The Popcorn God

It doesn’t matter what people might colloquially consider God to be, it matters what the definition of God is, and what it is, when you look it up on common dictionaries such as Merriam webster or Britannica, is “the Supreme being and/or Ultimate reality”, and so is defined as a being which is perfect in attributes, which includes moral attributes, and so God by definition cannot be amoral, as you posited could be the case. When people say “a God”, or “some Gods”, they are merely synonymizing “deities” with “God”, even if they don’t realize it, which is likely the case with the OP when he describes “God” as possibly indifferent, even though indifference contradicts the Merriam webster definition of “God” as possessing perfect moral attributes. So, it merely seems to be the case that the OP’s conception of God is incorrect, rather than that my definition of God is incorrect.

Because from your last response, you called into question whether the God of Christianity was a coherent one, when you at first thought that my definition of God was equivocal to the Christian one. Therefore, it seems that you question the truthfulness of my definition of God, and so, you could either accept that the definition of God as a “supreme being” is a coherent one, and so accept that the OP’s conception of God is wrong, or else you can question the definition of God as a supreme being as being an incoherent concept, and so give your reasons as to why that seems to be the case that it is incoherent, and I shall be the judge as to why those reasons hold or don’t hold.

No, I didn’t. Rather, just as you said that God, by definition, is maximally good, I was suggesting that God, by definition, is the Divine Father of Jesus Christ. But as you have clarified that you “never made a direct equivocation between God by definition and the God of the Bible”, this is no longer pertinent.

Where do you think definitions come from?

I’m not saying that your definition is incorrect. I’m saying that your definition is not the only definition.

You say that the OP’s conception of God is incorrect; I say that the OP has a different conception of God.

Colloquial use of language is not the same as the definitional use of language, because the former uses language in a fluid manner (Usually, to express emotion or to make a basic point), while the latter uses it in a fixed manner (For academic or philosophical discussion, for example). For example, saying “oh my God” is colloquial, because it can mean many things, such as to vent emotion, or to praise God, or to swear, or some other meaning which is contextual to the situation. Therefore, colloquialisms are relative, and so lack a fixed meaning that one can build arguments from off of, in contrast to definitional uses of language, which cannot be changed unless, for some reason, everyone came together and unilaterally agreed to completely change the meaning, or the definition, of a specific word. Therefore, I think you make a false equivocation between colloquial and definitional language, and if you still think the OP’s conception of God is valid, then I would like it if you could provide a valid definition, somewhere, that defends his conception of what God is.

Show me a single, non-colloquial, definition of God that doesn’t synonymize with deity, and which you could cite from any big dictionary, such as Merriam webster, or the Oxford English dictionary, or the Cambridge dictionary, or Britannica, which is contrary to my definition of God as a maximally great being.

And if you hold that the definition of God as maximally great doesn’t entail that God would be maximally morally good, then you would be entailing that moral goodness is not an attribute, and so something that God, par his definition, cannot be maximal in, which I think would need some explaining on your part.

I think that’s fair. Definitions are not always very helpful; usage is often better. People use the term “God” in all manner of ways precisely because the idea can be so incoherent and multifaceted. Within the context of an intersubjective community, say, Episcopalian or Shia Islam, there is a shared view of what God is. But why should we privilege those definitions? The OP might be invoking a version of God that resembles the demiurge or a version of deism.

God is just a subjective concept. It varies to person to person. It is a concept with no matching physical object.

So your argument is that the definition of a word is determined by what every speaker of the language agrees is the definition of the word?

I don’t recall ever being invited to such a meeting.

How can I do this, given that you’ve ruled by fiat that anything that isn’t maximally great is at best a deity, and not God? I’ll point to dystheism, and you’ll say “they don’t believe in a malevolent God; they believe in a malevolent deity”, and I’ll point to the teleological argument, and you’ll say “that’s not an argument for God; it’s an argument for an intelligent designer”.

I think you’re just being unnecessarily stubborn. You think “God doesn’t exist” is true even if there is an otherwise-Supreme malevolent creator? That just seems silly. If it could be proved that there is an all-powerful, all-knowing, unmoved mover, then it seems fitting to say that God exists, even if it is a dick.

There’s an intimation of superiority in this statement that does not sit well.

I think it is more likely that theists rest their case on emotion, rather than the atheist who does not believe in God. The atheist will have come to that conclusion based on knowledge, analysis and conclusion, in making up their own mind.

It’s well known that the more educated one is, the less likely they are to be religious and believe what they are told to believe. A basic foundation in evolutionary biology puts the development of religion into perspective as one of many social drivers.

Morality came before religion, and is a natural offshoot of the evolution of Homo sapiens as a highly social animal.

Believers in God look to a supernatural being for solace amidst the suffering; atheists take existence as how it is.

You make this sound much more absurd than how the process of defining words for a specific language really is. When people invent a new language, like English as an example when it was new, then the total number of people who spoke the language existed in few numbers, and, prior to the invention of the internet, those who knew English must’ve lived in relatively close proximity to one another. So, to say that all, or the overwhelming majority, of English speakers must’ve come together, either formally through meetings, or else informally by living in tight-knit communities and by passing the language amongst themselves for a time—Making sense of the language amongst themselves, and correcting oddities in the language where the English-speaking community found it necessary—Is not a crazy proposition. And older languages, like English, and especially those like Chinese—which are still in common usage today, which often see gradual developments throughout their lifetimes, and which are often spoken by very large numbers of people—Cannot be formally defined by literally every language speaker in the whole world, but do need consensus from a body of people who specialize in the language, such as from professional linguists who are experts in the language of English and Chinese, for example. So, even if it is possible for the common English speaker to use certain words in colloquial, or oftentimes metaphorical or poetical ways in their daily lives—Even at the cost of their incongruence with definitional consensus—It is foolish to use language colloquially in academic spheres, especially philosophical ones, because such spheres demand rigor and unambiguity in arguments, because if a specific word could mean two or more completely different things—Given that they are used colloquially in an argument—then the structure of an entire argument could be changed, either in terms of validity or, more often, soundness, which can undermine one’s ability to make effective arguments, period. So, consensus is very important in linguistics, it is not as absurd of a process as getting every language speaker on earth into a room to debate the meaning of a specific word, and it is very important in philosophical debates, such as the one which the OP started up regarding the “popcorn God”. So, it is very important that his definition of “God” is crystal clear (So, does the OP mean “God” or “Gods/Deities”?), otherwise, it will be nearly impossible for any of us to create an effective argument in response to his initial question, hence why I am trying to clarify what “God” means, when the OP throws the word out in his first post, and how his post seems like a contradiction in terms when it compares what he interprets what “God” is, and what God, by definition, is. That is why I am willing to have this argument with you, as tedious and painful as it may be to you.

Because—and I hate to have to say it—Such a being would not be God, by definition. The fact that I’ve given you four reputable English dictionaries to read through, and that’ve you’ve failed to give me even one definition that is contrary to my definition of God, then you’ve effectively proven my case to be true, which is that God as a “maximal being” is the only correct way to define “God”, and so isn’t equivocal in definitional usage, and so ought to be the only definition that is used in philosophical discussion, as this forum is a place for, and which the OP’s post is supposed to conform to.

What is hilarious about this response is that, for one, your source is from Wikipedia of all places, and not from any of the academic sources which I’ve set forth, and so the only definition of God which you could find online that isn’t like my own definition is from a crowdsourced website, and so, how do you even know how credible this citation truly is? Wikipedia articles aren’t peer-reviewed, are non-academic, and so it is a pure coin-toss, on your part, as to whether this definition of dystheism was written by people who are well-read on the topic, or a bunch of armchair websurfers who’ve probably stumbled upon a handful of websites which seem to support the definition of dystheism, but are refuted by deeper scholarship on the topic of dystheism. The second thing that is funny about this article is that, even if I grant it credence for the sake of argument, it specifically says, quote, " Dystheism (from Ancient Greek: δυσ-, romanized: dus-, lit. ‘bad’; θεός, theos, ‘god’) is the belief that a god is not wholly good and can even be considered evil." And when you click on the link for “A god”, it brings you back towards deities, and not God, specifically. So, even your fringe alternative definition as to what “God” is, doesn’t even point, specifically, towards God by definition, but to generic creator beings which are labelled Deities.

That is exactly what the teleological argument does. The point that the argument tries to make is that it makes the point that fine-tuning exists in our universe, and that if it is the case that fine-tuning exists in our universe, then it provides strong evidence for the existence of a fine-tuner, given that no other sufficient, or probable, alternative explanation exists to undermine the conclusion that a fine-tuner exists. If the argument was like, “The universe demonstrates fine tuning, therefore, God likely exists”, then you are presuming much more than what the argument sets out to prove, because God, if he exists as defined, is much more than merely a fine-tuner, even if God would be a fine-tuner if he existed. The teleological argument, therefore, points towards the existence of a being which is much closer in attributes to God than to any other naturalistic explanation, but it is more supplementary than it is definitive for proving God by definition, which the role of arguments such as the Cosmological and Ontological arguments serve more effectively than the Teleological argument.

There is a large distinction between pedantry and stubbornness when debating on a philosophical topic, such as the attributes of God. The former serves to clarify what we are talking about, so that we don’t argue in circles and so our arguments don’t end up becoming incoherent, and the latter serves to be caught up on specific details or specific arguments for the mere sake of preserving one’s worldview, even if it is unproductive and doesn’t bring the debaters closer to the truth. This whole discussion so far, I’ve pulled the definition of “God” from reputable sources, distinguished it from the common misusage of “Gods”, plural, and made arguments as to why the OP’s understanding of God is seemingly mistaken, and why your defense of his understanding of God doesn’t seem to work. None of these techniques demonstrate stubbornness, but rather demonstrate that I am trying to figure out what the hell you, and the OP, are trying to say, where your thinking lies, where your reasons come from, and how you justify your positions. You’ve not given me a single good reason to justify why my method of argumentation is truly stubborn, you’ve simply thrown the title out and failed to elaborate on it further.

Linguists, like dictionaries, examine and describe the many ways that people use words; they don’t sit in ivory towers, decide for themselves what each word should mean, and demand that the rest of us obey their decisions.

I’ve given you several. To repeat one of them, if some X is the all-powerful, all-knowing, unmoved mover responsible for the creation of the universe, then this X is God — even if it’s an amoral intelligence.

And you’ll respond with “it’s not God because, by definition, God is moral”.

You want to insist that there’s just one “correct” definition of “God” and that anyone who uses a different definition is using an “incorrect” definition — but language doesn’t work this way.

Yes; his definition. As I have been explaining since the start, it is clear that his definition of “God” does not include benevolence as a property, given that he asked “is God malevolent?”. If you just read his post you can clearly see that he is using the word “God” to refer to the being responsible for the creation of reality (assuming that there is such a being).

If you don’t want to call this being “God” unless it’s also “maximally great”, and instead call it a “creator deity” or “intelligent designer”, then you’re more than welcome to, but arguing that the word “God” is defined as a “maximally great” being and so God, by definition, isn’t malevolent, doesn’t answer his question at all; it’s equivocation.

Re-interpret his question as “is the deity responsible for the creation of the universe malevolent?” if you must.

They essentially do. What do you think that teachers and instructors teach you when you take your first English classes in pre-K, or kindergarten, or grade school, all the way up to tertiary education, do you think that they’ll teach you English merely from the purview of how regular English speakers may use it in informal speech, slang and proprietary definitions included? They won’t, and first, they’ll teach you the proper ways to employ grammar, and how to spell, and, most importantly, learn vocabulary. Education doesn’t derive how English is used from the view of, say, your mother, or someone’s drunken uncle, slurring and babbling incoherent phraseology while completely inebriated, or from some homeless chap on the street who’s never even finished high-school education; they’ll teach English from the expectations of how experts on the subject of English have reached consensus on the subject, so that your understanding of English doesn’t develop into being completely wrong, or else completely relative, and whatever you, the student, end up doing with such instruction once you get out of the English subject in school, is something that will be totally up to you, even if it becomes a habit for you to use such instruction in informal/colloquial manners in the future, and it becomes a popular form of English slang among other English speakers. Whatever the case, it is still colloquial usage, and so is improper to use in academic or philosophical discussion, unless you make it explicit, when starting an argument, that you are redefining a definitional use of a certain word for a specific reason, which the OP failed to do in his opening post. Therefore, if he doesn’t give a proprietary definition as to what “God” means, then I shall assume the definitional use of the word “God” when he makes further arguments, and the definitional use of the word God is seemingly contrary to his depiction of God as possibly indifferent.

When I said “Even one definition”, what I meant—and you should’ve caught onto when I gave you four peer-reviewed English dictionaries to try to cite from, and when I criticized your deployment of Wikipedia as your means to set forth alternative definitions—Is that these definitions need consensus from experts on the subject of English, not just whatever Wikipedians may decide to pull out of their hats, or whatever you may define God as, in a proprietary sense, or else such definitions would—Unless they are in agreement with academic definitions—be colloquial, and so completely relative. And if such definitions are relative, then their relative meaning must be explicitly mentioned at the beginning of a debate, such as in the OP’s opening, which he failed to do, and so I defaulted to the definition which has consensus, which is that God is a Maximal Being, which means a being that is maximal in all attributes, including moral attributes. So unless you can somehow drag the OP back into this discussion, and get him to give his proprietary definition as to what God is, then I will simply default to consensus, and shall not budge from it.

The problem with this response is that, if the OP gave a proprietary definition as to what God is in his first post, then he never made it explicit (Such as him formally declaring, “I define God as X”), and the details which he gave relating to God is very vague; God, in his definition, simply made reality, and then left it alone for us to fend for ourselves. This view of God is similar to the view of deism—where God exists and set everything that exists into motion, but is himself an impersonal, and so by extension an amoral, being—But the OP, if he meant to define God as specifically a deist conception of God, failed to make it explicit, and so left every other possibility as to what God is in his worldview unexplained; Is God truly maximally powerful in his eyes, or simply a first cause that moved everything else? Is his God able to think, or is it completely impersonal? The OP never explains any of this, and so, when he says “God”, and fails to give a proprietary definition, then I, in return, will jump towards the definitional use of the word, “God”, as a maximal being.

To be very frank, this back-and-forth between me and you seems to be deeply unproductive. Unless you want to shoot a DM to the OP, and so obtain his proprietary definition of God, then continuing to debate the precise semantics of “God” with you—Especially since it seems that you are, for some reason, adamantly opposed to accept any formal definition as to what God is—seems to be a complete waste.

Yes, it is.

The OP asks “what if … God forgot about the reality they created … [and is] malevolent?”

Responding to this by arguing that, by definition, God cannot forget or be malevolent is a bad response. It doesn’t matter what you mean by the word “God” or what you believe is the “one true” definition of the word “God”. Any reasonable person can understand what the OP is asking; which is, “what if the universe was created by a malevolent being that forgot about us?”

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It would only be so if the OP gave an explicit proprietary definition of God up front that accommodates the possibility of an indifferent “God”, rather than simply state, “What if God made reality, and then abandoned it like forgotten popcorn?” Aside from this opening, the OP gave no other details as to how he views God, and since that is the case, I will automatically jump towards the definitional usage of the word God to try to understand his argument, which, from the purview of academic definitions, is seemingly incoherent when the OP’s argument is applied to God as defined. I think I’ve tried to restate this to you in four or five different ways so far, yet you seem not to be able to register, or desire to accept, my argument as to why it ought to be defined in the manner that I advocate it should be done so, which is in a definitional manner absent of explicit proprietary definitions up front. This is merely to avoid equivocation, and so to know what we are truly talking about when the OP brings up “God”.

But this is getting to be an extremely tedious and fruitless debate. If you truly want to continue, but are yourself unwilling to shoot the OP a DM asking for his proprietary definition of God, then I will simply do so myself.