(September 8, 2012 at 8:41 am)greneknight Wrote: I am totally confused and I can't seem to fit into any category. I am a Christian, and quite devout too seeing that much of my life revolves round the church and I serve at the altar too. But I don't believe in anything supernatural. I don't accept the existence of ghosts either and I am totally without superstition. I will happily give and happily given bits of my hair and bits of finger nail to a friend who knew a voodoo practitioner but I'm not the least bothered about the supernatural because I'm so sure it's all bunkum. Just as I don't accept ghosts and fairies, I don't believe in a supernatural God either and along with that, I dismiss all the heavenly hosts and God's retinue of supernatural attendants. I'm ok with seeing God as a cultural metaphor just as angels must be metaphorical - I think even diehard fundies don't believe angels exist.
It appears my dismissal of anything supernatural is even more complete that that of some atheists and yet I'm a devout Christian. It's neater if you divide people according to church affiliations. Things become clearer then.
Do you have some sort of aversion to the term 'atheist'? Do you feel that if you call yourself an atheist, people will attach all sorts of negative baggage to you?
It doesn't really matter if you call yourself an atheist or not, by definition, you are an atheist.
As others have said, you may like the culture and the ritual of Christianity, but make no mistake, you are an atheist.
You'd believe if you just opened your heart" is a terrible argument for religion. It's basically saying, "If you bias yourself enough, you can convince yourself that this is true." If religion were true, people wouldn't need faith to believe it -- it would be supported by good evidence.
