rationalskepticism.org

Animavore wrote:

JTRizzle wrote:

Made of Stars wrote:This thread has been wikified.

The objective is to collate the names of deities created by humans to give some meaning to the world around them. For the purposes of this project, and loosely speaking, a 'god' is something that is used to explain natural phenomena in the absence of proper naturalistic understanding. This includes 'personifications' of natural phenomena, motive spirits, and spirits used to explain incidents such as lottery wins, drownings, cot/crib death, and so on. The unnamed god of intelligent design creationism counts here too.

Improvements to the wiki can be discussed here.

The God of Abraham (perhaps the unnamed god of intelligent design, but who knows how He did it) is NOT something that is used to explain a natural phenomena. no explanation of any natural phenomena is necessary in our (Catholicism's) definition of God. if all things about nature were known, there would be no reason whatsoever to disbelieve in God because there is no phenomenon on which He relies. now, many Christians do use God to explain the unexplained, but that has no bearing on what God really is. refer to the Catechism of the Catholic Church for more information on this matter. I think your idea is interesting, it could be a very cool read (if it is not overly biased towards any of the gods or lack of gods) but i think it would be a good idea to either change the criteria or leave the God of Abraham out of it because He does NOT fit the criteria.

If God, according to Catholicism, is creator and sustainer of said creation, then He is responsible for all and every natural phenomenon and every event that happens.
He isn't a explanation for natural phenomena. He is the explanation for natural phenomena.

So, into the pile with Him.

" For the purposes of this project, and loosely speaking, a 'god' is something that is used to explain natural phenomena in the absence of proper naturalistic understanding."

that is part of the criteria for this project. God is not used to explain natural phenomena in the absence of proper and naturalistic understanding. He is the explanation for supernatural phenomena regardless of an absence, or an abundance, of naturalistic understanding. basically, He is used to explain things believed to occur that science doesn't explain, like the existence of sin, the possibility and existence of forgiveness, the immortality of the human soul, the afterlife, and many more such ideas. He has been used to explain natural phenomena but only when those phenomena were believed to be supernatural. some Christians are unknowingly and incorrectly asserting that certain natural phenomena are supernatural phenomena, the evolution of mankind for instance, but this does not change the fact that they use Him to explain supernatural phenomena, not the natural phenomena. the only reason God is their explanation for natural phenomena is because they believe them to be supernatural phenomena. all Christians believe the creation of existence was (or is, depending on how you look at it) a supernatural phenomena. prove that it is not, and we will not be able to use Him to describe creation.

"This includes 'personifications' of natural phenomena, motive spirits, and spirits used to explain incidents such as lottery wins, drownings, cot/crib death, and so on."

this is another part of the criteria. we do not believe anything natural is a personification of God. Christ is our only personification of God, and we believe that he is a supernatural phenomenon, not a natural phenomenon. one of our core tenets is 'we must never worship an idol.' to do what fits under this criteria would not be in accordance what God's commands, so saying that a Christian would use God to personify any of these things is like saying a married man can be a bachelor.

because of this, God does not fit the criteria.