as long as you define "God" to mean "creator of the universe" and/or "all-powerful, can work wonders". I do not. And as soon as you start to move to – in particular – the polytheisms, this definition falls apart right quick.

@MichaelK And what about divine powers? Unless there's anything transcendental and supernatural about a being, it simply does not qualify for the term "god".

@MichaelK May I propose a little experiment? Tell a cop "you are a bastard" and then explain to them, that the term does not imply any slander. What will happen? Exactly. He'll get your name, by force if need be, and you will either pay a hefty fine or go to jail. And I'll say: Please, use the terms in the way that the majority of people understand them. There's just as much use in denying the term "bastard" to be slander as denying the term "god" to imply divine powers. Whatever you mean, if there's no divine powers, it's not a god.

@cmaster-reinstate-monica You can insult a cop from here to high-heaven and they – unless they are one of those idiots that end up on YouTube for not knowing the law and the constitution – will not do a single thing about it since that is protected speech, because insults are not slander. This has been through the courts so many times it is not even a contentious issue. Oopsie! Turns out "everyone knows" is not an argument after all. So my question to you stands: according to you and what authority? Do better than "everyone knows", because they do not, as you just demonstrated with gusto.

@MichaelK Ok, I didn't know that. Protected speech does indeed vary wildly across the nations. In Europe you wouldn't be as lucky, here the cops would proceed precisely by the protocol I gave. Nevertheless, the term "god" was created precisely to mean supernatural beings that were thought to have some special power over something, and most people do still understand it in this way. There's no point in calling something a god and worshiping it, when it has no powers anyway. Atheistic versions of "gods" are a science fiction trope, but not the meaning of the word "god" in general usage.

Btw, Q from the Star Trek universe does possess divine powers. From the wikipedia page: "possesses immeasurable power over time, space, the laws of physics", emphasis mine. And while a science fiction writer is always able to handwave away pretty much everything, you can only have power over the laws of physics when you are not subject to the laws of physics. And, quite consequently, Q does not exist within the realm of time and space as we know it...

@cmaster-reinstate-monica "the term "god" was created precisely to mean supernatural beings that were thought to have some special power over something" . According to you and what authority? And, pardon for this really silly sounding argument, but... where you there, when the word was created? There are so many god-myths out there that there is even a taxonomy of deities. If you are going to claim that the defining quality of a deity is "wizard powers", you will rather soon run into problems; Hirohito and Q are just the tip.

@cmaster-reinstate-monica If, however, you mean "a god means something that has absolute authority over its adherents", then I am willing to agree with you. But that does not demand wizard-powers.

@MichaelK "absolute authority over its adherents" - well, that description applies to any absolutistic monarch or dictator. That has absolutely nothing to do with being a god. Also, I can ask the exact same questions to you: According to you and what authority? Were you there when the word was created? And exactly what entries of the taxonomy list would you think are not supposed to possess divine powers? (Apart from the last class of demigods and culture heros, which are obviously not gods, that is?) If you want me to play your game, you need to play too!

You can play it all you want, it is your post that falls apart by it, since you state — as a condition for the rest of your answer — "as long as you define "God" to mean "creator of the universe" and/or "all-powerful, can work wonders".

@MichaelK The point of that leading sentence is, that it makes the rest of the answer perfectly correct no matter how you define "god". If you define it the way I do, you can look at the rest of the reasoning, check its validity, and all is well. If you do not define the word "god" to imply any of the things I listed, the rest of my answer is just an implication with an unmet precondition. And that's true by definition of "implication". So there's absolutely nothing that falls apart.

However, what you seem to be taking issue with, is the contents of that precondition. And I get the impression that this is more personal than logical. Because you do not get down to actually and calmly exchanging arguments, actually trying to understand what they are saying. What I sadly see in your comments, however, is that you simply restate your definition as if it were the only correct one, and by implication ignore all those believers in the diverse religions (Abrahamic, polytheist, whatever) around the earth that all associated supernatural powers with the term "god".

@cmaster-reinstatemonica "If you define it the way I do" I do not. "the rest of my answer is just an implication with an unmet precondition". That reads like nonsense to me.

@cmaster-reinstatemonica Your impression is wrong.

Bummer. You just failed Logic 101.

@cmaster-reinstatemonica Yeah if you say so, then it must be so.

The issue I have with your answer is that it essentially says "If we just assume that 'a god' is a supernatural being, then it cannot be a natural person". Well, d'uh. So what if we do not make that assumption. Because we have no reason to make it, other than that this assumption aligns with – what I assume (yeah, I noticed that) – is the prevailing religious context you were brought up in.

The issue is that this religious context is not shared with even 1/3 of the world's population, and even less if we count all the humans that have ever existed and that has had a religion.