nowhere other than magic books in the first place. 

I see the deists position given more credence than it deserves with regularity. I get that deists often have less erroneous positions on a host of issues...but their god belief (not any attendant system, the belief itself) is no more or less flawed than a theists and for all of the same reasons. The difference between the two isn;t an issue of god belief, after all. Testing either proposition runs along identical lines. Did the theists god of genesis make this world? No. Did any god make this world (or this universe)....no. Answering either question immediately addresses the other. Neither this world nor this universe were created in any meaningful sense.....and that pretty much destroys the idea that any being created either..regardless of the being in question or where we find it;s origin...or even whether or not something like either creature even exists.

On a more positivist note, they;re both projections of the human psyche. While the deists god is often conceptualized as being a vague entity...and people take this to mean that theres less to prove or disprove..it;s status as an entity is downright pregnant with familiar and elaborate assumptions of personhood. We know where these assumption come from. We see them in every god story ever written or told.

Words and words and words...but, to sum it all up - we know that the notion of this world or this universe having been created is wholly divorced from reality, and we understand the origin and nature of god beliefs be they deist or theist. We know what gods aren;t...and we know what they are. This leaves me wondering what room there could possibly be for navigating the god term around the realization that it;s fiction from start to finish in every incarnation. I can;t think of any other object (real or hypothetical) that meets this bar and isn;t addressed as a matter of fact issue. I can;t help but shake the notion that leaving invisible space is more a negotiating tool for social interactions with people who don;t think that god wants them to kill the gays (for example) than a statement of a the factual status of the thing or situation.

Take our new buddy Jim, here. Seems like a nice guy. The kind of guy a person might want to make civil allowances for to keep the convo running smoothly. Thing is, he'll inevitably go full loon (no offense, honest..we all go full loon about something Jim - ask me about MREs, lol). We;ll find that the space carved out to give this "god" whatever credence will have been wasted...because he believes in the things well beyond the veil of that space, a space which is inherently suspect to begin with, and self identifies as such.