I mentioned early on that many Christian sects have spent a lot of time and energy and verbiage describing their God; a model built up on pure reason instead of evidence.
Thus we have the omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, eternal God who is also supposed to be all-kind, all-just, all-loving, yadda-yadda. In other words, a perfect being that embodies all things we humans think of as good.
I also mentioned that such a god would not seem to have any needs or desires; and that creation for such a being would be rather pointless....
However....
Of late, I have listened to interviews with a variety of Christian intellectuals who have retreaed from this position. Instead, they have adopted a model of god which "exists outside of the universe" and which "has no characteristics human beings could perceive."
This is a clever idea from a logical standpoint as it's entirely unfalsifiable. Unfortunately, it's also entirely in opposition to the scriptures they apparently admire, since that God is all too human, being petty, admittedly jealous, and quite murderously nasty.
Of course, the Catholic intellectuals have never had all that much admiration for scripture.
I even listened to an interview with a couple of Jesuit astronomers who trotted out the old "God is love" business. Why is God "love"? Why, because he made the universe for us.....
