Is atheism a belief?

[bennyboy]

@bennyboy But then, why give any gods a pass? Who even says the idea of any god is logically plausible? Just because someone proposed it? Or just because a bunch of people believe it? Why give any gods a pass when you're so sure that specific gods do not exist?

It's a fair enough question.  I think it's very unlikely that any proponent of a religious god idea will be able to convince me that it represents reality.

However, there are some more spiritual or philosophical definitions which I find plausible or even likely.

It's possible that there are very large-scale physical systems which are so massively intelligent that they dwarf us as much as we do an ant.  These aren't all-powerful creator gods a la Christianity, but I'd say that I'd call such an entity a god.

It's possible that the Universe is panpsychic-- i.e. that all material has associated with it some small-scale consciousness.  If so, we could debate whether the Universe in that case could be said to be the totality of all possible conscious states, and I might be tempted to call that God also.

It's possible that I'm in some kind of simulation, and that the Universe and all the story around it really WAS created by an intelligence.  It's even possible that we humans might be able to create alternative realities so convincing that they seemed limitless.  Such a person, while not big-G god in the way that the Christian God is, could definitely be said to be god of this reality.

This is all speculative, and it's all conditional-- I do not know if something super-massive (like say a collection of galaxies) can have the kinds of data flow and motivations that I'd associate with an sentient being.  I do not know if material is intrinsically dualistic.  I don't know if this is a simulation or not.

I would say this, though.  I believe that SOME part of our reality, if we came close enough to it, would be so overwhelming philosophically and mentally, that we would be very tempted to call it God.  I just have no idea what that quantity or entity would be.