Traditionally, the God in "classic" thinking (the Judeo-Hellenistic-Christian-Islamic tradition) has been defined by four attributes:
-Creator of all
-Ruler of all
-Guardian of afterlife
-Omnipotent and omniscient
However, assigning all four jobs to the same official seems unnecessary. Why would the Creator of All bother to rule anything? Ruling is such a petty thing. OTOH, why would ruling of the universe or afterlife management require omnipotency or omniscience? We have plenty of experience with management that suffices without.
For all we know, the Q created the universe in some sort of a logical loop, without being either omnipotent or omniscient - hence the somewhat sloppy end result. They do some ruling, but they don't really sweat the details, and nobody higher up does any ruling of greater detail or potency, either (even if somebody higher up does exist). They are comfortable with toying with the afterlife of puny humanoids when it pleases their sense of humor, but there's nothing supernatural or even systematic about it; select individuals may experience life after death, or life during death, or life before birth, or other unusual occurrences - but only on the whim of the Q.
OTOH, the four attributes could be split between four completely unrelated advanced entities. Perhaps there's an omnipotent and omniscient entity out there, but it never bothered to take any part in creation, ruling or afterlife management - whereas the creator leaves the ruling to others.
Timo Saloniemi
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