In many if not most if not all cultures and languages, the word that is the equivalent of the English word "god" is used in different contexts to describe different entities with different attributes and different names (eg the god named Zeus hurls thunderbolts and lives on the top of Mount Olympus in Greece; the god named Jesus turns the other cheek and was crucified in Jerusalem).
Confusion arises when we apply the same label or name or sign to different things. So from here on I won't use the word "god". Instead I’ll use the acronym ERTAG (Entity Referred To As God. And on the subject of defining terms, as the author I hereby advise that in this text the word "universe" means literally and figuratively, Everything, including material things, immaterial things, here and there, now and then and everything between.
Some believe an ERTAG created the Universe and everything in it, including space and time, and that the ERTAG stands outside zir own creation, ie outside the Universe, outside of time and space. These beliefs are contradictory and illogical: An ERTAG standing outside of space and time cannot be omnipresent inside space and time.
Clearly, if the ERTAG stands outside the Universe, then believers inside the Universe will feel separated from the ERTAG, a feeling that is very much in evidence today.
Clearly, if the ERTAG’s holy book stipulates that people have dominion over the world and its creatures, then believers can, do and will feel free to use and abuse the world and its creatures, unto their doom.
For some people including pantheists, every little thing is part of Everything That Is, Has Been, Will Be, and Could Be (ETI). A pantheist believes that nothing can or does exist outside of ETI; that ETI is alive, aware, sentient and interested in what happens to every part of ETI-self. A pantheist feels that ze is part of deity, not separate from deity, and that the world itself and all the creatures in it are also contained within deity. The pantheist does not believe that humankind has dominion over the world and all the creatures in it. The pantheist believes that this world and all the creatures in it, and other worlds and other creatures, are all part of ETI, and share in the divinity of ETI.
Arguments about the differences between this ERTAG and that ERTAG have been going on for many thousands of years. Among believers are substantial differences of opinion as to the name of, the attributes of and the word for the ERTAG. Not to mention differences of opinion between believers and non-believers. Yet the differences are not actually differences of opinion, they are in fact differences of terminology.
Every sensible person---believer or non-believer, atheist or agnostic, scientist or priest---would agree that the Universe and everything in it exists as a result of [XYZ]. What does "XYZ" stand for? Well, that's entirely up to you. For a cosmologist, XYZ most likely stands for "the Big Bang". For a Muslim, XYZ probably stands for "Allah"; for a Jew, "Jehovah", etc. We all agree that something was created by something. What we disagree on is the name of the something that created the something.
As Juliet says to Romeo in Shakespeare's play, "a rose by any other name would smell as sweet". The Universe smells the same whether it's called "the Universe" or "ETI" or "the All" or "God's Creation" or "John" or "Barry" or "Harriet" or "Esmeralda" or "Ooga Booga". Different names do not necessarily mean different attributes.
Within the Universe are all places and spaces, material and/or otherwise including Paradise, Nirvana, Heaven, Hell, Eden, the Twilight Zone, the Milky Way, the Local Cluster, the fourth dimension, Oz, Narnia, Erewhon, Atlantis, Mu, Lemuria, the tenth dimension, the twenty-sixth dimension, and many more. As advised previously, the word "universe" in this text includes Everything (in the biggest and most inclusive sense of the word) including the so-called "Megaverse", "Multiverse", "Maxiverse" or "bubbleverse".
Believers, non-believers, scientists and priests alike will have no diffulty acknowledging the truth that all places and spaces---real and imaginary---are within ETI, and that ETI is everywhere there is to be. Clearly, ETI is Omnipresent.
All forces and powers (eg Gravity, Jehovah, Electromagnetism, Anubis, Allah, Love, Heroin Addiction, the Strong Nuclear Force, Zeus, Ra, Centripetal / Centrifugal forces (gravity in disguise), Baal, Cernunnos, Energy, Velcro, and many more) are part of ETI. Believers, non-believers, scientists and priests alike will have no difficulty acknowledging the truth that no forces or powers exist outside of ETI, which, therefore is Omnipotent.
Epistemology? Believers, non-believers, scientists and priests alike will have no diffulty acknowledging the truth that all knowledge, information and data known within the Universe is known by knowers within the universe. ETI, therefore, is all-knowing, Omniscient.
COMMENTS? Come on... gimme your best shot!