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Dear Yuyutsu,

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You replied :

« God cannot be defined directly in positive terms, but one can still define God indirectly by telling what God is not … God … is God »

It seems to me that your definition of God can be summed up in a few, simple words : a hope, a wish, and an expectation.

It takes my mind back to the days when my children were little. I used to ask them what they would like Santa to bring them for Christmas. They would rush off, make up a list and hand it to me.

I would read their lists carefully and if they were OK, my usual reply was : “I hope all your wishes come true”.

I hope all your wishes come true too, Yuyutsu.
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You continue to consider that primeval man’s concepts of gods and religion can best be described as scientific rather than strategic.

Allow me to quote the Wikipedia article on “scientific method” :

« The Oxford Dictionaries Online defines the scientific method as "a method or procedure that has characterized natural science since the 17th century, consisting in systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses". Experiments are a procedure designed to test hypotheses. Experiments are an important tool of the scientific method ».

The idea that sprang into primeval man’s mind when his environment suddenly became hostile was that either he had done something - or not done something he should have done - that upset the creators and controllers of nature and the universe. He based this on his own reaction when he, himself, got upset about something. It was as simple as that.

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So he asked himself : “Who are these people ? Where are they ? Why can’t I see them ?” and he thought they must be different from anything he knew or could imagine. They must be supernatural and super powerful. He called them gods, submitted himself to them, bowed down to them, worshiped them and offered them prayers and sacrifices. He begged their forgiveness and implored their pardon in the hope that they would be indulgent.

That does not qualify as a scientific process. It is best described as a strategy, a peace strategy and a strategy of survival.
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On the question of the material and the spiritual which you mention, I am inclined to consider that they are one and the same – at least until such time as there is substantial empirical evidence to the contrary. In the meantime, I keep an open mind on the question.

For the time being, I consider that life itself is a self-sustaining process that, like all things material, began a long time ago as a result of chance and necessity, where chance is a random variable and necessity an inevitable event.

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Dear Banjo,

Hopes, wishes and expectations belong in the future, but I am (and you are) what I am already at present.

The Oxford dictionary entry which you quote, specifically describes modern science.
Those actions of primeval man which you describe indeed cannot be classified as modern science, but they had two elements in common:

1. They assumed some knowledge of the universe.
2. They went ahead to improve their material situation using that knowledge.

And one element in common with religion:

1. The use of [imagined] gods/deities.

Just as a knife can be used to kill [in the hands of a criminal] or to heal [in the hands of a surgeon], so can deities be used in an attempt to improve material life [in the hands of superstitious primitive tribes], or as a method for focusing one's attention on God [in the hands of religious/spiritual aspirants].

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Dear Yuyutsu,

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You wrote :

« Hopes, wishes and expectations belong in the future … »

No, they are what you have had all your life and what you continue to have. Even when you were a baby you probably hoped, wished and expected your mother would feed you, clean your bottom and so on. Now, you hope, wish and live in the expectation that there is a God (even though you do not know what that God is) – among other hopes, wishes and expectations, perhaps, of more worldly things.

I think it is important, Yuyutsu, to realise that you and I and every other living organism in the universe, whatever its form or nature, live our entire lives in the present. We are prisoners of the present. We cannot escape it. We can never go back and live in the past, nor can we go forward and live in the future.

Everything we think and do happens in the present – never in the past, and never in the future. All our hopes, wishes and expectations occur in the present. Even the realisation or non-realisation of our hopes, wishes and expectations occur in the present. When they occur, it is always the present for us. When they do not occur, it is also the present for us. It can never be anything else but the present.

Please keep in mind that our hopes, wishes and expectations, like everything else, belong to the present.
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You also wrote :

« Those actions of primeval man which you describe indeed cannot be classified as modern science, but they had two elements in common:

1. They assumed some knowledge of the universe.

2. They went ahead to improve their material situation using that knowledge.

And one element in common with religion:

1. The use of [imagined] gods/deities. »
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« Assuming some knowledge of the universe » is knowledge we acquire through what we call consciousness. As Darwin pointed out, even earthworms have a well-developed sense of consciousness. They have to make judgments about …

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... the kinds of leafy matter they use to block their tunnels. Earthworms “improve their material situation using that knowledge”.

Though I don’t think anyone would go so far as to suggest that earthworms are capable of science, it is evident that science emerged through human consciousness and logical thought process. Consciousness alone is not sufficient to qualify as science.

Also, what I described, i.e., how primeval man invented the concept of omnipotent, omnipresent, supernatural beings (that he called gods) and religion (submitting himself to them, bowing down to them, worshiping them and offering them prayers and sacrifices – begging their forgiveness and imploring their pardon in the hope that they would be indulgent) is not just, as you indicate, “one element in common with religion”. It is religion. It is how religion was invented. It is not only the origin of religion but, also, the origin of our concept of gods and God.
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You explain :

« Just as a knife can be used … so can deities be used … as a method for focusing one's attention on God … »

I can’t see how that could help, Yuyutsu. Deities were the fruit of the imagination of primeval man. He represented them as various elements of nature : thunder, lightning, earthquakes, volcanoes, hills, rocks, etc. His “attention” was not “focussed” on any one god until about 4,000 years ago, when a large movement began, among more knowledgeable and more civilised populations, to eliminate all the gods except one, single God.

That one single God was not represented by any element in nature – which is not surprising as it would be considered ridiculous to uphold the theory today, that any single element of nature that could be analysed and explained scientifically, is that one, single God who created and controls everything in the universe.

With this in mind, I wonder what you, personally, think of when you focus your attention on God, Yuyutsu ? What exactly do you focus on (as you say you have no idea what he looks like) ?

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Dear Banjo,

The issue of time (past-present-future) is complex and would require a full discussion by itself, but I fail to see the connection with this topic. Do you consider it relevant here?

Please don't complicate things further than they need to be by introducing consciousness because knowledge can also be acquired and used without consciousness. We can tell how well earthworms function, but we can't really tell to what degree they are conscious. Yes, science requires logic, but machines can use logic too and are getting better at that. Much of what happens inside our bodies is also unconscious.

Deities are not religion: deities can be used as a religious technique
(analogy: watches are not punctuality, watches can be used to aid punctuality).
Religion in the broader sense was never invented - it preceded the universe: what is constantly being invented and revised, however, are religious techniques, to suit the time and conditions.

Were deities initially invented by religious people or by materialistic people? I'm afraid that we might never know the answer, though it seems more likely that one group borrowed the idea from the other and less likely that both groups invented the deities independently.

Nothing extraordinary occurred 4,000 years ago. As part of the evolution of gods and due to local conditions, a group of Middle-Eastern people invented a new deity which, unlike others, they considered to be jealous of the other deities. That's the main difference.

Since God has no qualities, it is, as you say, next to impossible (without many years of practice and some divine grace) to focus one's attention directly on God. It is therefore useful and much easier to focus on God through a beloved deity. This is not obligatory: one could focus their attention on a candle-flame instead, or on a beautiful pebble, but a deity is usually more effective, more enticing so one tends to keep their attention on it longer and more often. The Judeo-Christian-Muslim god is one such useful deity.