Gen 17:1

"When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him, 'I am Almighty God; walk before me and be blameless.'"


This is in two parts:

1. What qualifies as deity status?

2. How, if at all, would you validate any claim to deity status?

Lemme' guess: Philosophy class?

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Just for discussion, let's also imagine that I said the same thing when I was nine.

First, one needs to answer question one, before the claim can be even begin to be evaluated.

What qualifies as deity status?

You don't think the two claims are intertwined?

In order to qualify statement 1 you must first examine the difference between claiming to be a god and claiming to be the "almighty god."

1. "deity status" represents a supremely elevated rank; a position of exceptional status and/or power unmatched by anyone/anything lacking deity status.

2. That would depend on the context of the claim.

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Of course, they are.

The claim in the bible quote is "Almighty God." Almighty is straight forward enough, but "God" is not. If there is no challenge to a nine year old claiming to be almighty, then from an empirical standpoint we can't say that they aren't but neither can we say that they are.

What qualifies as a "God?"

God didn't just pop up in front of Abraham in Genesis 17:1 they already had an established relationship.

To answer # 1, historically, deities have often been defined in an incoherent manner that involves one or more logical paradoxes.

well it really depends what religion youre talking about having a deity from.


The norse worshipped deities that were not only easily tricked, and fallable, but could be killed just like a human. and in fact were set to be killed at the end of days etc.

The greeks worshipped deities that were invulnerable, eternally youthful, powerful beyond mortal knowledge, yet petty as bickering children and fickle like cats and full of very human failings (zeus could not keep his dick in his pants)

I'm not sure i even want to get into the strangeness that is hindu deities (at least strange to me from my western cultural upbringing) or mesopatamian deities.

Then you have the Peoples of the Book (Christians, Islamics, Jews) who believe in various forms of a single perfect creator who is definitely omnipotent and omnipresent and depending on your sect also omnibenevolent.

There is no catch all term for deity that perfectly describes everyones idea of it, because everyone (and by everyone i mean every culture) has different ideas of what a god is.

Even if the prior alleged contacts are taken as a given, then it still doesn't follow that the claim is valid.

I am aware that this was not the first alleged contact. Abram allegedly was told by God to leave his homeland. But the claim of deity was handled the same as here.

What you are saying begs the question.

How, if at all, did Abram know in the first place, if at all, that he was dealing with God ?

He heard voices in his head.

The ignorant assume, a priori, that hallucinations, mental illness, and/or outright fabrication were not involved in the creation of their respective holy books.

Or he was a lying sack of shit.