Jayjay

So it all boils down to, what exactly are the qualifiers for something to be "a god"?

Supernatural?
Personal?
Creator?
Powerful?
Caring about humanity?
Mystical?
Revered?
Worshipped?

Psycho Economist

If you believe that the aliens don't have any supernatural powers: yes. However, scientologists do believe that thetans have supernatural powers, best I can tell.

Pantheism, if it's one consciousness. Animism if every thing, living and not is conscious.

You're still believing in the supernatural, if you say that the universe, an infinite stew of inorganic matter and energy, possesses some sort of transcendent spirit-aura that defies our understanding and makes the whole shebang sentient. Pantheist. Arguably atheist (can this world-mind do you favors if you treat it right?). Definitely not naturalist.

Then you're clinging to a tautological staw-man of metaphysical naturalism and you need to check out this thread . Supernatural people, places and things are defined by the way they defy the qualities we associate with their mundane brethren. People who can hear your inner monologue. Corpses that come back to life. A necklace that makes you invulnerable to bullets. A room where time stands still.

This is a tough one... omnipotence and omniscience generally classify as a supernatural characteristics. Greece and Rome had their demigods, how would this be much different?

Supernaturalism. UFOlogy, New Age and theism are subsets of it, but they're independent.

Psycho Economist

How about this list? It would qualify all the monotheist and polytheist deities I can think of, but exclude lesser spirits and pantheist world-minds. The ideas come from Religion Explained by Pascal Boyer, but I don't think he comes out with a list to differentiate gods from other religious agents.

1. Supernatural.
2. Capable of willful deliberate action, if not fully conscious.
3. Capable of acting in and on this universe.
4. Intercedes on the behalf of worshippers.

Hey Catholics! Good news for the next time some Protestant fundy calls you a "hellbound, Mary-worshipping, idolatrous Pagan". Neither saints, nor angels and deamons qualify as gods by this proposal... Saints, while intercessory, do not act in this universe. Angels and deamons, while they (supposedly) act in the universe don't do favors.

Selsaral

So worshipping an intelligent and incredibly sly and stealthy (as to remain undetected) creature who is phsyically similar to an elephant because his knowledge will help all humanity isn't theistic? The creature has no 'supernatural' characteristics (like Godzilla, he's pretty absurd, but not 'supernatural'). I know I'm just splitting hairs on terminology, but not only is that the point of this thread, since I consider belief in the creature listed above as essentially identical to belief in the christian god, I would like the terminology (words like atheist etc) to cover situations of both a 'supernatural' creature and a 'natural' but equally absurd creature. If the word atheist doesn't support this, it forces me to add to the fact i am an atheist that "I also lack belief in any other 'natural' creatures who possess unlikely traits who lack any concrete evidence similar to a god or spirit, or who are worshipped in a cult-like manner". This is a bit too long-winded for me, I'd like a more elegant way to describe my position. Do I need a new term, like pan-atheist, to describe this position?

Psycho Economist

If you believe tossing a virgin into the volcano from errupting, the volcano is a god. It's supernatural: it's a cone of bassalt capable of knowing that you did or did not throw a virgin into the lava-filled crater. It interceeds on your behalf (forstalls its erruption) in response to your worship (sacrifice of the virgin).

Worshipping a sentient elepahant who promises to philisophically or technologically deliver humanity is also theism: Real elephants aren't sentient, and can't communicate with people, let alone surpass us intellectually living in isolation. The elephant is also somewhat intercessory: he will only deliver us if we worship him.

Unless aliens are defined as non-existant, unintelligent or lack the technology to reach Earth (and alas, these questions are still in the air) the Elohim the Raelians believe in aren't deities, thus the Raelians aren't theists. That doesn't automatically make them sane or scientifically literate (in facts or philosophy).

You're a skeptic. That's seprate from being an atheist.

Jayjay

What about deists? Their God doesn't intercede for them, so by the above definition, deists would be atheists...

Selsaral

Yeah you're right. Since claims of supernatural gods are much more common than claims of space aliens anally probing clones, in general the term atheist can cover my skepticism. As soon as more people claim to have knowledge of natural fictional creatures than gods, I'll probably use the word skeptic more often than atheist. Atheism is just a special kind of skepticism.

Psycho Economist

On the one hand, I think you deserve my rolling over and eating crow: I should have said "capable of intercession" or some such, but most religious people practice worship to gain favors from the worshiped.

On the other hand, deism is an in-between bastard child contrived to allow learned men of the eighteenth centrury a way to avoid faux pas of calling themselves atheists. Only the most liberally religious accept deists into their number.

I don't know.