SKEPTIC:  By looking at human behavior as objectively as I can, from an anthropological perspective, all paths lead me to support the hypothesis that God is the combination of projection and transference of a given culture's (and individual's) ideals and ideal relationships onto an unseen (yet psychically, very real) entity. Borrowing from analytic psychology, what I believe happens is the creation (or greater potentiation) of a complex, charged emotional contents with attendant thoughts and images, continually reinforced through normal operant techniques through institutions such as churches and their various rituals. 

My latest thinking on the topic of God is that it's hard to look at the DNA sequence for a particular trait (speaking as a software engineer), and not say, "You know, that looks a lot like machine code! And that, in turn, presupposes a programmer, a Creator!" At the same time, this is far removed from the idea of a personal, loving, Christian God who cares about us individually and will somehow rescue us from extermination at death. 

Don't get me wrong: I very much hope that there is a loving God, but in light of what I know of neuroscience, it seems unlikely. It seems much more likely that we are the miraculous products of natural selection. I also believe that religion is very much man-made, and that if God does exist, he appears to be utterly and absolutely silent, having nothing to do with humankind, other than in man's dreams, hopes, and fantasies (though these are products of man's minds). I don't say any of this to be disrespectful, and I'm painfully aware of how emotional an issue religion is, but I say it in the spirit of honest exploration.

KEVIN WILLIAMS:  NDE reports support much, if not all, of what you are saying. Man did create religion and the idea of god(s). And the idea of a Master DNA programmer God does seem much more likely and impersonal compared to the Christian idea of God.

The only realistic answer to the question, "What is God?", is that God is only a term that represents whatever you want it to mean. Many Christians believe God is a divine Father. Hindus believe God (Brahman) to be life manifesting itself everywhere with no exceptions. Cave men may have believed God to be the sun. To tribal cults, God may be a stone statue. Certainly, people throughout history believed things that seem utterly ridiculous to our enlightened minds. As stated previously, the idea of God has so many different meanings to different people that it is really useless to talk about the idea of a God unless a consensus is reached on it's definition. 

NDErs have much to say about their experience with God. Many times I have read NDE reports where experiencers say that God is a reality that words alone cannot adequately describe. Most of the time, we hear descriptive words such as love, life, light, all, source, force, one, mind, consciousness, vibration, spirit, being, etc. But, according to many experiencers, even these descriptions are woefully inadequate. One experiencer described God as "the light that loves." Another experiencer, Chuck Griswold, stated in the NDE documentary entitled Shadows, "Life is love is God. If you add anymore to this definition then you are not making it any better." 

When experiencers say that life itself is God, they are stating that everything is God, or that everything is a part of God, or that all is God. With this definition, we may as well state that reality itself is God. For this reason, we should probably just assign the term God to the toy box and simply say that there is no God. There is only ultimate reality. This is what people worship as God.