Question For Fellow Atheists...

[Whateverist]

When I say "atheists are deluded", I mean to say that we are failing to notice something extremely obvious. The existence of God is obvious, as obvious as gravity. This is the theist point of view, speaking in very general terms.

I agree.  God obviously exists in the experience of theists.

Theists are deluded because they are noticing something that isn't there, ..

I prefer to say they definitely experience something, but they misattribute it to something 'out there' and objective when it is entirely subjective*.  They obviously recognize the 'out there'/objective designation is problematic because they have to invent an entirely new branch of objective reality which they call 'the supernatural' in order to protect this 'god' from falsification by ordinary empirical means.

or at least there's not a good enough reason to think it's there. This is the atheist point of view.

I agree except I prefer to shift the argument away from whether or not this objective-but-supernatural god exists at all.  I'm happy to concede it exists but the question is the nature of its existence.  Then the usual personal reasons cited for belief in this god are no problem.  Of course they have those experiences, they just don't validate an objective god (nor its special supernatural habitat).

So it seems to me that either I'm deluded, or the average theist is. Who is right? Me of course. And them.

Yes, you (we) are right but only so long as we are arguing against an objective, stand-alone entity and not something else which clearly does exist - unless all those theists are not only deluded but out-of-touch crazy.


*Just to be clear, by "entirely subjective" I am not talking about a deliberate lie.  There is more to the subjective than just our conscious machinations.  God isn't our deliberate creation.  Rather, the same brain machinery which runs Robvalue2.0 can be nurtured to also run God.1 without Robvalue2.0 ever being any the wiser.