Talk:god

What are...
What are the criteria to legitimate definitions from sectarian ones? The hindu/buddhist definition doesn't seem greatly different in form from the transcendentalist one. It's hard to say why one should stay and the other go, except that there are a great many more hindus and buddhists than trancendentalists. The transcendentalist definition, while perhaps not everyone's favorite, seems NPOV, well-attested and as well-defined as one can expect.

By contrast, I don't support entries like progressive and accumulative spiritual intelligence of the universe. This doesn't seem to have any technical meaning peculiar to transcententalism. The author evidently wants to make the point that transcendentalism views God as the p.a.a.s.i.o.t.u, which is fine, but the point is already made in the definition of God (and presumably in the linked articles).

Full disclosure: I'm not a transcendentalist (that I'm aware of) -dmh 18:56, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * The Hindu-Buddhist definition appears to be a mostly Buddhist definiton to me. Most Hindus have different views about gods, for example my personal belief that they are all equally worshippable manifestations/ aspects of Ishvara, who doesn't have a single, exclusively worshipped form. --Grammatical error 08:06, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

(Carrying over from rfd discussion of Transcendentalism Today).

Looking back over the deleted Transcendentalist definition, I don't believe it's a particularly good definition. I would like to see a more self-sufficient definition. I realize that anyone's definition of God cannot be fully captured in a short, pithy definition (or arguably in any other collection of words), but it should be possible to do better.

In reply to Eclecticology's very pertinent slippery slope argument (if we let this definition in, why not let in every particular sect's?)

The transcendentalist definition -- as I understand it -- given is part of a broad theological tradition of defining God as an a unifying spirit as opposed to a personified being. I'm not a theologian, but the Deist notion of "god the watchmaker" and possibly the Unitarian concept fit in this category. This is not some narrow sectarian distinction, but -- going back to our task at hand -- a distinct sense of the word, certainly more clearly distinct from the currently listed senses than any is from the others.

Nor do I believe it will be hard to find attestations to this sense. They will be considerably less frequent than the others, but they should exist. Transcententalism was widely written about in the 19th century and was at one point taught at Harvard Divinity school (if we can believe Wikipedia :-). Other similar movements are also well-known. However, since my stake in adding this definition is limited (believe it or not), I'll leave it to others to hunt up attestations unless curiosity gets the better of me.

As a general rule, I believe more senses are better than fewer, within reason. Where to draw the line is a bit subjective, and the case of God is sui generis. Looking back over the existing article, I wouldn't include separate entries for Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant notions of God, distinct though they may be, or even for the Jewish and Muslim notions as distinct from Christian notions. These are well captured in the first definition. I'm not at all sure, however, that this definition captures the various impersonal senses (Deistic, Trancendentalist, etc.) Arguably God in these senses is not a "being" in the usual sense, and "supreme" may also be in doubt.

In short, there should be some sort of impersonal definition of God. However, on consideration I don't think it should be marked with Transcendentalism Today. It probably shouldn't even be marked with Transcendentalism as the notion of an impersonal God, erm, transcends that particular philosophy.

I'm not completely comfortable with the Hindu/Budhdhist definition, or the Jehovah/Yahweh definition of the proper noun. Those are the camel's nose under the tent that led me to advocate for the T.T. definition in the first place. In particular, the Hindu/Buddhist definition appears to be subsumed by definition 2, which simply describes such a God without detailing how it came to be what it is.

Where does this leave Trancendentalism Today? The entry for transcendentalist seems basically OK. I would tone down the second definition and change the external link to point at the Wikipedia entry. It's a separate issue whether Transcendentalism Today deserves its own entry. Clearly its main purpose would be to advertise the existence of T.T. I don't object to this nearly as strongly as others, but I'll refer back to the arguments on the RFD page. My preferred solution in this particular case would be to mention T.T. on the Wikipedia page, but evidently this has run afoul of the Wikipedia community. -dmh 19:55, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The two top definitions of god need to be 1) a reference explaining that the term, in publication of all ENGLISH religious texts is only used in the Bible, and god is usually considered - outside of american and european areas - as the biblical god. 2) the general use in replacement for the term deity, referring to a god as in "the god of nature" or similiar references.

removed
Text removed from main entry:
 * 1) An artistic creation of humanity's hope of goodness in itself.
 * 2) A philosophical construct created for the purpose of organizing early societies into cohesive and workable groups.

Entries are 1) certainly not NPOV, 2) Inserted out of order, 3) Positively not translated the same, 4) Messing up the translation section by A) being out of order and B) Inserted without numbering (or otherwise identifying) all existing translations to the original meanings.

--Connel MacKenzie 23:07, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

Well, supernatural, immortal & superior are in fact pov as well. Perhaps a definition by kant about god would be more npov, while it is not a generally shared pov. User:Mallerd (Zeg et es meisje) 15:57, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Etymologies
How confident are you of this?


 * godspel says "The first element was (as in other Germanic languages) later associated with god ‘God’."  "later associated" suggests that the two senses of gōd and god are cognates.[1]
 * However god gives two independent etymologies.

Should both entries say possibly from or both say not related? --Hroðulf 09:37, 31 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Very certain. There is no "possibly from", both should say "not related". God < Old English god < Proto-Germanic *guthan < Proto-Indo-European *ghut- (that which is invoked) < PIE root *gheu(e)- (to invoke).[7]
 * OTOH, good < Old English gōd (long ō) < Proto-Germanic *gothaz (adequate) < Proto-Indo-European base *ghedh- (suitable). Likewise, gospel < Old English gōd (long ō) < Proto-Germanic *gothaz < Proto-Indo-European base *ghedh- (adequate). —Stephen 05:13, 1 November 2006 (UTC)


 * [7] From the same root we have Greek AGATHOS[6] (good).


 * While you didn't give me a references to support this (I am not a linguist), it sounds reasonable, so I fixed godspel to reflect your etymology. Thanks.  --Hroðulf 20:00, 1 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I also changed gospel, which had an identical phrase. --Hroðulf 20:04, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

I know that all four words have completely different etymologies, but I hardly believe that both good/god and evil/devil are so similar just by coincidence...--77.128.61.177 00:46, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

The etymological distinction is important - they are two separate words. Although I personally prefer Wiktionary's etymology, Skeat's comparison, should, I feel be noteworthy: Teutonic type (= Proto-Germanic) *GUTHOM[6], from Indo-European *GHUTOM[7], from Proto-Indo-European root, *GHU[6 or 7](to worship), whence Sanskrit HU[7], (to sacrifice to). If it were not for the Sanskrit meaning I would prefer the entry. I fully sympathise with the feelings of the previous editor; but suggest that 77.128.61.177 may wish to look up Skeat's or Oxford Dictionaries, et cetera, to answer such etymological questions. Andrew H. Gray 21:21, 4 September 2015 (UTC) Andrew (talk)

[0] means 'Absolutely not; [1] means 'Exceedingly unlikely'; [2] means 'Very dubious'; [3] means 'Questionable'; [4] means 'Possible'; [5] means 'Probable'; [6] means 'Likely'; [7] means 'Most Likely' or *Unattested; [8] means 'Attested'; [9] means 'Obvious' - only used for close matches within the same language or dialect, at linkable periods.

Werdna Yrneh Yarg (talk)

Verb
I have found a sense of the verb in Heinlein "to function as a god". DCDuring TALK 00:10, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

difference
What is the actual difference between the following definitions?


 * A supernatural, typically immortal being with superior powers.
 * A deity personifying or in charge of a specific matter.

deity is the same as god. Furthermore, in the quote to support the second definition the word is used again. The second definition is unnecessairy. User:Mallerd (Zeg et es meisje) 15:51, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Usage notes
====Usage notes==== The word god: is often applied both to males and to females. The word was originally neuter in Proto-Germanic; monotheistic -notably Judeo-Christian- usage completely shifted the gender to masculine, necessitating the development of a feminine form, goddess:. Seems a bit technical for the main namespace. Or alternatively, it's actually etymological, isn't it? Mglovesfun (talk) 22:55, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

god
This is missing the interjection definition. From: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/god

"(used to express disappointment, disbelief, weariness, frustration, annoyance, or the like): God, do we have to listen to this nonsense?"


 * That's capitalised: God. It's in that entry. Equinox ◑ 13:32, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Translations
Bring them back to this page. Surely a page of text can't involve so much computing resources that it's actually helpful to split up the entry this way. It also ruins, eg, translation links from other pages. Alternatively, are we adding translation pages to everything? Then code in a translations tag. It makes more sense than the #Citations ones, granted. — LlywelynII  03:30, 2 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Sadly, translations do use quite a bit of resources, and when there are so many that they cause a page to run out of memory, we have had to move them off to subpages like this. :( You can peruse Grease pit/2018/February, and earlier discussions linked at the top of that thread, for more than you may ever have wanted to know on the matter. Subpages aren't an optimal solution, but an optimal solution doesn't seem forthcoming. - -sche (discuss) 04:20, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

Old Norse
Why týr (is it attested as god?) and not guð?--Manfariel (talk) 15:08, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Sanskrit
I think I understand that deva is the root (stem, or whatever name), deva-; and that the right form to cite is devas, which isolated or in final position becomes devah.--Manfariel (talk) 15:20, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Sumerian
Please, do delete ilu; it is Akkadian, not Sumerian.--Manfariel (talk) 15:25, 6 July 2020 (UTC)