All models are wrong, but some are useful

It seems to me -- and I realize that there are many would would disagree violently -- that this applies to the idea of God.

To start with, I (unlike most people it seems) distinguish the idea of God from religion. Religion, I claim, is a social phenomenon. God is (and I speak loosely here) a mystical one. Religion trades on the idea of God, but it's really about people.

The ideas that people have about God (including the things that religion claims) are, in essence, models. The best of them say "there is something there, but we can't describe it or say what it does or how it works". This, of course, doesn't give much to work with. :-)

People go on to flesh out these ideas, with what they believe about God. Being as how God is something that can't really be described, these ideas -- which are mental models -- must be wrong in some way. However, the models themselves do have effects on people and thus, are more or less useful to the people that hold them.

The models people hold about God don't affect what it is (so I claim), but they do affect the people that have them. Thus, while they are wrong (God being ineffable and all), some are useful. Also, I will add, the models that are useful to one person may or may not be useful to another.

People that believe in an angry or vengeful God will find the world a fearful place (or perhaps it is the other way round, frightened people will believe in an angry God), while people who believe that God is on their side, however hard it may be to understand how that happens, will have a reason to reject fear. Angry and frightened people will foment strife, peaceful and secure people will work for peace. Thus, what people believe to be true of God matters, independent of the nature of the deity itself.