Three Gods for the Price of One

   I've said this several time before, but some people are still not recognizing it, so I created this special thread in the hope more will join the discussion in a mature and schooled manner.  I'll float this when it seems the problem recurs.

   One of the saddest things to watch is people trying to "debate" something without having a clear definition of what it is they are debating. They proceed as if they are debating the existence of a god when they are actually haranguing the definition of one.

   The atheists are often using a definition of a god no one else would, except perhaps some "crazy" fundamentalists. So let's get some definitions that religious people actually use.

1. The abstract or indirectly identified forces in nature and society that assist society in developing ethical codes.
2. A benevolent director of spiritual or "extrasensory" phenomena such as clairvoyance, premonition, and other knowledge by revelation.
3. The answer to the question how life originated on a previously molten planet, which rather obviously is not found in lifeless nature, thus "supernatural," or the preferred modern terminology, intelligent.

   Notice I did not list an any anthropomorphic god. Few people accept any anthropomorphic god in the modern world. Even Christians have no anthropomorphic god except for a very short 30 year stint two thousand years ago when people were finally learning about abstractions. One gentleman here seems to believe that there is some "traditional" view of the god of the Bible that must be anthropomorphic even now by some rules he made up, and that many people today agree with him. Of course all of that is because he cannot read abstractions either in the Bible or from people using the Bible. I have the three main definitions, but there can be more for various reasons, however ill designed.

   When atheists claim there is "no evidence" for any god they clearly have omitted at least two of those three. There actually is, more or less, evidence for all three.

1. To argue that there is "no evidence" for an abstract god is ridiculous because it is as evident as baseball. You can see the people going into and coming out of the buildings. It is important to understand that most people who attend religious services use this definition far above all others.
2. Arguments for extrasensory perception are problematic in that it is so easily faked. However there tests and evidence where first hand witnesses can see proof. If a child suddenly speaks a language never experienced or studied the mother will know it was a special revelation because she knows exactly where the child has been and with whom the child's entire life, the rest of the world will just assume the child did have exposure to the language or studied it from books. Various denominations have various attitudes to spiritual phenomena. Some recognize it being possible in the modern world ("Pentecostals" for example) and some do not.
3. The intelligent designer is now a fact. Thus it is science not religion. The tornado-in-a-junkyard argument against assembly is well established. To claim there is a "false equivalence" between the biological construction and the tornado is that "backlash" against the obvious truth. The only people who assert a false equivalence are people who never use words as long as "equivalence" otherwise and think they sound intelligent.

   Some people are blaming the increase in covid-19 cases on some failure to follow science because they consider crazy fundamentalism and "science" the only two choices. They also think science is more "cautious" than religion simply because of the few crazy people who are not cautious. Religious people, with the exception of the very few crazy ones, are in fact more cautious than people who "believe" in science. They always have been.   Religious people happen to know quite much about disease, and how limited fossil fuels are, and what tornadoes might assemble. Most of them do not exaggerate as much as people with faith in science, or bother anyone with flawed arguments.