The Decline of Science and Technology in America 1347
puke76 writes "There's a good article over on the BBC about the decline of science and technology in the U.S.. Vint Cerf and others are going on record to voice their concerns about the current administrations recipe for 'irrelevance and decline.' Scientists are increasingly concerned about the White House's pandering to the religious right at science's expense. From the article: 'radically we have moved away from regulation based on professional analysis of scientific data ...to regulation controlled by the White House and driven by political considerations.'"
The political climate & conferences (Score:1, Informative)
I'll attend conferences in Canada, France, Spain, etc.... but I'll be damned if I'm going to the US
Re:Seperate them! (Score:1, Informative)
http://www.usconstitution.net/jeffwall.html [usconstitution.net]
Care to actually provide evidence of your claim or do you just like parroting what your minister and Fox News tells you to?
Re:America has a choice.. (Score:2, Informative)
Your own examples are so full of junk science and political correctness that it is almost a parody.
FACTS:
1) The public school science and math classes are so dumbed down that "graduates" have an inflated view of their capabilities. When they get to University, they find courses in math and physical science way too hard. Thus they immediately runaway to other choices.
2) There is a reward/difficulty issue that has nothing to do with religion. Most that could (with effort) complete a degree in the physical sciences see that lawyers, accountants, marketing specialists, etc. tend to make *more* money with less personal responsibility and greater choice of employers. Therefore they runwaway from more rigorous physical science options.
3) The problem of offshoring/outsourcing. What person in their right mind is going to go for a minimum of 4 years at a respected computer science major at University when after graduation he will be in direct competition with guys in Bangalore that will work for $5/hour and be wealthy on a local basis?
Re:America has a choice.. (Score:2, Informative)
The Wedge Strategy:: Real live conspiracy! (Score:5, Informative)
It isn't a matter of falling standards and laziness. It isn't the fault of too much TV or rap music.
There are forces in society who want science neutered and brought to heel.
"Intelligent Design," and the manufactured controversy over "junk science" . . . it's all part of a plan to:
You can find it all here, in a document called "The Wedge Strategy."
http://www.antievolution.org/features/wedge.html [antievolution.org]
Re:America has a choice.. (Score:2, Informative)
"The Arab world was the cornerstone of world civilization in the Middle Ages -- they invented the zero, we still use Arabic digits."
The zero originates from India. The Indians mainly traded with the Arabs. The Arabs adopted the Indian system of numbers. The Arabs in turn invented Algebra.
Re:America has a choice.. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:America has a choice.. (Score:2, Informative)
Good lord, now we're going to be hearing all sorts of good things about Arabia these days. In fact, the concept of the zero took place in India between the first and fifth centuries A.D. It was during that time in India that the zero was discovered and the system of place-value numeration was developed [neo-tech.com]
We generally credit al-gebra to Arabia, but they fell behind when the Germans and English developed the Calculus.
Re:America has a choice.. (Score:1, Informative)
Re:America has a choice.. (Score:5, Informative)
As of recently, most countries obeyed this unwritten law: Iraq switched to Euros back in 2001, and the interim US government immediately switched back to dollars. Iran recently began valueing a good portion of its' oil reserves in Euros. Same with Venezuela. OPEC in general has been flirting with the Euro as of late.
So it that context, Duffbeer703 is right on the money.
Re:sigh (Score:3, Informative)
There is consensus on the theory of evolution. It's the best theory for the data. Yet here we are debating things that the scientific community settled a while ago. And no you don't get consensus from the religious right - that's why they developed ID - creationism in sheep's clothing.
"even if you _hate_ the the ID proponents, and beleive they are flatly wrong and that macroevolution is the endpoint of human understanding of lifes origins, you still need to be able to competantly address their arguments.... steel sharpens steel, if you like."
Competently address their arguments? What are their scientific arguments? What papers have they published explaining this idea and providing support for it? Why they haven't. More like steel cuts mustard. Why aren't they doing research, and finding evidence to support their position? The ID supporters seem to spend a lot of time getting their ideas in the classroom without a single shred of scientific evidence.
ID isn't a theory. It cannot be proven false, it cannot be subject to experimentation. That's the method of science. If you are going to teach ID, you should probably teach Intelligent Falling [theonion.com]
Re:America has a choice.. (Score:5, Informative)
This is incorrect. The founding fathers knew first-hand the dangers of religious power, which is why the only mention of religion in the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution was to make sure that "no religious test" would be required for public office. The first ammendment states that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof". And anyone familiar with Thomas Paine or Thomas Jefferson knows full well what they thought on the subject. For example, Jefferson wrote "no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer, on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities."
Most of the occurences of religion in the US government were put into place in the 1950's, a period of immense insecurity (Athiest/Communist Threat, etc.). Politicians in 1954 added "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance, and in 1955 added "In God We Trust" to coinage and paper money.
The founders, on the other hand, were quite careful in making clear that the United States was _not_ founded as a Christian country, or even as a particularly religious country, and that the freedom of religion clearly included, as Jefferson put it, "freedom of and from religion."
Re:America has a choice.. (Score:2, Informative)
Right, because we buy approximately.. (hold on, let me do the math here.. zero.. plus zero.. carry the zero.. hmm..) ZERO percent of our military hardware from foreign countries.
The military is required by law to buy domestic. Self-sufficiency is a paramount concern of the supply side of any military.
Re:America has a choice.. (Score:5, Informative)
George Washington, Treaty of Tripoli
Shame that is from Barlow's fraudulent translation. None of the existing copies of that treaty show that at all. See http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2005/5/9
BTW, it wasn't George Washington, but John Adams who signed that treaty.
Dammy
And no, I'm no a Christian, I am a Pagan.
Wow, you know nothing about India, do you? (Score:5, Informative)
Please, try to find out actual facts to support you arguments. I don't so much like the way the anecdotes pulled out of your ass smell.
Christians like Newton, Darwin and Galileo. (Score:3, Informative)
Wasn't Galileo branded a heritic by the Vatican, and Darwin?
FalconRe:Are you kidding? (Score:2, Informative)
If you think Christianity as practiced in the Dark Ages was good for science in general, you're pretty silly.
Yes, there were some Christians who were scientists. (Staggeringly enough, that's still true today.) But to argue that the Christian power structure was pro-science is absurd.
Re:America has a choice.. (Score:4, Informative)
You're wrong (Score:3, Informative)
The port of Tripoli was blockaded by American ships and bombarded, but not taken. When the bey saw the Americans were too much for him a new treaty with Tripoli was drawn up and signed on June 4, 1805, which called for no further tribute. The treaty of 1796-97 had been annulled by the war. The treaty of 1805 does not have the passage: "the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion," but its Article XIV is practically the same as the previous treaty's Article XI with that omission. Like the treaty of 1796-97 however, this later treaty also showed the government of the United States to be impartial in matters of religion--that it had no established religion, and that the question of religion and religious opinions was not to be considered in national affairs. It showed that it was not the policy of the government to compel those within its jurisdiction who are not Christians to act as though they were.
i forgot part (Score:3, Informative)
the version ratified by Congress and signed by the President was the version WITH Article XI
and the link
http://www.ffrf.org/fttoday/1997/june_july97/trip
sorry
Re:Today, Class, We Will Study "Zeitgeist" (Score:5, Informative)
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814
----
And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerve in the brain of Jupiter. But may we hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this most venerated reformer of human errors.
-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823
----
You are completely wrong. If anything, most of the founding fathers were Deists, believing in at most whatever form of "Natures God" they personally had. Paine was definitely in sync with the founding fathers and their opinion on christianity in relation to government, i.e. there should be nothing but separation. Look it up. You need to do better on a large public forum such as
Re:America has a choice.. (Score:0, Informative)
See "Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea" for references.
Re:Interesting theory (Score:2, Informative)
I live in West Tennessee, so as you can imagine, I haven't encountered just a whole lot of Asian-descent people who were born here. I'll have to take your word on that one... }:-)
I've had programming students (geeklings, as I like to call them) from Korea and they shared that perspective with me. It certainly seems plausible, but there are exceptions to everything.
As far as Japanese being different from English, it isn't *as* different as Chinese is. Japanese words appear to be constructed of letters and phonemes just as English words are. The letters themselves are different, of course, but they're used in a similar fashion.
By contrast, many Chinese words (if not most) seem to be represented by a single symbol. I remember that a Chinese fellow I went to college with taught me to read a few words. The way he explained it, there are base symbols for certain concepts and modifying those symbols sort of narrows the scope of what they represent.
For example, he showed me the symbol for food and I was able to identify other symbols that referred to specific types of food (like fish or rice) because of their resemblance to the symbol for food.
Fascinating stuff, languages... }:-)
Re:Gold Standard (Score:5, Informative)
Thirty years and countless books on the subject and not til today do I learn the US entered Vietnam for France. It's been a while though and apparently I'm not up on the latest 'Freedom Fries' school of historical thought.
It wasn't just to support the French that the US went into Viet Nam. Then president Eisenhower was afraid that if the Viet Namese, North and South Vietnam, were allowed to vote to reunite not only would they reunite but they would also become communist. Because of this dispite the signing of the Paris Accord of 1954 [sunsite.org.uk] being signed by North and South Vietnam and the Geneva conference Eisenhower didn't want the election to happen. To prevent reunitification Colonel Edward Lansdale [vietvet.org] "carried out a campaign of military and psychological warfare against the Vietminh.(35)"
As for the crack about "Freedom Fries" I never did call them that. I was against invading Iraq without broad UN, Security Council support. I'm still waiting to see all those stockpiles of WMDs.
FalconRe:Most Muslims still consider usury a big no-no. (Score:3, Informative)
The Balfour Declaration was intended to serve the same purpose: an infusion of Jewish talent into the Middle East to teach the Arabs how to make the best use of their new oil wealth. Unfortunately, anti-semitism was already ripe (which is really ironic, considering that the Arabs are also semitic.) The Protocols of the Elders of Zion showed up on the scene shortly after, drawing Muslim leaders to it like flies to shit. They rejected the Jews out of hand when they were actually a gift, not an invasion. Nazi propaganda still circulates in the Middle East. When the oil runs out, the Middle East will be in worse shape than ever. The only country there that even knows how to feed itself is Israel. By the end of this century, the Muslim countries of the Middle East are likely to win the largest Darwin Award in history.
That is, unless America becomes the Christian States of America. Then America might win it.
Re:America has a choice.. (Score:5, Informative)
Funny, I don't remember any liberal politics in my classes on circuit analysis, mechanics, electromagnetism, calculus, differential equations, tensor analysis, quantum mechanics, solid state theory, antenna design and analysis, electromechanical systems, et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseum. Perhaps you could explain to me the liberal bias inherent in a Greens Function or a multi-body gravitation problem? Perhaps hideous Communist ideologies are lurking inside Schroedinger's Equation?
Better yet, maybe you could explain something else to me. How does one go about parallelizing a finite-difference time-domain computational problem for an arbitrary antenna structure using conservative ideology?
Well anyway, you are probably right. After all, Rush Limbaugh says so and he went to college for like a year, right?
Re:Are you kidding? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:The US is falling behind? Give me a break. (Score:2, Informative)
"The University has approximately 1,700 faculty members, including 17 Nobel laureates and 23 MacArthur fellows."
According to the article "Nobel Prize Laureates by Country [wikipedia.org]" in Wikipedia, there have been 26 Nobel laureates from both Germany and Switzerland (granted, there is some overlap between the two). Sure, some of them are dead by now, but you write that "when any country in Europe has as many Nobel Lauriates as can be found at Stanford, [you]'ll start to worry," and make no requirements as to whether the country's laureates need still be alive.
So, better start worrying!
Re:If Your Bullshit Detector Didn't Go Off (Score:3, Informative)
(My anecdote about the nasal passages of gerbils - that is an actual line item in the 1996 budget inserted as a rider which would have allocated $260,000 to Illinois State. A straw man assumes a fictional situation. At least you could learn to use a term properly before using it.)
The point of my post - which you quickly moved to ignore so you could join the phillistine chorus of "straw man" is that Bush hasn't cut funding for scientific research at all. Actual dollar figures are still rising. The point the original author (who, unlike you, actually has some credibility) makes is that the Bush Administration is not increasing funding to keep pace with GDP output. What the original author doesn't go on to discuss is the Bush Administration has reallocated the distribution of Federal Grant money away from pure research, and towards applied sciences.
As a taxpayer, I feel I have the right to see my money going towards practical research with near-term realization, not abstractions of pure research. That is the government's "shareholder responsibility" - which you claim doesn't exist.
"Article" versus "editorial" (Score:2, Informative)
26? There's 100 from UK alone (Score:3, Informative)
this site [nationmaster.com] for numbers of Nobel Prizes, 1902-2002:
UK - 100
Germany - 77
France - 49
Sweden - 30
Switzerland - 22
all more than Stanford's 17.
Re:It's not religion that will diminish the US... (Score:2, Informative)
Disingenuous (Score:3, Informative)
The US is not sixth in percentage of wealth spent on R&D, as the article says, when defense and corporations are factored in.
Ironically, many of the things the author listed as examples of US inventions/improvements on inventions, came from defense spending: the jet engine, computer, radar, jumbo jet, internet, lasers, and GPS. None of those things would either exist or be what they are today without US defense spending. You would think giving those examples, he would factor in defense spending into some of his funding stats.
He is also being disingenuous by including complaints about Bush, and then only including statistics from the '06 budget. If you look at the budget from since he took office, both defense and regular R&D have increased absolutely incredible amounts.
Here is Federal R&D Spending with defense included:
http://www.ostp.gov/html/budget/2006/Charts/Feder
Non-Defense Federal R&D Spending:
http://www.ostp.gov/html/budget/2006/Charts/Feder
Obviously, the second one is what the author was looking at. That tiny little decrease after 5 years, under the Bush administration, of very high increases.
How the hell can someone write an article, much of which blames the president, without even mentioning an approximate 40% increase in federal R&D during his administration?
Re:America has a choice.. (Score:3, Informative)
Here is a link that hints at all the complexities of the Buy American Act as of 2001. In its simplest form it mandates:
"The BAA restricts the purchase by the government of supplies that are not "domestic end products." To qualify as a domestic end product, the article (1) must be manufactured in the United States, and (2) the cost of its components mined, produced, or manufactured in the United States must exceed 50% the cost of all its components"
In practice though there are a host of exemptions for NAFTA countries, Caribean basin countries, and a whole bunch of others. Here [af.mil] are a bunch of them if you want to wade through them. In the end its an act that is more like Swiss cheese.
You can tell because the President's new fleet of Marine Corps helicopters are largely of European design and manufacturer, there is just a U.S. prime contractor (Lockheed I think) who is going to do the final assembly and delivery.
Re:Today, Class, We Will Study "Zeitgeist" (Score:3, Informative)
Jefferson was a deist, and please see my post elsewhere [slashdot.org] in this thread re exactly what kind of deist we're talking about here.
As for the other wig-heads, well, let's just take a look at the woodshedding they gave poor Ol' Reasonable Tom Paine shortly after he went rogue:
Sam Adams (The Statesman, not the Brewer), wrote to him, "[W]hen I heard you had turned your mind to a defence of infidelity, I felt myself much astonished and more grieved that you had attempted a measure so injurious to the feelings and so repugnant to the true interest of so great a part of the citizens of the United States. The people of New England, if you will allow me to use a Scripture phrase, are fast returning to their first love. Will you excite among them the spirit of angry controversy at a time when they are hastening to amity and peace? I am told that some of our newspapers have announced your intention to publish an additional pamphlet upon the principles of your Age of Reason. Do you think your pen, or the pen of any other man, can unchristianize the mass of our citizens, or have you hopes of converting a few of them to assist you in so bad a cause?" (William V. Wells, The Life and Public Services of Samuel Adams (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1865) III:372-73, to Thomas Paine on Nov. 30, 1802.)
and John Adams was similarly unamused:
"The Christian religion is, above all the religions that ever prevailed or existed in ancient or modern times, the religion of wisdom, virtue equity and humanity, let the Blackguard [scoundrel, rogue] Paine say what he will" (John Adams, The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States, Charles Francis Adams, Ed., (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1856) III:421, dairy entry for July 26, 1796.)
Later, in a letter to Jefferson, this Wingnut, Adams, wrote:
"The general principles, on which the Fathers achieved independence, were the only Principles in which that beautiful Assembly of young Gentlemen could Unite....And what were these general Principles? I answer, the general Principles of Christianity, in which all these Sects were United: . . . Now I will avow, that I then believe, and now believe, that those general Principles of Christianity, are as eternal and immutable, as the Existence and Attributes of God; and that those Principles of Liberty, are as unalterable as human Nature and our terrestrial, mundane System." (Lester J. Capon, ed., The Adams-Jefferson Letters 2 vols. (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1959), 2:339-40)
And what about Ben Franklin, that skirt-chasing, France-loving, wine-tasting, electricity-discovering scientist? Surely he wasn't down with those evil, crusade-calling, inquisition-loving small-'X' xtians, was he? Let's ask:
"History will also afford frequent opportunities of showing the necessity of a public religion. . . and the excellency of the Christian religion above all others, ancient or modern."
Our Boy Ben, "Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pennsylvania," 1749, p.22)
Benjamn Rush, Charles Carrol, and John Witherspoon -- Declaration of Independence signes all -- called Paine's work "absurd and impious"[1], "blasphemous writings against the Christian religion" [2], and Paine himself "ignorant of human nature as well as an enemy to the Christian faith." [3]
[1]Benjamin Rush, "Letters of Benjamin Rush," L.H. Butterfield, ed., (Princeton University Press, 1951) II:770, to John Dickenson on Feb 16, 1796.
[2]Joseph Gurn, "Charles Carrol of Carrolton" (NY: P.J. Kennedy & Sons, 1932, p. 203.
[3]John Witherspoon, "The Works of the Reverend John Witherspoon" (Phila: Wm W. Woodward, 1802) III:24n2, from "The Dominion of Providence over the Passions of Men," delivered at Princeton on May 17, 1776
They wer
Re:Christianity (Score:3, Informative)
He rewrote the Bible ripping out every single supposed miracle and any claim of divinity for Jesus. He considered Jesus to be a "great philosopher", and admired him the same way one would admire Mahatma Ghandi.
He rejected any claim of divinely insipred scripture by any religion. He called the bible stories of miracles and divine inspiration "fabulous and false" (fabulous as in being a fable).
You are projecting your own religious fantacy if you think Jefferson would be a "Bible thumper".
Would he for a minute allow the banning of prayer in public school
Straw man! An argument distorted to the extent of being an outright LIE.
Prayer is NOT banned in public schools. I am aware of no one ever trying to ban prayer in public schools (Yeah yeah, I'm sure someone somewhere sometime wanted to do so, but no one of any consequence and certainly not in any of the recent school prayer court battles). In fact students have a constitutionally guaranteed right to pray.
If you can look beyond the lying right wing propaganda you've been reading you'll see that NONE of the court cases they are screaming over is about preventing students from praying in school. NONE of them. Students have a right to pray in school and NO ONE in these cases is arguing otherwise. What the court cases have been about is that school officials acting in an official capacity as an agent of the government cannot ABUSE THE FORCE OF GOVERNMENT POWER to either promote or suppress student prayer.
Go ahead, proove me wrong. I defy you to find so much as a singe case that was NOT about school officials abusing their power to promote student prary. I defy you to find so much as a single case that actually targeted student prayer itself.
A principal abusing his govermental power to promote student prayer is just as unconstitutional as that principal abusing his power to prohibit students from praying in school. You have every right to object if I abuse my government teaching position to press my religious beliefs upon your children, and I have every right to object if you abuse your governent teaching position to press your religious beliefs upon my children.
The ACLU and other "dreaded left wing activists" supposedly trying to exterminate religion and supposedly attacking prayer is school actually SUPPORT the right to religious freedom. The ACLU website contains an invitation for students to contact the ACLU for assistance if any scool official interferes with their right to pray in school: "If a school official has told you that you can't pray at all during the school day, your right to exercise your religion is being violated. Contact your local ACLU for help." [aclu.org] The ACLU fought and won a case forcing a school to include a student's Bible quote in the school yearbook. The ACLU jumped in to defend religious displays on government land - in defence of people preforming baptisms in a public park lake. If you look at cases of this sort you'll find that the objection is always to the use of government power for religion. Separation of Church and State restrictions upon the use of government power are the VERY MEANS of protecting our individual rights to religious freedom.
Now if we've gotten that Straw Man argument out of the way, lets get back to Jefferson's actual position on religion and government run schools. His position was to STRIP IT OUT OF GOVERNMENTAL SCHOOLS. He ripped it out every chance he got, and he was constantly BATTLING AGAINST every effort to introduce religion into government schools or into government itself. Here is a pretty good summary of Jeffersons religion-school activities. [tripod.com]
Jefferson was constantly being attacked as being anti-religion, the exact same attacks we see coming from the right wing today. If you check the context of the most
Re:Are you kidding? (Score:5, Informative)
Certainly I know that manuscripts produced and used in celtic-monasteries have margin notes and other additions that are not the work of illiterates:
c.f. pangur bán: http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/16
There was also the preservation of written works for their own sake. Many non-religious classical texts were preserved and duplicated in monastic settings, and this went some way to preserving these works during the interregnum following the decline of the Roman empire.
Though surely coming from your personal experience, I think some of your other comments come across as a little prejudiced and over-general. I'd be interested to see the evidence for your origin of copyright laws thesis. And as another poster commented, there's no indication that Newton was by any means an atheist.
Re:America has a choice.. (Score:2, Informative)
The thing is, he was not an Arab. He was in fact Persian. He was a Muslim, and lived near Baghdad, so he had an Arab name.
Re:America has a choice for a short while longer (Score:2, Informative)
The Monks built and saved the west (Score:3, Informative)
"How the Monks saved civilization" from
How the Catholic Church built western civilization by Thomas Woods
here is a link where they will email it to you
http://www.catholicchurchbook.com/offers/offer.ph
As an aside, monks had to do various things (e.g. chant the liturgy) which required them to be literate and otherwise well educated unlike most peasants. Illiterate copying letters? Haven't you heard of Augustine and Aquinas or Albert the Great and the university of Paris?
Divine right of kings? I think that was protestant more than Catholic as the kings were often excommunicated, and the Church/State was the original check and balance.
You can also find further discussion (no one thought the earth was flat, Henry VIII probably delayed the industrial revolution for 300 years by his persecution, etc.) you can go to lewrockwell.com and look for the Thomas Woods archives.
Of course really studying accurate history might interfere with various prejudices and bigotries.
people's perceptions of the US (Score:3, Informative)
The worst fears of the US have been proven true, we have no friends, we only have other countries who feed, like parasites, on us and then sunder the relationship when it no longer proves convenient.
And the worst fears of the rest of the world have been born out, that the US is a big bully that will do whatever it wants, if has to lie then it will, if it has to invade another country it will. Many people now look at the US as a danger.
Where are all those WMDs the adminitration said they knew exactly where they were? Powell even showed the Security Council photographs of mobile chemical weapons labs, where are they?
It will be interesting to see what happens when (not if) China decides to grab Taiwan
I hope "China decides to grab Taiwan" never happens militarily. If Formosa decides to unite with mainland China that's one thing but China using armed force is totally another. Formosa, Taiwan, had already been invaded by Chinese when 2 million Chinese Nationalists led by Chiang Kai-shek invaded and subjegated 20 million Formosans. 28 February 1947 is still the date to be remembered by Formosans, as Taiwan's Holocaust [taiwandc.org]. This massacre led to many years of repression.
FalconRe:America has a choice.. (Score:3, Informative)
Whether Garuda is a single entity or one of a race creatures makes no difference, it is of divine origin and that's all it takes to be a god. One or multiple gods, they are still gods and recognized as such by a large enough proportion of buddhists.