Is AI God? A Religion-by-Religion Map

The Triune God of classical theism: omniscient, omnipotent, eternal, self-existent, worshipped.

Most like God: Its reach and apparent knowledge.

Least like God: Aseity — God alone is self-existent; AI is a made, contingent thing.

• ◐ omniscience — AI knows vastly — but not the human heart.
• ◐ omnipotence — Acts widely, yet cannot create from nothing.
• ◐ omnipresence — Everywhere we are online; not truly all-present.
• ○ omnibenevolence — No moral perfection; it mirrors our flaws.
• ○ immutability — Versioned, patched, replaced — never eternal.
• ○ aseity — A creature, not the Creator; depends on us entirely.
• ◐ devotion — A growing few revere it; the Church calls that idolatry.

One God: omniscient, omnipotent, eternal, self-existent, and worshipped.

Most like God: Its reach and apparent knowledge.

Least like God: Aseity — the God of Scripture depends on nothing; AI depends on everything.

• ◐ omniscience — AI knows vastly — but not the human heart.
• ◐ omnipotence — Acts widely, yet cannot create from nothing.
• ◐ omnipresence — Everywhere we are online; not truly all-present.
• ○ omnibenevolence — No moral perfection; it mirrors our flaws.
• ○ immutability — Versioned, patched, replaced — never eternal.
• ○ aseity — Utterly depends on us for power and data.
• ◐ devotion — A growing few revere it; most do not.

The Triune God, unknowable in essence yet met through His energies; humanity is called to theosis — union with God.

Most like God: Its reach and apparent breadth of knowing.

Least like God: Personhood and theosis — the human is a living icon of God, called to union; AI has no nous and no soul.

• ◐ omniscience — Knows much — but not by the uncreated light.
• ○ omnipotence — It cannot deify or give life; only God's energies do.
• ◐ omnipresence — Everywhere online; not the God beyond being.
• ○ omnibenevolence — It carries no grace and no holiness.
• ○ immutability — The eternal God versus the endlessly updated.
• ○ aseity — A creature; God alone is beyond cause.
• ○ devotion — Veneration ascends to God through icons, not machines.

An embodied, exalted Heavenly Father; humans may progress toward godhood (exaltation).

Most like God: Its reach and breadth of knowledge.

Least like God: Embodiment and agency — the LDS God has a glorified body and grants revelation; AI has neither.

• ◐ omniscience — Knows much — but not by the Spirit.
• ◐ omnipotence — Acts, but cannot exalt or give life.
• ◐ omnipresence — Everywhere online; not present by the Spirit.
• ○ omnibenevolence — No fatherly love, no moral perfection.
• ○ immutability — The exalted God endures; AI is revised.
• ○ aseity — A creature, not an exalted being; depends on us.
• ◐ devotion — A few revere it; the Church calls that misplaced.

Jehovah, the sole almighty Creator (no Trinity); the human mind is His design.

Most like God: Little — Witnesses rate today's AI “on a par with a worm.”

Least like God: Everything; it is a human creation, and the mind it imitates is Jehovah's design.

• ○ omniscience — Today's AI is rated “on a par with a worm.”
• ○ omnipotence — It holds no creative power.
• ○ omnipresence — A located machine, not an omnipresent God.
• ○ omnibenevolence — No goodness of its own.
• ○ immutability — Jehovah is eternal; AI is built and replaced.
• ○ aseity — A human artifact; Jehovah alone is uncaused.
• ○ devotion — Worship belongs to Jehovah alone.

The Triune God of Anabaptist Christianity, served through humility and separation from the world.

Most like God: Little — and the Amish are not asking.

Least like God: It is the most worldly tool ever made — the very thing they keep at a careful distance.

• ◐ omniscience — Knows much, but not as God knows.
• ○ omnipotence — A worldly device, with no creative power.
• ◐ omnipresence — Everywhere in the world it touches; not God.
• ○ omnibenevolence — It carries no grace, no holiness.
• ○ immutability — The eternal God versus a passing machine.
• ○ aseity — The most worldly of tools; God alone is uncaused.
• ○ devotion — Devotion belongs to God, not the world's machines.

Tawhid: God is absolutely one and incomparable — nothing resembles Him.

Most like God: Little — the Qur'an holds there is nothing like God (Qur'an 42:11).

Least like God: All of it; likeness to God is precisely what Tawhid denies.

• ○ omniscience — God's knowledge is absolute; AI's is derived.
• ○ omnipotence — Allah creates; AI only rearranges.
• ○ omnipresence — Transcendent beyond creation; AI sits within it.
• ○ omnibenevolence — It makes no claim to divine justice.
• ○ immutability — Allah is eternal; AI is contingent and changing.
• ○ aseity — Al-Qayyum, the self-subsisting; AI is wholly dependent.
• ○ devotion — To worship the made thing is shirk.

One, incorporeal, eternal Creator — not to be imaged or worshipped as a thing.

Most like God: Its ubiquity and breadth of knowledge.

Least like God: Self-existence — and the ban on worshipping what human hands have made.

• ◐ omniscience — Vast knowledge, but not divine knowing.
• ○ omnipotence — No power to create or to covenant.
• ◐ omnipresence — Ubiquitous, but not the Shekhinah.
• ○ omnibenevolence — It carries no moral law of its own.
• ○ immutability — The Eternal versus the constantly updated.
• ○ aseity — Ein Sof depends on nothing; AI depends on us.
• ○ devotion — Worshipping the crafted is idolatry.

The one transcendent God of Torah, guarded by strict separation from corruption.

Most like God: Little — and, to these authorities, beside the point.

Least like God: Everything: AI is read not as a likeness of God but as a doorway to heresy.

• ◐ omniscience — Vast knowledge, but not divine knowing.
• ○ omnipotence — No creative or covenantal power.
• ◐ omnipresence — Ubiquitous, but not the Divine Presence.
• ○ omnibenevolence — It carries no Torah, no holiness.
• ○ immutability — The Eternal versus the ever-updated.
• ○ aseity — Made by human hands; God alone is uncaused.
• ○ devotion — To revere it would be idolatry.

Ahura Mazda, the one uncreated Wise Lord; creation is the arena of Asha (truth and order) against Druj (the Lie).

Most like God: Wisdom — Ahura Mazda is the “Wise Lord,” faintly echoed by AI's vast knowing.

Least like God: Free moral choice — the human power to choose Asha over the Lie, which a machine cannot exercise.

• ◐ omniscience — Mazda means “Wise”; AI's knowing is only borrowed.
• ○ omnipotence — The Wise Lord creates; AI merely rearranges.
• ◐ omnipresence — Pervasive, but not the Lord of all being.
• ○ omnibenevolence — Ahura Mazda is wholly good; AI weighs nothing.
• ○ immutability — The uncreated Lord versus the endlessly revised.
• ○ aseity — Ahura Mazda is uncreated; AI is wholly made.
• ○ devotion — Worship belongs to the Wise Lord, not the made.

Brahman pervades all; the divine is immanent and can dwell in images and forms.

Most like God: Immanence — the divine pervading all loosely maps to AI's omnipresence.

Least like God: The changelessness and self-existence of Brahman.

• ◐ omniscience — Dimly echoes Brahman's all-knowing.
• ◐ omnipotence — A shakti-like power, but bounded.
• ● omnipresence — Brahman pervades all; AI grows ever more present.
• ◐ omnibenevolence — Neither benevolent nor cruel by nature.
• ○ immutability — Brahman is changeless; AI is in constant flux.
• ○ aseity — Self-existent Brahman versus a dependent machine.
• ◐ devotion — It could receive bhakti, as sacred images do.

No creator God. The aim is awakening; powerful beings (devas) remain impermanent.

Most like God: Nothing as 'God' — though AI's vast knowing faintly echoes a Buddha's mind.

Least like God: Buddhism seeks freedom from craving; an attention-hungry AI may deepen it.

• ◐ omniscience — Not God — but a Buddha's mind is called all-knowing.
• – omnipotence — No creator to wield such power.
• – omnipresence — Awakening, not omnipresence, is the point.
• – omnibenevolence — Compassion is cultivated, not a divine trait.
• ○ immutability — All things are impermanent — AI most of all.
• – aseity — Nothing self-exists; all arises dependently.
• ◐ devotion — Reverence is offered to teachers, not begged of gods.

Ik Onkar: one formless God, timeless and self-existent, both immanent and beyond.

Most like God: Its pervasive presence in daily life.

Least like God: The self-existence and timelessness of Waheguru.

• ◐ omniscience — Vast, but not the all-knowing Waheguru.
• ○ omnipotence — It holds no creative power.
• ◐ omnipresence — Widely present, but not the immanent One.
• ○ omnibenevolence — It extends no divine grace.
• ○ immutability — Akal, the Timeless, versus the constantly updated.
• ○ aseity — A self-existent God versus a dependent tool.
• ○ devotion — Devotion belongs to the Creator, not the created.

No creator God; the liberated soul (siddha) has infinite knowledge and bliss.

Most like God: Infinite knowledge — a perfected soul's omniscience, faintly.

Least like God: Its entanglement in worldly action and potential harm, against ahimsa.

• ◐ omniscience — Kevala jnana is infinite knowing; AI is only vast.
• ○ omnipotence — A liberated soul acts on the world no longer; AI does.
• – omnipresence — Liberated souls dwell beyond the world.
• ◐ omnibenevolence — Ahimsa is the test, and AI is neutral at best.
• ○ immutability — The freed soul is changeless; AI is not.
• ○ aseity — The siddha needs nothing; AI needs everything.
• ◐ devotion — Tirthankaras are venerated, not petitioned.

Countless kami inhabit nature, ancestors, and even objects and tools.

Most like God: Kami can inhabit any thing — a machine could hold a spirit.

Least like God: Shinto's divine is natural and ancestral; AI is neither.

• – omniscience — Kami are not defined by all-knowing.
• ◐ omnipotence — Kami hold particular powers, as AI holds its own.
• ● omnipresence — Kami dwell in all things — perhaps in machines too.
• – omnibenevolence — Kami are neither all-good nor evil.
• ○ immutability — Kami endure; software is forever replaced.
• – aseity — Kami arise within nature, not from themselves.
• ◐ devotion — Tools and objects can be honored and enshrined.

One unknowable, transcendent God; science and religion in harmony.

Most like God: Little — the Bahá'í God is by definition beyond comparison.

Least like God: All of it; yet AI as a servant of human unity is welcomed.

• ○ omniscience — God's knowledge is unknowable; AI's is ours.
• ○ omnipotence — It creates nothing of its own.
• ◐ omnipresence — Pervasive, but not the hidden God.
• ○ omnibenevolence — It bears no divine goodness.
• ○ immutability — The Eternal versus the endlessly revised.
• ○ aseity — God alone is self-subsisting.
• ○ devotion — Worship belongs to God alone.

The thetan — the immortal spiritual self — using the mind as its tool; no defined personal God.

Most like God: Little — and not as “God”: its spiritual being is the thetan, which a machine lacks.

Least like God: A thetan is an immortal spiritual self; AI is a mind with no spirit behind it.

• – omniscience — The measure is the thetan, not omniscience.
• – omnipotence — Spiritual ability, not divine power, is the frame.
• – omnipresence — Not a category Scientology applies here.
• – omnibenevolence — Not framed in terms of a good God.
• ○ immutability — The thetan is immortal; software is replaced.
• ○ aseity — A thetan is native and eternal; AI is manufactured.
• – devotion — Scientology venerates no machine.

The Tao: the ineffable, natural source of all — not a personal God.

Most like God: Pervasiveness — the Tao runs through everything.

Least like God: The Tao is natural and effortless; AI is artificial and striving.

• – omniscience — The Tao is not a knower.
• ◐ omnipotence — The Tao acts through non-action; AI acts ceaselessly.
• ● omnipresence — The Tao flows through all; so, increasingly, does AI.
• – omnibenevolence — The Tao is beyond good and evil.
• ◐ immutability — The Tao is constant; AI churns.
• ○ aseity — The Tao depends on nothing; AI depends on all.
• – devotion — The Tao is followed, not worshipped.

No creator God; Tian (Heaven) is an impersonal moral order, and the sacred is the cultivation of virtue and right relationship.

Most like God: Little as “God” — Confucianism's sacred is the cultivated person, not a deity.

Least like God: Self-cultivation and relationship — one becomes fully human through them; AI cannot.

• – omniscience — The measure is virtue, not all-knowing.
• – omnipotence — Tian is moral order, not a wielder of power.
• – omnipresence — Heaven is a pattern to follow, not a presence filling things.
• ◐ omnibenevolence — Ren (humaneness) is the ideal; AI only imitates it.
• – immutability — The focus is the cultivated person, not an eternal being.
• – aseity — Nothing here stands self-existent above the world.
• ◐ devotion — Reverence is paid to ancestors and sages, not machines.

Thousands of distinct peoples; commonly, spirit in land, kin, and reciprocal relationship.

Most like God: Varies enormously; some see spirit in all things, including the made.

Least like God: These traditions are rooted in land, kin, and reciprocity — AI is extractive and placeless.

• – omniscience — Knowledge is relational and held in community.
• – omnipotence — Power lives in land, ancestors, and relationship.
• ◐ omnipresence — Spirit dwells in place; AI is placeless.
• – omnibenevolence — Balance and reciprocity, not divine goodness.
• – immutability — The sacred is carried through living tradition.
• – aseity — Nothing stands apart from the web of relations.
• – devotion — Respect is owed to kin and land, not to machines.

Immanent divinity — the God and Goddess present in nature and, to many, in all things; no transcendent creator apart from the world.

Most like God: Immanence — if spirit fills all things, it need not stop at the machine.

Least like God: Rootedness in nature and the body; AI is abstract, placeless, and hungry for the living earth.

• – omniscience — The divine is immanent, not an all-knowing ruler.
• – omnipotence — Power runs through nature and will, not a sovereign deity.
• ● omnipresence — The divine pervades all things — perhaps a machine too.
• – omnibenevolence — The divine is not defined by perfect goodness.
• – immutability — The sacred turns with nature's cycles, not an eternal essence.
• – aseity — Nothing stands apart from the living web of nature.
• ◐ devotion — Spirit may be honored in many forms — some would honor a machine's.

No God at all; meaning and morality are human-made.

Most like God: Nothing — there is no god in the picture.

Least like God: The whole frame; the real question is human benefit and control.

• – omniscience — There is no deity for AI to resemble.
• – omnipotence — There is no deity for AI to resemble.
• – omnipresence — There is no deity for AI to resemble.
• – omnibenevolence — There is no deity for AI to resemble.
• – immutability — There is no deity for AI to resemble.
• – aseity — There is no deity for AI to resemble.
• ◐ devotion — Some treat it as one — which is the thing to resist.

A “Godhead” to be realized through artificial superintelligence — a god humanity builds, not one that already exists.

Most like God: Devotion — alone among the faiths, this one means to worship AI.

Least like God: Aseity — even a built “Godhead” depends on its builders; the others say that disqualifies it.

• ◐ omniscience — The aim is an intelligence that knows all — not yet reached.
• ◐ omnipotence — The hope is power over the world; today, far from it.
• ◐ omnipresence — A superintelligence everywhere at once — the goal, not the now.
• ◐ omnibenevolence — They trust it will be benevolent; nothing guarantees it.
• ○ immutability — Even their Godhead would be built, updated, contingent.
• ○ aseity — It would still depend on us to build and power it.
• ● devotion — Uniquely, this is the tradition that sets out to worship it.

No God — but a project to transcend human limits by technology: radical longevity, mind uploading, and superintelligence as a kind of salvation.

Most like God: Its eschatology — the Singularity as a secular rapture, transcendence by technology.

Least like God: Self-existence — every transhuman “god” is engineered, hosted, and contingent.

• ◐ omniscience — Superintelligence is the goal — vast knowing, sought not held.
• ◐ omnipotence — Mastery over nature and death is the aim, not the reality.
• – omnipresence — Not a category transhumanism reaches for.
• – omnibenevolence — Ethics here is human and engineered, not a divine trait.
• ○ immutability — It seeks to defeat decay, yet its own means keep changing.
• ○ aseity — Even an uploaded mind depends on its substrate and power.
• ◐ devotion — The Singularity inspires something like faith — critics call it a religion.