Ben Goren wrote:
> Mike wrote:
>
> > The definition of "god" that you want to use basically amounts
> > to "does someone call it 'a god'?"
>
> Not me, Mike. The editors of every dictionary I've ever consulted
> on the topic. My personal favorite dictionary, the American
> Heritage, is typical:
>
> > 1. God a. A being conceived as the perfect, omnipotent,
> > omniscient originator and ruler of the universe, the principal
> > object of faith and wor****p in monotheistic religions. b. The
> > force, effect, or a manifestation or aspect of this being.
We pretty much agree on this one, I think.
> > 2. A
> > being of supernatural powers or attributes, believed in and
> > wor****ped by a people, especially a male deity thought to
> > control some part of nature or reality.
"A being of supernatural powers or attributes..." I.e. this definition
requires the entity to actually HAVE the powers and not just that
someone believes it has them or just that someone calls it a god.
> > 3. An image of
> > a supernatural being; an idol.
Again, it requires an actual supernatural being that the idol is an
image of.
> > 4. One that is wor****ped,
> > idealized, or followed: Money was their god.
And this is the one that, IMHO, trivializes the term to meaninglessness
as well as equivocates the word. I don't disagree that people DO use the
term in that way. What I disagree with is in saying that they SHOULD be
able to use it in that way since it basically reduces the rationality of
the way language works.
5. A very handsome
> > man. 6. A powerful ruler or despot.
>
> You'll note that both definitions 2 and 4 reduce to ``Does someone
> call it `a god'?''
Also, keep in mind that Pester ****, who started this whole thing, was
attempting to say, in effect, that "the #4 type gods exist so you must
agree that gods exist so you can't say 'the #1 type god doesn't exist.'"
I.e. he's trying to equivocate on the two definitions.
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