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Comment by nathan_compton | Hacker News Reader

On the other hand, there are a lot of stars and different cultures might give them different names and yet there really are many of them.

Furthermore, assume God doesn't exist. Lots of cultures might invent god for various reasons and they'd naturally have different names and attributes for them, which in fact seems to be the current state of affairs.

In fact, if we assume God exists and is actively in communication with humans, its actually a bit weird that different human cultures would have different conceptions and names for that being. Why didn't it just give everyone the same name and information?

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Why do you think God will have a name? Name is used by humans to identity a person among a lot of other persons. Why will God have a name if it is the only thing in existence?

To answer the question of why humans give name to God. It's to make god more relatable so that they can workshop it. And use devotion to come closer with it. Look up Bhakti Yoga.

How about just having one God vs many? If there is a single omnipotent being, why do various cultures have multiple gods? And why do different cultures’ gods tell them different things?

Fair question. So my understanding is God is consciousness. It's omnipotent, all knowing and eternal. It's the only thing which is constant in your life and it sees everything you do.

Now, you cannot worship consciousness as humans because it's invisible and you can never imagine it. You need a version of consciousness that you can see as well as you can relate to. So cultures invent localized version of God which people can relate to. And of course it will have attributes similar to that of the culture. But the properties kind of still hold. Like all knowing, powerful etc.

I’m sorry but that’s a lot of words to provide no additional clarity. God is consciousness. So if there are no conscious beings in the universe there is no god? Or is this just renaming something that already has a meaning into god?

This reminds me of what Jordan Peterson does, which is to define "God" as something that we know exists. He defines it as the fundamental value upon which other values are built; you define it as consciousness.

I've always thought arguments like these are unnecessarily applying a term loaded with human conceptions and biases in a way that doesn't shed any further light on the thing it's applied to. Like, what do we gain by defining "God" as consciousness? Why can't we just say "consciousness"? And is it worth the added confusion that when we say "God", we now don't mean what most people think "God" is?

The only reason I can come up with to do this is discomfort at saying, "I don't believe in God."

I didn't say he'd have a name, I said he'd give humans a uniform one since, according to, for instance, the Christian worldview he is purported to be interested in human affairs.

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