A Question From Atheists

[Cyberman]

Atheists are under no obligation to provide a definition of gods we don't believe in. Theists assert that a god - at least - exists; atheists reject that assertion as unsupported until it's not. If the god(s) in which atheists don't believe is ill-defined, or undefined, that's the theists' problem.

I don't think that's true. When I say "X does not exist" I must define X, otherwise my sentence does not have any meaning.

And if I was saying that, you would be correct. However, read again what I said - my position is "I do not believe X exists"; not "I believe X does not exist". More accurately, "I do not accept your assertion that X does exist". It's basic burden of proof. You make the case; we assess it and come to a conclusion about it.

[The Grand Nudger]

Wait. You acknowledge that there are people who do not believe that the universe is god and you seem fine with it. Why then are you insisting that we accept the same thing? Do you call the universe god?

I think you got me wrong. I'm just saying that there are some definitions of god which's existence cannot be negated like these:
- God is being
- God is consciousness 
- God is the existence itself
- God is the universe itself
...

Those can all be negated.

Being is being
Conciousness is consciousness
Existence itself, is itself
The universe is the universe.

I think I understand your position and you also understand mine. We only need to settle this one issue. You see the point I want to make is that god is not something definite it's just a word.

-and words refer to something...

people from different cultures have given different meanings to this word, some people in the human history considered god to be the universe as a whole. Please note that this is not a claim! this is simply a definition.

 Sure have.

You cannot negate a definition. 

What I can do, and have done, is negate an equivocation...because it's an equivocation.

Now I'm asking you: Why god cannot be the universe? 

Because the universe is the universe, identity.

what prevents the universe to be considered god?

Nothing, but being considered a god and actually being a god are not the same proposition, so that would be irrelevant.  People can consider a coke can a god.  Pointng, then, to a coke can, does nothing to establish the reality of an existent god....it's still just a coke can, just like all of the little totems and trinkets and talismans and fetishes and shrines that people have worshiped -as- gods or the recepticle of the gods since time immemorial.

what definitions/characteristics/conditions do you have for god in your mind which are inapplicable to the universe? 

Lets start here, with what happens when you google.

God
ɡäd/
noun

1. 1.
   (in Christianity and other monotheistic religions) the creator and ruler of the universe and source of all moral authority; the supreme being.
   synonyms:
   the Lord, the Almighty, the Creator, the Maker, the Godhead; More
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
2. 2.
   (in certain other religions) a superhuman being or spirit worshiped as having power over nature or human fortunes; a deity.
   "a moon god"
   synonyms:
   deity, goddess, divine being, celestial being, divinity, immortal, avatar
   "sacrifices to appease the gods"
   

[Minimalist]

[ignoramus]

OP, to make it easy, we just don't believe in any woo, irrespective of labels.
Is that such a bad thing?

[The Grand Nudger]

To be fair, atheists can and do believe in all sorts of woo.  Crystal therapy, woo...but not a god, so..kosher.

[vorlon13]

how about a bigger version?

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[ignoramus]

Actually, change that to sceptical atheists! Lol!

(My mother used to read tea leaves to her friends!) Loving but gullible.

[The Grand Nudger]

I'm a big fan of harmless superstition..it -seems- to take up the time and effort that people might otherwise spend on harmful religions.  

Hey, it's sunday, shall we go to church and hate on some gays? Nah, nah, let's smoke a bowl and read the cards.

[nosferatu323]

So you're okay with it as long as it can't be proven wrong. What I care about is what you can prove as factual. At this point the word "god" is being thrown around so loosely that you can never test it on anything though. It's a useless label.

The word "god" is not thrown around. We must look thoroughly into the human history and observe that various definitions have been used by people through out the history (including the ones I provided). These definitions and conceptions can vary very significantly. Therefore, a rational mind brings all those definitions into her/his mind when (s)he wants to say "god exists" or "god does not exist". But what I observe here is that you guys know god only through your own culture and background and you refuse when I bring up some well-known definitions of god which are not common in your land and culture. 

And if I was saying that, you would be correct. However, read again what I said - my position is "I do not believe exists"; not "I believe X does not exist". More accurately, "I do not accept your assertion that X does exist". It's basic burden of proof. You make the case; we assess it and come to a conclusion about it.

That's clever. But I think the problem remains. 
You say:
I) For each person P through out the human history
    I do not accept P's assertion that X which (s)he identifies as god does exist
Now I use a counterexample:
II) There exists person P* who considers god and the universe to be equivalent
According to I and II we have:
III) I do not accept P*'s assertion that X which (s)he identifies as the universe does exist
III is a fallacy so either I or II or both of them must be false. 
II is true according to ample evidences (there are many people who believe god is the universe itself)
therefore
I is false.

What I can do, and have done, is negate an equivocation...because it's an equivocation.

I think I understand your position, but I hold a different position: words are not necessarily definite, they do not necessarily refer to something specific. It's completely ok for words to be ambiguous and indefinite, in fact this is the very nature of language. The formal language like the one used in mathematics in definite and clear but it's certainly not the case with natural language. A word in natural language can refer to things that are vastly different. This topic is very well investigated in the study of languages. A title that comes to my mind is Wittgenstein's Tractatus which advocates these points. There is even a part where Wittgenstein discusses the word God and shows the ambiguity of this word and concludes that attempts to argue about god are usually determined to be failures due to indefinite and ambiguous nature of the word.

I'm not well-versed in the study of languages and I prefer not to discuss this point further. I think it's natural and inevitable to have ambiguity in language and you believe otherwise. 

You quoted from a dictionary, it scratches the surface of the definitions of the word, if you want to make the definitions complete you must add this to it also:

Pantheism holds that God is the universe and the universe is God

I picked this sentence up from the Wikipedia page on God. 

how about a bigger version?

According to some interpretations of some of the gods on this list, negation of their existence will result in a fallacy. For example some Hindu traditions hold the view that Shiva is "the consciousness" it means that the consciousness that you are experience in this very moment is Shiva. Clearly denying the existence of Shiva with this definition leads to a fallacy.

[Astreja]

Technically, Guanyin is a Bodhisattva, not a goddess (although she's sometimes worshipped as a goddess, and got a really nice write-up in the Deities and Demigods D&D manual). She's also on the list a second time as Kuan-Yin, but I also see Athena/Minerva, Zeus/Jupiter, and a few others that I would consider duplicates.

It scares me that I know at least a third of the names on that list.