As an (extremely) broad brush, I consider 'God,' capitalized as it is, to be referencing the Judeo-Christian deity. I don't believe in the supernatural, the adjective which (again as a broad brush) encapsulates all concepts of deities I've come to know (or at least conceptualize).

Very lazy answer from a philosophical standpoint, and certainly a lack of definition, but there. I presume you want more...

No need to do this work myself when it has already been done and in far more detail than I care to offer:
http://newadvent.org/cathen/06608b.htm
http://newadvent.org/cathen/06612a.htm
http://newadvent.org/cathen/06614a.htm
http://newadvent.org/cathen/15047a.htm

Also, here:
http://newadvent.org/summa/1.htm
See the section on "The One God" and "The Blessed Trinity"

And if the question arises, I don't have my "own views" as it were, but rather share those described above.

Here you go: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignosticism

Interesting concept. Seems like a nice transition on the inevitable rational path to atheism.

Luckily, I don't need to worry about defining gods, because that's the realm of the religious. I can simply use their claims about gods to show that they are unfounded and false.

@Nola and Dunecat: wow, you've both failed to see the point.

Nola, you epitomise what dawkins reviles about religion, you don't have your own concept of God because (as he would put it) your religion tells you what to think - I like to disagree with him because all the theists i know are intelligent people who think for themselves - I even went so far as to claim that ever person (theist or not) has their own idea of what God is, by refusing to answer the question you specifically define your belief as in something defined elsewhere (a link to something else, a reference to something else is not the thing itself)

You have failed to put forward an explaination of your belief. I put forward the idea of what an 'Ignostic' is, and thus hope to get an better idea about people - based on what they belief. You have saddened me deeply.

@Dunecat, you thus have committed a different sin, you don't know what 'God' is, but merely define it as wrong on some fundamental level without knowing what it is.

I asked not whether you believe in God, just what you definie it to be. There is no claim of Atheistism without defining which Theisism you are against - there is no light without darkness, no comfort without discomfort, no point in saying you deny all ideas of God, blindly without knowing/defining what God is - IM(not so)HO.

@President Eden, thanks, lazy though it may have been (and similar in position perhaps to Dunecat, you have at least vaguely defined it in a hand-wavey sense)

Orathaic - What is this "think for yourself" nonsense? Do you have your own concept of what gravity is, what calculus is, or what pretty much anything else is for that matter, or do you just believe what everyone else does about these topics by relying on the experts? Why on earth would I waste my own time to describe in pages of detail that which essentially entails that I share the same belief about the nature of God as many others who have put far more study into the matter than I have? They provide a far better explanation than I would care to assemble, so I will assent to them in the same way that I allow scientists to explain gravity and mathematicians to explain calculus (and though I understand both of these as well, I do not care to provide strict definitions of their foundational elements nor to do the proofs of various things).

Now I would agree that we all experience God's presence in our lives in different ways, but my experience of God is quite distinct from a formalized definition of God.

Also, whilie I agree that multiple theists can have differing views, I would like to state that your original premise, "It doesn't matter what someone else who shares your religion thinks, you should have your own views" is itself false and there is really no reason for an individual person to have their own unique view about God in the same way that there is no reason to have a "unique" view about any of a host of other matters.

It is neither a requirement that everyone in a given religion share exactly the same view, nor that everyone have their own unique view. Some folks have have a reasonably identical view yet have come to this through their own thought processes.

"@President Eden, thanks, lazy though it may have been (and similar in position perhaps to Dunecat, you have at least vaguely defined it in a hand-wavey sense)"

It really did deserve more time than I gave it. I'm kinda sorta sneaking on the internet at work... otherwise I'd be more engaged. Apologies.

God = a mythical construct used to influence the behaviour of people (for both good & ill).

Ok guys...what's the big confusion here. We all know that God is a voice in the sky that creates stuff, speaks through prophets and strikes lightning on bad people.

@nola,

But I can still explain to someone what calculus or gravity is. Not as well as a mathematician or a physicist, but I can still do it. I'm not reduced to copying and pasting websites when I'm asked about something.

When I think of God, I think of Yaweh, as described in the bible. I am as skeptical of him as I am of Zeus or Thor.

diplomat61 - at the risk of breaking the rules of this converstation (which was for each person to explain their definition of what God is), do you mind proving that God, in whatever form he may be (whether Mother Nature/Father Time, or the Judeao-Crhsitian or Muslim or Hindu, or Buddhist, or whatever) is mythical? You can't prove a negative and a myth, by definition, doesn't exist. Ergo it is a negative.

Funny how I mistyped my own faith there... Judeo-Christian

@Draug,

I think diplomat's definition is a reasonable as anyone else who posted; I'm not sure it warrants singling him out.

Orathaic - The reason I posted a link instead of my own definition (or some sort of synopsis) is that it would be necessarily quite incomplete (though even the longer definitions I linked are themselves incomplete since the finite can not be used to describe the infinite complete). However, if you want something quite short, I would say that God is being itself (as opposed to humans, who are individual beings). Within this capacity, then, a lot of the rest of what the various websites describe is the manifestation of God that has been made known to man so that we may know God (i.e. things like God is Love, the Trinity, Christ, etc.).

Also, diplomat's definition is not really useful because it is far too ambiguous to mean anything at all. Achilles is a "mythical construct" and he could be used to influence people to do things, but I don't think anyone thinks Achilles is God. His definition is more or less his opinion about God (I assume at least), but not a definition of God.

'It doesn't matter what someone else who shares your religion thinks, you should have your own view' - to be clear, what i meant was, It doesn't matter TO ME, in this thread, what someone else... thinks. I just want to hear your view - which does neccesarily need to be unique, merely your own.

Thanks for sharing.

that shoudl have been @Nola.

and yes, i have an understanding of what gravity and calculus is, however incomplete (i can't remember how to derive calculus, but you're rigth i didn't discover it on my own, i merely learned what others have studied. Never-the-less i have a more complete idea of what gravity or calculus is than a child might.)

I'm atheist toward all Gods that I know of. Every definition of God that I've encountered so far relies on supernatural powers and explanations and thus is not logically cohesive with my naturalistic world view. I will not define God and the idea that an atheist must define the God to which they are atheist is akin to asking someone who isn't a football fan to name the football team to which they are not a fan or ask them what football is. Atheist is more a term of convenience to quickly, and hopefully effectively, convey my attitudes toward religion and colloquial meaning of the term God, which is most typically the Judeo-Christian deity, it is not a philosophical catch-all. If I were forced to define myself philosophically, I would only defend a stance of agnosticism, but for practical purposes, I am atheist.

While God and religion are certainly used to influence the behaviour of people, I believe that it historically developed out of a desire to explain phenomena and a tendency to do so by anthropomorphizing said phenomena. Eg. That the sky can be angry and blow huge gusts of wind and that it must be appeased so that it will bring the rain, as though the sky were analogous to another person.

Considering our ancestry as social primates with strong emphasis on empathy and understanding the motives of others, it is perhaps not surprising that we would ascribe human-like spirits to what we now know to be inanimate and nonsentient objects. Combined with our proclivity to problem solving and toolmaking, pattern recognition to the point of superstitious fault, and natural social hierarchy it seems destined that we would create an entity that gives us purpose, as all our tools have purpose, explain and govern natural phenomena, due to confirmation bias and natural aversion to risk (raindancing as a form of Pascal's Wager), and would sit above all humans in the hierarchy as the ultimate alpha.

Following a progression from animism, where every rock and tree is a person, to deification and polytheism, where larger groups of phenomena determined themselves to be nonsentient are encompassed by a thinking, feeling person, to modern day monotheism, where the entire universe is encompassed by a single person but one who still passes moral judgement and with whom we may still speak and interact. Of course, hindsight is 20-20.

oh, i haven't explainied what i believe yet, however taking two definitions:

'God : a mythical construct used to influence...' - by definition doesn't exist(well that something is a construct doesn't neccesarily mean it doesn't exist, it just seems unlikely.. Calculus is just a mathematical construct, and yet is a useful mental tool for working out stuff, thusly God as a construct may also be a useful tool for influencing people, or even yourself... but still in principle isn't a real identifyable thing with it's own existance - outside of being an abstract idea... arrgh...)

'God is being itself' - by definition does exist (not because being is more perfect than not being, but because things that are being ARE God, or aspects/fractions/parts of God.)

I am agnostic when it comes to the idea that there may be a 'god' or 'gods' in the loosest sense possible, but I maintain a position of cautious atheism when it comes to Christianity, Scientology, Judaism, Shintoism, Hinduism, Pastafarianism, Norse pantheology, etc. etc.

When I stake my positions on the above religions, I am not basing my atheistic postion on my imaginative interpretation, rather, I hear out the believers of those belief systems and thier definitions of that particular brand of divinity and my decision accodringly. So far, no-one has provided a rationally or spiritually persuasive basis by which to secure my belief.

How would I define God in a way that would be acceptable to me? The impetus for the laws that guide our universe; the mechanics of time, matter, space, etc. That I can believe in, and it makes no weird or clearly unfounded claims for me to disagree with.

@Chrispminis
'Atheist is more a term of convenience to quickly, and hopefully effectively, convey my attitudes toward religion and colloquial meaning of the term God' - yeah, see even though you deny it, your definition of what you mean by 'atheist' is in terms of the meaning of the term God.

You can't have one without the other. Still you then went on to define something else, which is about humans and (while i apprecaite and agree with) i don't think entirely the point of this thread.

I didn't ask WHY do you (or anyone else) believe in God, I asked WHAT do they believe.

Orathaic - You misinterpreted what I meant there (though I was quite brief). Beings are not part of God, they are creations of God. God as being itself more means God is the source of all created beings but He is not Himself a being. This is why I did not really want to give a definition because it would necessarily be incomplete and then I would have to continue to explain it further.

@Draugnar: if your objection is to my use of the word mythical then I am happy to substitute "figment", "illusion", "fantasy", "delusion", "deception", "con trick". Take your pick.

If your objection is more in principle than semantic then as you know, which is probably why you asked, proving a negative is difficult. Perhaps you would like to start by showing that it/he/she/they does exist?

A triune Deity, monotheistic in essence but sharing three forms:

1) The Father- a creative rational force through which the earth, universe, and all life were created. The Father is has a spiritual rather than physical form. People are created in his image meaning that we possess that capacity for the creative and rational, thought and the ability to discern right from wrong actions. Unlike any of us God is capable of perfect actions and morality. In this capacity He is judge of all.

2) The Son - Jesus Christ, born of the Virgin Mary and sacrificed for the redemption of Man. Christ lived and preached in 1st Century Israel. He died upon the cross at Calvary and was resurrected. Christ was fully human and fully Divine. Upon his death it is my belief that he occupies his place at the Father's right hand in Heaven and intervenes on the behalf of Mankind.

3) The Holy Spirit - The continuing presence of God in the World. A guiding force whose presence is felt rather than seen or heard. The Holy Spirit's presence can be felt as a pang of conscience all the way up to an instance of religious ecstasy. Where the Father the creator, and the Son is the Redeemer, the Holy Spirit is the Sustainer.


My own understanding is as such (and I probably border on the heresy of Arianism so bear with me). Every person has a physical, spiritual/emotional, and rationale aspect. God has these aspects as well. I believe that I have a body, spirit, and mind. All are distinct aspects of me, but all combine to make me a whole. God to my understanding has three aspects as well. All distinct but forming one whole.

Here you go. My understanding, incomplete as it must be given the time constraint, with all it's faults.

"I didn't ask WHY do you (or anyone else) believe in God, I asked WHAT do they believe."

Hmm

I humbly propose that perhaps explaining one's belief in a way that is readily understandable to someone with a radically different viewpoint may require a bit of 'why' in order to flesh out some of the concepts.

Since we are talking about about a subject with the notion of multiple meanings already aknowleged, perhaps it is also important to aknowleged that differences of opinion about meaning can extend to the word 'agnostic' or 'atheist' as well as 'God'?

@ Crazy Anglican

Yes, I am sad to inform you that you are indeed a herectic. To millions and millions of Christians, and nearly as many sects of Christianity. ^^

Probably

>There is no claim of Atheistism without defining which Theisism you are against

First of all, the words you seek are atheism and theism. Second of all, atheism is not a claim. Theism is the claim. Theists are the ones who shoulder the burden of definition for their gods. Atheism is a non-claim. You wouldn't call someone who doesn't believe in astrology a non-astrologer.