Am I an Atheist?

[Rhondazvous]

My mother asked me if I was an atheist when I moved away from Christianity.ASoon after I made the break, after 25 years of slowly increasing cognitive dissonance, I looked into other brands of religion and found that they  are all basically the same—everybody trying to prove they believe in only one God whom we can only contact if we make our checks payable to a select group of men and organizations. Add to that the mysogyny I found in all manner of holy writ and I figured religion just wan't for me.

But does that make me an atheist? I've had experiences in my life that I cannot with any measure of logic dismiss as mere coincidence. Case in point: I'm listening to my Windows Media player that has over 300 songs playing at random. I walk a friend to his car and it's raining. When I come back inside, the song "In the Rain" is playing. You knw the saying: if it happens once, it's an accident. If it happens twice, it's a coincidence. If it happens thrice, it's a pattern. I've had similar experiences much more than 3 times. I don't feel enjoined to attribute these experiences to any specific deity since they lend themselves to fifty million different ways they could be interpreted. A supernatural beings? Aliens from a parallel universe trying to make contact? Mind over matter?  Could my mental energy be so strong that I can make a song play simply by thinking about it? I've been left on my own with no empirical means to determine what's what. I could easily rule out the possibilty of the Christian god because the biblical creation story bears not the slightest resemblance to the universe in which we live and it's no jump to conclude that the biblical creator is as fictitious as the world he created. Yet, the possibility of a spiritual explanation for my experiences remains up in the air. So   how can I call myself an atheist?
My problem is that I have no conside definition for the word "atheist." Some atheists define atheism as not believing in God. Nothing more and nothing less.This isn't the answer that ends all questions for me. We recognize a difference between theism and deism. Yet, I've never heard of a adeist.  Instead, atheism is used as a catch-all term that includes everything outside the physical universe.
By that definition, I guess I'm not an atheist. But if I define athist with an emphasis on "theist." then I probably am.  I guess I answered my own question. still, I'd like to hear your thoughts on this.

[rexbeccarox]

Welcome

Do you believe that a deity or deities exist? If yes, you're a theist; if no, you are an atheist.

I consider myself an agnostic atheist as I don't have belief in deities, but I don't claim to know whether they exist or not.

[Pyrrho]

If do don't believe in any god, then you are an atheist (in the sense of, "not a theist"). For more details on that and another meaning of "atheist," see:

http://atheistforums.org/thread-32548.html

[LastPoet]

Do you believe in gods? If no, then yes, you are an atheist, like you said, nothing else.

It is just a subset of my reasonable skepticism. Magic doesn't work for me, and all the tales of gods that I heard, usually bring that up.

[One Above All]

Deism and pantheism are subsets of theism. Theism is belief in one or more deities, whatever form the believer thinks they might take. Atheism is lack of belief in deities. In other words, if you're not a theist, by default, you're an atheist.
However, there are agnostic and gnostic atheists, and agnostic and gnostic theists. Agnostics (by which I mean agnostic atheists and agnostic theists - "agnostic" on its own is a meaningless label) aren't sure if deities exist, but agnostic atheists still lack belief in them, and agnostic theists believe in them. Gnostics (again, gnostic atheists and gnostic theists, as the term "gnostic" is meaningless on its own) are certain deities exist, and they either believe (gnostic theists) in them or they don't (gnostic atheists).

[Simon Moon]

As others have already said, atheism is a response to a single claim, that a god exists.

There is no doctrine, dogma, authority figures in atheism. Atheism is not even a worldview. You can disagree with other atheists on any other position, besides your disbelief on the existence of gods, and still be an atheist.

Belief is the psychological state in which one accepts a proposition or premise as being true. If you accept as being true, that at least one god exists, you are a theist. If you do not accept that premise, you are an atheist.

[Rhondazvous]

"Response to a single claim." There you go. It's been ten years since I called myself a Christian. But I was deeply indoctrinated for decades. How much of what I think and ask is a response to this claim that there's this Colonel Sanders-looking dude I'm supposed to think of as God and his dear son with the  Three Musketeers haircut?  This is what I no longer believe. 

Even after you've defined atheism in no uncertain terms, I must still wonder does what I believe now qualify as a deity? As Richard Dawkins said, a voice booming from heaven is no proof of God because it may just be a technologically advanced extraterrestrial. Nothing can serve as proof of that which is outside our senses since it's subject to interpretation.  I would say it's easier to define what atheism is than to define what a god is.
I'm leaning towards agnostic atheism since I can't say I believe in something without knowing exactly what it is.

[robvalue]

Sure, the problem with most definitions of God is that they are unfalsifiable. They get defined so that they can't get proved wrong, because they quickly would be proved wrong if so. If a Christian met Yahweh for example, they'd have no idea if it was actually him or some powerful alien.

The only version of a deity that makes any sense is the deistic one, a creator which started the universe off but has had no influence since then. There is no evidence there ever was such a thing, but it at least doesn't contradict scientific understanding.

I've found "God" to be the least well defined thing, possibly ever. I've asked people to define it on here, and even Christians can barely manage to say anything about it which would actually identify it.

If you don't actively believe in some sort of creator, then you're an atheist. Sounds like you're ready to me, welcome aboard To me, if some deistic creator exists, or did exist, it makes no difference to anything anyway. So a deist isn't very far from an atheist.

[Rhondazvous]

If a Christian met Yahweh, he'd probably say, "This can't be God. There's no need for faith."

You're right. Just believing that there's a god somewhere or once was a god has no practical meaning from a western p.o.v.  I could believe that  this absentee god put certain laws into motion to help me be a better human being and all I have to do is find them and learn how to harness them, which is basically what eastern religions do.

Sure, the problem with most definitions of God is that they are unfalsifiable. They get defined so that they can't get proved wrong, because they quickly would be proved wrong if so. If a Christian met Yahweh for example, they'd have no idea if it was actually him or some powerful alien. The only version of a deity that makes any sense is the deistic one, a creator which started the universe off but has had no influence since then. There is no evidence there ever was such a thing, but it at least doesn't contradict scientific understanding. I've found "God" to be the least well defined thing, possibly ever. I've asked people to define it on here, and even Christians can barely manage to say anything about it which would actually identify it. If you don't actively believe in some sort of creator, then you're an atheist. Sounds like you're ready to me, welcome aboard To me, if some deistic creator exists, or did exist, it makes no difference to anything anyway. So a deist isn't very far from an atheist.

[Minimalist]

I've had experiences in my life that I cannot with any measure of logic dismiss as mere coincidence.

Try harder.


Where is the "logic" in thinking that god gives a shit which song you listen to?