The word God refers to something that was here before the universe, created it, and watches over it now. I realise it can be replaced by "nothing, big bang, physics" in that order, but to Christians they believe in it because they want to believe in something more.

You can't call God string theory though. When you say God existed before the universe and created it, they mean an entity that can think, that is alive in its own sense, but outside our laws. Note: Just playing the devil's advocate here.

Then they must be applying transcendent concepts to it and that means that they cannot possibly think about it or know what they're saying.

My point, boiled down, is that everything is either empirical or transcendent. If it is empirical it is not God. If it is transcendent it is not possible to think about it because all thinking is done in empirical terms.

K, I agree :P

Quote from Automaton

You can't call God string theory though.

Wait, man, I've seen just that sort of thing. I've seen people say that they slap the god label on whatever the universe came from, and I've seen people say more ridiculous things like "God is love". People slap the label on whatever they want sometimes.

Although I do see what your saying, I do disagree. You are seeing it from a completely reserved position, in which you seem to require it to be a universal constant in order to gain an empirical term.

I could quite easily apply your reasoning to Love, Hate or any abstract term. Although from my stance "God" is a universal constant. As Exilement said, "God" is a place holder in the same way that "x" is in calculus. Sure, you can make x equal what ever you want and you will get an answer that corresponds to the value of x, yet x can equal +/- infinity.

Quote from Steyene

Although I do see what your saying, I do disagree. You are seeing it from a completely reserved position, in which you seem to require it to be a universal constant in order to gain an empirical term.

I could quite easily apply your reasoning to Love, Hate or any abstract term. Although from my stance "God" is a universal constant. As Exilement said, "God" is a place holder in the same way that "x" is in calculus. Sure, you can make x equal what ever you want and you will get an answer that corresponds to the value of x, yet x can equal +/- infinity.

Love and hate are empirical. If you knew what you were looking for, an analysis of a person's brain would tell you whether they loved or hated something. It does apply to any truly abstract term though, you are correct. The standard one is morality. I chose God because there was no way the issue was going to be avoided and some people would have gotten angry when a seemingly non-religious issue turned around.

And since "God" is just the same as x, it therefore makes no sense whatsoever to say anything about it to anyone. People attach an arbitrary value to the word and then try to use it to prove something. This can do nothing but cause confusion at best, or at worst warfare. And the value that any individual attaches to "God" still comes under the same criticism. If they attach an empirical value, then there's no reason to call it God. If they attach a transcendent one then they attach no value at all to it.

Alright lets get silly with analogy's. Say everyone is an equation where god is = x. Because of who we are x is going to stand for something different, and hence are going to view x differently.

When I mention "x" in an educational context or anywhere around people who have finished school, most will think of algebra and maths, yet x is still unknown and you can't know its value until you give it one. We have given x a context, just like the placeholder "God" now has a context, which is more refined for each religion.

But the context they give it either never needs to be called "God" at all or doesn't actually say anything in the first place. They either say that x = y or 3 + x = 3.

I disagree with everything you have said.

Quote from Zed

Or put simply, if something is indescribable don't waste your time by trying to bloody describe it. Wittgenstein said it.

Wittgenstein was wrong. He was a smart guy, but gave language way too much power. The limits of my language does not mean the limits of my world. We have other ways to think than with words (if we didn't, how could we come up with language in the first place?), and other means by which to create and understand concepts that may be difficult to describe with words. I do not see how that makes them meaningless.

Your whole arguments assumes that we are only able to form thoughts through language. As this is not correct, everything you have said is false.

And here's a definition of God for you.

It's not that we can only think in language; it's that we can only think in terms of sense data. Think of it like the difference between imagining a shade of blue that you've never seen before an which is as yet unnamed, and imagining a completely new colour that is not part of the spectrum.

And all that definition says is that "God" is transcendent, ie. indescribable, thus validating my point.

Quote from Automaton

What if they say "It's a being that I believe exists, but I have never seen, that made the universe".

Well, not all people have, I don't know, the CAPACITY to say something like that. I've had discussions where people will hem and haw for several minutes when I ask them to describe God, until I offer them a definition. Usually they'll agree with "The omnipotent creator of the universe", and I end up wondering what's so damned hard about describing god if I can come up with a definition they agree with in just a second's thought.

But there are, however, still a few that won't agree with that definition, and those are the people I'm talking about: People who refuse or are incapable of giving a definition of god.

Quote from Zed

It's not that we can only think in language; it's that we can only think in terms of sense data. Think of it like the difference between imagining a shade of blue that you've never seen before an which is as yet unnamed, and imagining a completely new colour that is not part of the spectrum.

And all that definition says is that "God" is transcendent, ie. indescribable, thus validating my point.

But people have imagined a completely new colour that's not a part of the spectrum..? Actually, I'm sure pretty much everyone who read your sentence imagined some sort of new colour.

No, that definition is a description of God: "A supernatural, typically immortal being with superior powers." It's not at all hard to imagine that.

No you didn't. Whatever colour you imagined will be available in the spectrum of colours provided in flash, I guarantee it. You might have thought of a strange goldy-purple with hints of green but it still exists. If you did somehow manage to twist your mind into an alternative dimension then I challenge you to describe to me that colour, and when you fail I will have proven that all statements about God are meaningless anyway.

As for the description of God, you can anthropomorphise it, or maybe think of it as a mist, or a sound, or something similar, in which case it's becoming a physical thing and therefore a scientifically verifiable thing (ie. not God).