Here's the twist in logic, though. We don't need to define God in order to believe in God. As is readily seen, "God" is a very fluid concept. You all seem to think that fluid concepts are a bad thing. You wanna lock everything down with a number or a measurement. You can't quantify faith, life, beauty, wisdom, attraction, love, courage, loyalty, wholeness, worth, self-esteem, hospitality, generosity, mercy, kindness, forbearance, forgiveness, evil, good, hunger, pain, etc. These are all fluid concepts. You can't put a number, or even a precise definition on any of them that someone else can't disqualify, yet they seem to exist, and everyone seems to place value upon them. Why must God any different?
I notice that most of the things on your list are emotions. They don't exist outside of the minds of the people who are experiencing them. They are *subjective* and not *objective* states of being. And that is why they are fluid: because each person has their own opinion about them. There is no objective definitions for these concepts.
So, do I believe in love? Yes, it is a human emotion. Do I believe it is something outside of that? No.
So, if you want to say that God is an emotion, I might question your concept, but we don't have any further issues.
Tell ya what: when you can give me a clear and concise quantification of your love for your spouse, or a clear and concise quantification of how beautiful any sunset is, then we'll talk.
Love is when someone else's happiness is as important to you as your own. The beauty of a sunset is a subjective experience akin to any other experience of beauty.
Can you even define God as well as those?
Are you incapable of coming up with your own concept that carries meaning for you? Our apprehension of the Divine is a fairly subjective process, and is mostly experiential in nature. It’s more intuitive than cognitive.
Well,t hat is *precisely* the point. If it is only a subjective thing, it only exists in your head. And that isn't what most people seem to mean when they talk about God: they mean something outside of their own feelings and emotions. If yours isn't, again, I might question your definition as being rather unusual, but I don't have a problem with it.
But why I should even seek such a thing is beyond me. It certainly has nothing to do with issues like the formation of the universe, the beginning of life, or how to construct societies that function for their members.