I have some questions for the posters here.

[Neo-Scholastic]

@Frank Apisa Congrats. You’re an atheist. Anything else?

I am NOT an atheist.

<facepalm> Never thought I'd see the day...a militant agnostic.

[The Grand Nudger]

C'mon, Nudger. My guess: You have not looked nearly enough to make the assertion "no theistic world creators in our world."
But, you are an atheist...and you are going to insist you have.
Fine with me. 
Theists are that way, too. Can't budge them from their guesses about the REALITY either.
Kinda fun to discuss it though.

Sure I have, and you agreed with my summary on the subject of gods..so I'm not sure what the problem is now anymore than I knew what it was supposed to be when we began.

A god is either a, or it is not a. It cannot be both a and not a, that would be...impossible. I guess that's as far as we'll get? I know that there are no gods, and you can't quite articulate why or how you doubt it, you just do. I certainly wouldn't expect to budge a believer who thinks he sat in a car with god and had a chat, no. Would you?

[HappySkeptic]

I am convinced that in discussions about REALITY...especially in discussions about whether gods exist or not)...the words "believe" and "belief" are used as a disguise for "guess." I understand why theist do it. It makes more sense for them to say, "I 'believe' there is a god" than to say, "I guess there is a god."

Not sure why people who use atheist as a descriptor do it. Easy for them to say, "MY guess is there are no gods." No big deal.

In any case, I do not do guessing on the issue...so I do not do "believing."

If you insist, however, I am willing to make a guess. I promise I am doing this legit. I am going to toss Mr. Coin in a second. Heads, I will guess there is at least one god; Tails I will guess there are no gods. (My wife and I use Mr. Coin to settle difference in pool picks during the NFL season, so it gets lots of work.)

I flipped...TRULY...and it came up HEADS. I hereby guess there is at least one god.

Makes as much sense as what the theists and atheists do on the issue.

Beliefs are real things.  It is something the mind does.

A belief is a conditional acceptance of some statement or concept, as true.  It can be based on evidence, or it can be based on emotion.  It is always based on incomplete information, because we can't know anything for certain.  But, beliefs exist, and they are vital to our ability to make choices in the world.

Our mind has a belief network that allows us to make choices.  With a science background, I have "belief" in most tested scientific theories (despite knowing that they will be overturned by something better one day).  I believe that I can't change traffic lights with my mind.  I also believe that a deity isn't going to throw me in hell for not believing in Him (despite not knowing for certain).

Beliefs aren't about certainty -- the are a tentative acceptance of an idea, so that we can live our lives and make choices.

Beliefs are positive actions.  You can't tentatively accept something you've never heard about, and therefore I can't believe in unknown gods.  It makes no sense.  If I did believe that there is a god, but it is unknown, I'd be praying or thanking the unknown god.  I have no such beliefs.


If you make choices based on the possibility that gods exist, then you are not an atheist.  If you decide to break a Mosaic law, and you think "hey, God might exist, therefore I probably shouldn't", then perhaps you do believe in god to some degree.

If you live your life without a care about divine punishment, divine commands, or divine intervention, then you don't believe in gods!!  Then you're an atheist.

[pocaracas]

Ok, about the text editor on here. It has two modes, one is the fancy WYSIWYG mode that makes quoting a pain and the other is the "source" mode.
When doing a full reply, you should have a button with the label "View Source(ctrl+shift+s)" to switch between the two.
Alternatively, you can do what many of us do and go in your control panel's options (here's a link, for your convenience>> https://atheistforums.org/usercp.php?action=options) and towards the bottom right enable "Put the editor in source mode by default". Don't forget to save your changes.

This will bring to you the joys of BBcode whenever you reply to someone!

The quick reply box on the bottom only accepts BBcode, as far as I'm aware, so you can always use that with some copy/paste and clever use of the quote tags... just don't expect it will include the handy button that links a quote to the original post.


As for post concatenation, is happens for all replies within 20 minutes of your first reply (at least, it used to be 20 minutes a few years ago), unless someone else replies in between.

Also, "Preview Post" is your friend.

With all that out of the way...

You wrote: As someone who uses the moniker atheist to describe himself, I do not believe that such a god as you describe exists.
This is not synonymous with "I believe that a god such as you describe does not exist", although someone like this could also use the atheist moniker.
 
RESPONSE: We are in agreement that  saying, "I do not believe that such a god as (I) describe exists" is substantially different from "I believe such a god does not exist." I will talk about that difference many times if this discussion goes forward. (I'm not yet convinced it will.)

Agreement is good!  

 
RESPONSE: I agree. There is absolutely no reason to suspect such an entity is necessary. But it is still possible such an entity exists.

I suppose it is possible, yes.
But I guess we'd have to expand the meaning of "exist" to embrace something that is neither physical nor mental.
{I hope the 20 years of interneting enabled you to read between the lines... I don't feel like expanding on what physical means}
The mental bit can be said to be an emergent property of physical brains, so it's supported by something physical, but we can say it isn't physical for simplicity.

And I'm including all fiction in the mental category. So Darth Vader exists, but in the context of fiction; in the same vein, The Abrahamic god, Allah, Thor, Zeus, etc. all exist.

 
You wrote: I too see no reason to suspect that a god is impossible to exist (using exist here as a placeholder for existence in a form other than the imaginary, and the physical, given that I assume we are excluding those two from the equation since god is described as the creator of the physical and we don't want to keep this entity in the realm of human imagination).
 
RESPONSE: Not entirely sure of your point here. Gods are possible. We can leave it at that.

My point is that words have a meaning and we should strive to use them as clearly as possible so as to avoid common double-meanings which lead down an argument of zero value.

What does "exist" mean to you?
In what way are you using the word "exist" when referring to a god which creates the physical universe?

Let's push the boundary a bit. Does the vacuum of space exist?
Does a vacuum in the absence of a Universe exist?
Or is vacuum the absence of existence? If so, and in the hypothetical scenario that the Universe did get created by some quantum vacuum fluctuations, then vacuum can be said to qualify as the god you propose... unless vacuum is already considered as something physical. Is it?

 
RESPONSE:  I see no unambiguous evidence whatever in either direction on the question. Theists seem to see lots of evidence that at least one god exists; atheists seem to see lots of evidence that none exist. Confirmation bias, as I see it.
 
I do agree that the Abrahamic god, like the many gods that pre-date it, seem to be made-made constructs. BUT…gods may exist.

Back to a more down-to-earth conversation...
My impression is that the evidence purported by theists is, at best, involuntarily generated by their minds. There is never any evidence that can be presented to someone else. It is always a "personal path" kind of thing. Looks a lot like something in the mental category I mentioned above.


And, while absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, it is still a damn good hint of absence.
Because of this, I live my life as if there is no god. Hence the moniker, atheist.
Which seems to be the same thing you do, but you fall short of attributing the moniker to yourself. fine. be that way.

[Paleophyte]

I'll let you decide. My stance is that all deities are either:
- Incoherent. The Abrahamic god that's a confusion of mythologies and painfully laden with tribalism and bigotry.
- Inconsistent. A god that is self-refuting by virtue of having characteristics that are contradictory.
- Ineffable. A god that could conceivably exist but cannot be apprehended by mortal minds.
- Irrelevant. A god that is indistinguishable from natural phenomena in every way, shape and form.
- Insufficient. A god that we can't discuss properly because it lacks definition.

On a good day you can manage to hit all five of those in one go.

My guess: You are guessing there are no gods.

Your guess is a little off the mark. I'm willing to accept the proposition that god(s) might exist I just don't believe that mortal minds could begin to understand them. All theological discussion begins and ends at "God isn't impossible." and we can get on with doing the near infinite number of things that are more interesting. Anything further is a load of twaddle, which is precisely what the history of every religion reveals.

The deistic god that created the universe is just life support for the warm fuzzy bits of superstition that we want to cling to long after we've learned to stop being afraid of thunder and the rising moon.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Do holes exist?

[Paleophyte]

RESPONSE:  I appreciate your position and I thank you for sharing it. However, I will stick with I said. When I use the word "god" I mean "The entity (or entities) responsible for the creation of what we humans call 'the physical universe'...IF THERE IS SUCH AN ENTITY." Some people may be unwilling to have discussions with me because of this...and I will lives with that.

This is sometimes a problem on this forum. When someone mentions the word "God," a lot of people automatically define it to mean the worst, most angry Old Testament-type. Your definition -- that which creates the universe -- is perfectly fine. The God of the philosophers (e.g. Spinoza) or the God of the theologians (e.g. Martin Buber) is not the one who asks us to throw people into volcanoes.

Except for the tiny problem that it isn't a definition. It's a single act that might just as easily be ascribed to a natural force. "That which creates the universe" is an apt description of two intersecting branes.

So if the angry tribal God is the only one people are willing to talk about, they're shutting down most of the conversation.

Perhaps you should read the post he was replying to.

As you can see, most people on this forum have had the same conversation a thousand times. If someone comes along who doesn't understand them immediately they switch immediately to personal insults. That's just the kind of forum it is. Personal insults are the norm.

As much as I'm sure you're enjoying wielding that broad brush the least you could do is find a post that it actually applies to. Or are you actively trying to discourage civil discussion?

---

Do holes exist?

Not if thou art wholly holey.

[arewethereyet]

Ok, about the text editor on here. It has two modes, one is the fancy WYSIWYG mode that makes quoting a pain and the other is the "source" mode.
When doing a full reply, you should have a button with the label "View Source(ctrl+shift+s)" to switch between the two.
Alternatively, you can do what many of us do and go in your control panel's options (here's a link, for your convenience>> https://atheistforums.org/usercp.php?action=options) and towards the bottom right enable "Put the editor in source mode by default". Don't forget to save your changes.

This will bring to you the joys of BBcode whenever you reply to someone!

The quick reply box on the bottom only accepts BBcode, as far as I'm aware, so you can always use that with some copy/paste and clever use of the quote tags... just don't expect it will include the handy button that links a quote to the original post.


As for post concatenation, is happens for all replies within 20 minutes of your first reply (at least, it used to be 20 minutes a few years ago), unless someone else replies in between.

Also, "Preview Post" is your friend.

Thank you for this!  I am going to PM it to myself for future reference.

[LadyForCamus]

@Frank Apisa Congrats. You’re an atheist. Anything else?

I am NOT an atheist.

Then you believe in god, lol. We can go round and round all day long!

[Fireball]

This one is cute- "I didn't mean to upset you". 

Pats OP on head...asks management, "How long can we keep him?"