Gods?

On Pharyngula, I just ran across this quote from Richard Dawkins: "We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in." I've come across similar claims on other atheist blogs recently, and I find that "all" is inaccurate. I know of at least one exception: me.

First, I don't find the concept of "gods" all that useful. It is certainly true that they exist in the mind, i.e. in the same sense that Middle Earth and Hogwart's exist. For me, that is enough to grant them at least some reality. Any particular god has exactly as much power over a person as that person grants in his/her mind. That is, gods are subjective phenomena: their attributes vary depending on the person perceiving them. Any god held to have specific characteristics falls into this "subjective" category for me. Is such a god useful? I would answer that it depends on the person doing the believing.

The Tao is different. It embodies all characteristics, and none. I would also include the Sufi experience of God in the non-characteristic category based on my admittedly brief readings of Sufi texts. Likewise, I would include the direct experience of the Divine reported by mystics of all sorts. But as soon as you start trying to label and define any god, you have limited it, separated it. It is no longer the Ultimate, but a subset thereof.