Posted by Damien [140.146.138.44 - ] on 05 December 2003 at 16.07.44 ZuluTime:

In Reply to: You know... posted by Baron Greenback on 04 December 2003 at 00.14.53 ZuluTime:

Actually, the number of people who believe in 'god' will vary quite greatly depending on which definition you use. For instance, I present the following definitions from dictionary.com:

1God
      a)A being conceived as the perfect, omnipotent, omniscient originator and ruler of the universe, the principal object of faith and worship in monotheistic religions.
      b)The force, effect, or a manifestation or aspect of this being.
     2)A being of supernatural powers or attributes, believed in and worshiped by a people, especially a male deity thought to control some part of nature or reality.
     3)An image of a supernatural being; an idol.
     4)One that is worshiped, idealized, or followed: Money was their god.
     5)A very handsome man.
     6)A powerful ruler or despot.

Well, according to definition 1/a, *very* few people believe in god. The only ones I could think of would possibly be the followers of Judaism and Islam. (Christianity is a polytheistic religion, so they don't get included.) Since 1/b is simply a subsect of 1/a, we can safely clump the two together.

According to (2), a vast majority of religious followers believe in god. Simply being polytheistic opens the door to more gods to believe in.

According to (3), *I* 'believe' in god. I've seen plenty of images and reproductions of 'supernatural' beings, I accept that these images exist, thus, if one wanted to be rather lax in definitions, I 'believe' in those gods.

(4) is so broad that almost anyone could be claimed to believe in god. Do you follow something? Great, that thing is a god, thus you believe in god.

(5). Hmm, well, being bisexual, I guess I have quite a few gods then.

(6) can include pretty much any leader. Thus, gods must have come by the handful.