"Intelligent" Definition of God

Dunno.

A being conceived as the perfect, omnipotent, omniscient originator and ruler of the universe, the principal object of faith and worship, but who acts more like a disinterested party and, despite some protestations that such a being loves everything in the universe, reacts, if at all, without pity or regard for any of the lifeforms therein.

Joe(how's that for casting aside beliefs?)Nation

As you are probably aware, most of us here balk at doing a student's work for them. In this particular assignment it is especially important that each student work out for themselves a definition of God. On the other hand, this is an assignment that regular visitors to the Spirituality and Religion Forum might find interesting.

When is your assignment due? Is there time for you to participate in a group discussion here on how we might approach the problem of defining God? How would your teacher regard definitions that might fall quite far from the standard Abrahamic definitions of God?

I'm quite interested in what might develop here.

Next monday.

Jakob Boehme, writing in the seventeenth century, characterized God as an inconceivable essence. Boehme's description of God is the most interesting I have ever read:

Not an answer by any means, but something worth considering...

You might start with the definition of the Hebrew word Jehovah - the causative form, the imperfect state, of the Hebrew verb hawah' (become); meaning "He Causes to Become".

That should give you a start whether you accept it as your premise or not.

Thank you, Wandeljw for that wonderful quotation. Isn't it a wonder how much we miss by not being able to read more than the tiniest fraction of the written words of modern times. And, all the lost words worked over by five thousand years of thinkers and writers. To find a new nugget of wisdom previously unknown is a great joy.

God is not what most people perceive of Him; He is neither a human description or identity, and God is only a label assigned by man. Humans have limitations biologically, genetically and environmentally, and human science is not capable to even show evidence of any God. Human faith is the only definer of God.

You might also consider a review of this thread:
http://able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1707217#1707217

an interesting question.
I would say that all the various concepts of gods we have are symbols. In pagan religions gods were assigned specific domains, with the supreme god, or the maker, on top.
In christianity only the maker qualifies as god, but there are other divine entities, so the principle is the same.

All these divine entities are dualistic counterparts. Figures of absoluteness, like totems. The absolute good, the absolute evil, and us somewhere in between.
A concept of god is a natural consequence of the concept of self. Moral perception is useless without a "landscape" to percieve, and in this abstract terrain of relational structures the self stands in the middle, tied to all the things that surround it, each aspect mirroring the different aspects of self.

I guess a godfearing man wishes to put god in the middle of this landscape. But the self cannot vacate it's place without the whole maze coming apart, and so this proves an elusive task. Selfless acts, meditation and prayer helps; it puts the self in the background in day to day life. But as long as the meditation is done over a god, the self will be active nonetheless, relating to this concept.

So I'd say that "god" is the exact opposite of "self". Then we might ask, what is self, and as I see it, the answer to this question is just as elusive as the answer to the first one.

Cyracuz, Good observation.