List of dieties

This is the list (Wikipedia)

There's some confusion between the concept and the specific entity. The problem here is that the natural teleos of a true believer is that their own god defines the term. Rather than realizing the term is a common noun, not a proper noun, then attempting to conceal this uneducated gaff by putting all non believers to the sword. That's a lot of work & I bet the believers feel pretty stupid to find that out. A good reason to go to college isn't only better pay, it's better pay with less work.

Looking at God as a proper noun begs this question: who are all those other deities starting with a capital G? They all claim to be uniquely suited to the title so somebody has to be wrong. IMHO they all have the same claim because of the structure of human brains. Babies learn to look for a causative agent like "who's behind the mirror", "where does food come from" etc. generalized as curiosity, it means telling the difference between reality and getting mocked by an older sibling or some kid survey nerd. When there's no obvious answer, something "creative" is supplied like the tooth fairy, or monsters in the closet. Pretty soon someone will say that God created the world. If you look at it as a function of the brains awareness then yes, you could say so because it would be a function of perception relative to the only trustworthy observer (which is you). But since you can't do all the tricks God does, God becomes supernatural occupying your space as well as realms unnamed. This amounts to using plausibility as proof (which it isn't). I don't know if that has historically been the churches intent, maybe it was ok before the enlightenment, surely people believed it then, they still do, but not now when solutions can be objectively verified using provable techniques and procedures.

I suspect the church is conflicted about it because they talk big about "truth" and use "biblical archaeology" (which should be a scientific procedure) to prove that events recorded in the bible actually took place, hoping the rest of the story will be taken as truth as well because of the effort and close association. They're also conflicted because they have billions if not trillions of dollars invested in doing genuinely good stuff for humanity in general (and buying nice hats for the pope), which depends on believer support. And which would be a shame to jeopardize.

One might question the process of an institution interveneing between ones soul and it's fate but as an Athiest, I can say with the absolute authority of a true non-believer that it's completely irrelevant: so do it if it feels good (pat pat).

An Atheists God Definition and The Importance of Importance:

This definition is derived from several established and commonly accepted definitions so you won't think I just made it up. it starts with a personal god but extends it to be universal. The biggest problem with god is the definition. Every religious tradition has one that's unique in some way, and I suspect they get that way from millennia of interpretations by people who may or may not understand that god is a derived construct like dollars or kilos, and not intrinsic to the world. God is a standard scale of morality, which sounds all heavy but it's beside the point; being that god is an intellectual construction. But even given that and within a single religion, God has so many contradictory attributes that it easily leads to skepticism of the concept, not to mention wars over who's right.

I propose a definition where god is the most basic learned survival mechanism: be good to yourself and the world will be good too (this all takes place inside your head, call it "Heaven"). This includes influencing surroundings to be supportive (without harming anyone), because the coherency of a persons action comes from their previously conceived plan of what they hope to accomplish. By learning from our parents we assume this is the natural state of affairs for the world. But outside that expectation, that is, the "Real World" (call it Earth), is chaos and conflict. EXCEPT possibly where we communicate with other people and creatures and acknowledge their own survival mechanism that operates the same way. Integrating with god in others makes him/her universal. I know this is going to sound vaguely familiar, but god lives (exists) in heaven and cares for you, without god you really won't survive.

This is a survival mechanism because we tend to die without it. People, especially kids, old, and powerless (unimportant) people die without love (a positive self image) or they become rationalistic psychopaths, but both live in make-believe to be happy enough to survive. Creatures without ego become food, but expressing ego can be problematic. Expressing ego will explain the extreme permissions religions allow their gods so that anything is acceptable if it justifies existence so that any critique is only a hindrance to megalomania. If God's jealous and selfish, it's because he's paranoid that his intellectual creations may turn against him and they often do because his chosen, like god, are also insane having been created in each others image (present company excepted of course).

Now I'll divide this god into good & evil:

the evil part is the same god (aka survival mechanism) seen in other creatures watching out for themselves. I kinda suspect the "God the father" of the Christian holy trinity and the infamous "jealous god" is that same aspect because we have to be obsequious to them to survive, but that might be a result of my own experience. Maybe not, lets see; there are people who are raised predominantly by one parent or the other, it's usually cultural. Most kids depend on their mothers for the first few years of their life so that's where they learn self kindness. Western and Abrahamic religions definitely do. Most male groups are oriented around some kind of competitive or profit making enterprise. That is, a unified defense against that aspect of god. Bad stuff like war, hell, & hungry tigers are just a ceremonial representation of the evil or non-survival mechanism that aggression from others presents. Another way to say it is if you want a paying job, you have to talk to the man, & "none may come to the father but by me" (the good aspect). Or: don't insult/attack/kill your employer (or whoever it is), he's just a guy like you & has to deal w/ the same crap & chaos that you do.

OK I'm running this into the ground because I wanted to give it a little enlargement, but it's just gumbo. the meat is in the first paragraph. Um... but wait, first something important:

The importance of importance is important because it's how a people survive in a group and, as a member of that group, assure that the group will defend them as individuals from trivialization and a slippery slope to contempt, desperation, banishment, and death from exposure. It could still be gumbo but if it's plausible to enough people, then it's important (this blog for example*). An individual with group security is better off than say living in a dumpster (people in dumpsters usually are not too important), whereas the pope (who has a special hat) & Dick Cheney (who has a special sneer) are way important. They positioned themselves so that their influence also secures their personal livelihood. See, you have to convince people that you represent something important, having them by the nuts helps too, as does threatening Imminent Domain in exchange for a donation. Check here if you believe gumbo is important. Better yet, write a long paragraph in the comments. The twist comes when considering that everything we say and do is to make someone take us seriously. Gumbo is ok but unremarkable. It'll keep us alive till The Aliens land, but then we'll need a better line if we want to compete.

* Most of the people who follow this blog are FBI shrinks

.