I’ll give defining those words a try, but I cannot confirm that you will be satisfied with my definitions.

Atheist - Someone who does not think that God exists
God - That which atheists do not think exist
Exist - That which atheists do not think God exhibits

But seriously, I will try to give it a go.

God - A transcendent deity who created the universe and involves itself in the universe (still a very ambiguous term, sorry)
Exist - something that could have an a effect on everything else that exists
Atheist - Someone who does not believe that God exists — Georgios Bakalis

Good enough, thank you, I appreciate it, and my satisfaction not the goal (at least here), but rather having some kind of starting point.

Do atheists actively not want God to exist? — Georgios Bakalis

Under your existence would fall ideas. I happen to believe ideas do indeed exist, but in a sense that has to be dis-attached from the "exist" that characterizes objects, else massive confusion result.

On the other hand, your God seems to be an object of some kind, about whom or which it is usually understood that nothing substantive whatsoever can be said. Well, may I observe that ideas have that quality. As objects, nothing whatsoever can be said of ideas as substantive. But that leaves the notions of creating and involving - how does that work?

An atheist then, is someone who does not accord the status of existence-as-object-of-any-kind to that about which it is understood nothing substantive whatsoever can be said. Do I want such to exist? How can it?

Of course, I am glad God exists ... — Georgios Bakalis

"God does not exist. He is being-itself beyond essence and existence. Therefore to argue God exists is to deny Him. It is as atheistic to affirm God as it is to deny Him. God is being-itself, not a being." ~Paul Tillich, theologian-philosopher

Do atheists actively not want God to exist? I am aware that many atheists come to their conclusion because they believe God is impossible and other reasons. However, is there ever an element of not wanting God to exists? — Georgios Bakalis

Atheists hold many different views - it is not a consistent system and doesn't intend to be. You need to open this up. Which God are you referring to?

Theists are also atheists when it comes to other religion's Gods. Does the Christian hope that Allah does not exist - or Waheguru or Ahura Mazda? You bet. The literal God of the Bible's Old Testament is like a Mafia boss and a moral black hole who condones slavery and genocide - who would want this?

What about the various Gods found in all the versions of Christianity? There is not one Jehovah or Jesus. The God of a Catholic liberation theology activist will be utterly unrecognizable to the God of a Southern Baptist. There's a presupposition held that people within a single religious tradition are worshipping the same god. I don't think this is accurate.

Atheism generally holds that there is no good reason to accept the proposition that a god exists. I personally don't think the idea of a God as described by theism makes enough coherent sense to be thought of as more than a human construct.

"God does not exist. He is being-itself beyond essence and existence. Therefore to argue God exists is to deny Him. It is as atheistic to affirm God as it is to deny Him. God is being-itself, not a being." ~Paul Tillich, theologian-philosopher — 180 Proof

My local parish priest says the same thing - God does not exist, that lowly status belongs only to things of the world. God as Tillich's the 'ground of being' fades from my mind the more I consider it.

I think it’s often both. Atheists think that there is no good reasons to think god exists but many also recognise how awful it would be if god actually did exist, especially if various horrifying content of the bible were true as well. — DingoJones

Much of that is true in my case, if I really want to be honest about it. But my atheism comes mainly by finding the doctrines of the Roman Catholic church pukey. And I resented my own father, big time. He was a huge asshole. And he quoted me the Bible to convince me of things, and they were ridiculously transparently wrong. Or else if not wrong, then irrelevant and pukey.

So... much of my atheism comes form a turn-off from a doctrine that makes me throw up.

Atheism is only an appendix to my rejecting the Roman Catholic beliefs.

But I hate now the Islam, Hinduism, and Judaism as strongly as I hate all the stupid little Christian religions, and the big ones, too.

I am an atheist MAINLY because those who argue against atheism subscribe to some form of a religion or another, and by association I defend what they try to prove wrong.

It depends on what exactly you mean by God. It would be awesome if an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good being existed, because then nothing bad would ever happen. Except bad things do happen, so...

It’d be great if there was even a very knowledge, very powerful, very good being, since then much less bad would happen. The latter is at least something that someday could exist: we could make and/or become such a being ourselves, or someone somewhere else could and then we could benefit from it too.

It would also be nice if what we think is reality isn’t actually the whole of reality and there exists some being beyond it who for some reason can’t make everything in here perfect for everyone (to explaining why it’s not) but can eventually rescue everyone from here (even those who’ve already died) and put them somewhere that it can make perfect for all of us. But now we’re into really far-fetched wishful thinking, basically hoping that we are in some aliens’ simulation and that very specific circumstances in our favor pertain in the aliens’ world.

My local parish priest says the same thing - God does not exist, that lowly status belongs only to things of the world. God as Tillich's the 'ground of being' fades from my mind the more I consider it. — Tom Storm

Things either exist, or they don't. There is no in-between, or existence-outside-of-existence. This is the precise sort of incredibly stupid doctrine that religious people believe (if they do) which happens only because they are able to reject the application of their own brains.

I refuse to believe the unbelievable-- and that right away cancels the valid belief base of any religion.

I personally don't think the idea of a God as described by theism makes enough coherent sense to be thought of as more than a human construct. — Tom Storm

This, actually, can be due to the fact also, that theists are a somewhat incapable bunch. They can't create a supernatural image that fits in the natural world. This may not be god's ineptitude... it screams of the theist's pitiful inability to create a believable god.

Because, I believe that we must differentiate the god of possible existence, and the god of religious descriptions. The god of possible existence shows nothing of itself to us, so to speak of its actual qualities and abilities is futile, it is pure guess work. The god described by religions has clearly impossible qualities, and its own qualities and abilities are mutually exclusive.

This, actually, can be due to the fact also, that theists are a somewhat incapable bunch. — god must be atheist

I'm more generous about some theists. I think there is a very interesting school of theists that include people like Tillich and David Bentley Hart, who are very learned and deep thinkers about philosophy and being. In the end, if people believe in some form of a deity - as long as they are not changing laws to suit their worldview and they play nice with others - I don't care too much. For me it is mainly about the impact of their beliefs on others - I realize this is not an exact science.

Excellent bad things do happen, — Pfhorrest

Ya know......when we were growing up, one of the constant admonitions of our teachers was, “CHECK YOUR SPELLING!!”. Nowadays, given all these aids that effectively dumb us down, we would be well-advised to check our spellchecker. Which just goes to show....the more things change, the more they stay the same.

I suppose it does. The God of the Old and New Testaments, Qur’an and many others differ greatly, and yet the atheist supposedly believes in none of them. Because of this, I reckon the atheist would need to account more generally, if that makes sense. — Georgios Bakalis

The mono-theist believes in none of them, except just one. There is just as much evidence for one as there is for all the rest - none. The atheist is just being consistent.

As an atheist, it depends on the nature of the God. However, if I had to generalize I'd likely hope that there IS a god, even if only because I can continue to live on in some form instead of existence simply ending at death.

Do atheists actively not want God to exist? — Georgios Bakalis

I would love for a just and good god to exist, I don't actively want there to be no god, I just interpret reality as good as it can be interpreted. But what I would want or what I think would be nice to exist has nothing to do with it really. As an atheist, you take reality for what it is, no more no less. Why give credit or blame to something that there's no proof of existence when we can arrive at conclusions much more rational and close to the truth by actually analyzing reality around us? It's not only nicer to actually know something, it's also more practical for human needs and wants.

So, I don't really want there to be or not to be a god, the question is really phrased wrong since it assumes there is a binary way of living with either wanting there to be or not to be. The third option is to not even think about it like that, just accept reality around as it is, in itself. There's no lack of beauty or lack of explanations for horrific things by ignoring the idea of a god. Reality and the universe is enough as it is.

I hope that god doesn't exist but my reason is going to sound a little weird and that reason is for god's own sake. If god exists, god has a lot of explaining to do - the little baby mice being devoured alive by ravenous army ants, the only child of parents dying slowly in the desert sand from starvation as a vulture waits for the inevitable end, and this is just the tip of the iceberg.

By the way, there's a part of me that, paradoxically, hopes that god does exist. It would make a world of a difference to many people who put all their faith in his benevolence. Paradoxes, I love paradoxes - they're uncomfortable to hold in the mind but there's something about them which at this moment I can't quite put my finger on.

Hi, I am a theist and I have a question for atheists. I hope this does not cause too much turmoil. Do atheists actively not want God to exist? I am aware that many atheists come to their conclusion because they believe God is impossible and other reasons. However, is there ever an element of not wanting God to exists? I hope this makes sense. — Georgios Bakalis

Atheists (and I may be resting this fallaciously) are individuals solely identified by a non-belief in God; whether they find God heartwarming or authoritarian, is immaterial to whether they are atheistic.

Anti-theists, on the contrary, are fervently averse to theistic ideas (eg. Christopher Hitchens). Antitheism almost invariably subsumes atheism, whilst atheism may not have an additive perspective on theological belief.

:up:

I'm definitely an antitheist but without the frothy animus or angst.

I'm agnostic on epistemic grounds. I don't know - and furthermore, nor does anyone else. I'm content with that arrangement, and for whatever reason, apparently, so is God! So why bother forming an opinion one way or another. I can think of two reasons:

1. Childhood indoctrination with religion, and
2. Disenchantment from childhood indoctrination with religion.

Having passed through both of those phases; first, theism, secondly, atheism, I've arrived at last at the rational position. Epistemic agnosticism. I find it helps to focus on what I can, reasonably know.

Because of this, I reckon the atheist would need to account more generally, if that makes sense. — Georgios Bakalis

Would need to?
Why?
Who or what are theists that atheists would need to justify themselves to them?


Other than that, I'm an atheist, and I have one desire in reference to God: Would the right God please stand up?!

Droves of atheists (and anti-theists) renunciate merely the social consequences of organized, religious structures - as opposed to the (indeterminate) metaphysical assertions, that the structures themselves declaim.

Nowadays, given all these aids that effectively dumb us down, we would be well-advised to check our spellchecker. Which just goes to show....the more things change, the more they stay the same. — Mww

Yeah, in this case it was my phone's autocomplete pulling the rug out from under me. So many times, I start typing a word, it gives me an autocomplete option, and then apparently while I'm reaching to press that word, it switches it with a different word.

I'm irreligious too; for me, however, that (political) concern is separate and distinct from my (philosophical) antitheist-atheism.

A question I throw your way - at you - occasionally is if you would accept the notion that the only god there can be is us: We him/her, s/he us, no one else, for better and worse, and th-th-th-that's all folks. And that fragile vessel ourselves our sole hope, at least until the giant spaceships arrive from the Santa-Claus galaxy.

Of course. Political concerns are often what encourage atheists to be evasive of religious ideals, in combination with their irreligious personalities - they're an additive element, as opposed to a characteristic one.

It would be awesome if an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good being existed, because then nothing bad would ever happen. — Pfhorrest

I'd be interested to know which Biblical or other religious texts validate this claim.

"God does not exist. He is being-itself beyond essence and existence. Therefore to argue God exists is to deny Him. It is as atheistic to affirm God as it is to deny Him. God is being-itself, not a being." ~Paul Tillich, theologian-philosopher — 180 Proof

This is true, but nevertheless Tillich, as a theologian, clearly believed that God is real. So here, he's making a claim about the difference between 'what is real' and 'what exists'.

The conception of 'God' as any kind of super-director, intelligent designer, or cosmic potentate, which is how he's most often depicted by current atheism, is a 'straw god' argument, comprising an attack on what David Bentley Hart describes as the God of 'monopolytheism'.

I feel as though one of my frequently-quoted passages is relevant to this thread. It's from Thomas Nagel's essay, Evolutionary Naturalism and the Fear of Religion, which was a chapter in his 2008 book, The Last Word. The essay opens by quoting a rather Platonist passage from C S Peirce which concludes with:

The soul's deeper parts can only be reached through its surface. In this way the eternal forms, that mathematics and philosophy and the other sciences make us acquainted with will, by slow percolation, gradually reach the very core of one's being, and will come to influence our lives; and this they will do, not because they involve truths of merely vital importance, but because they [are] ideal and eternal verities.

Nagel acknowledges that whilst he finds these ideas congenial, they are 'quite out of keeping with present fashion' - because, he says, they suggest a deep 'inward sympathy' between reason itself and the natural order. He goes on to say:

Even without God, the idea of a natural sympathy between the deepest truths of nature and the deepest layers of the human mind, which can be exploited to allow gradual development of a truer and truer conception of reality, makes us more at home in the universe than is secularly comfortable. My guess is that this cosmic authority problem is not a rare condition and that it is responsible for much of the scientism and reductionism of our time. One of the tendencies it supports is the ludicrous overuse of evolutionary biology to explain everything about life, including everything about the human mind. Darwin enabled modern secular culture to heave a great collective sigh of relief, by apparently providing a way to eliminate purpose, meaning, and design as fundamental features of the world. The thought that the relation between mind and the world is something fundamental makes many people in this day and age nervous. I believe this is one manifestation of a fear of religion which has large and often pernicious consequences for modern intellectual life.

In speaking of the fear of religion, I don't mean to refer to the entirely reasonable hostility toward certain established religions and religious institutions, in virtue of their objectionable moral doctrines, social policies, and political influence. Nor am I referring to the association of many religious beliefs with superstition and the acceptance of evident empirical falsehoods. I am talking about something much deeper - namely, the fear of religion itself. I speak from experience, being strongly subject to this fear myself. I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn't just that I don't believe in God and, naturally, hope that I'm right in my belief. It's that I hope there is no God! I don't want there to be a God; I don't want the universe to be like that.

The full text can be found here.

I've no idea what point you're making ...

Self-deification, or gnosis? That heresy, I'm afraid, leads to "The Dark Side". :eyes:

The conception of 'God' as any kind of super-director, intelligent designer, or cosmic potentate, which is how he's most often depicted by current atheism, is a 'straw god' argument ... — Wayfarer

So this is not the theistic "conception of God" in e.g. Abrahamic religions?

And target of "current atheism"? Reacquaint yourself, Wayf, with the 3rd century BCE Riddle of Epicurus:

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then He is not omnipotent.
Is He able, but not willing?
Then He is malevolent.
Is He both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is He neither able nor willing?
Then why call Him God?

It would be awesome if an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good being existed, because then nothing bad would ever happen. — Pfhorrest

I'd be interested to know which Biblical or other religious texts validate this claim. — Wayfarer

I'm not appealing to religious texts at all. I'm not saying "some religion claims that their god ensures nothing bad ever happens". That would be a short-lived religions, making such an obviously false claim that anybody who has any less than perfect day (i.e. everybody all the time) could validate.

I'm not even saying that any religious texts explicitly claim that their god is all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-good. Some might, but I don't know for sure, and I'm not depending on that.

But in philosophy of religion, it is commonly claimed that capital-G God is has all of those omni-properties.

And if there was something with all those omni-properties, that would logically entail that nothing bad would ever happen. No religious-textual support required.

So this is not the theistic "conception of God" in e.g. Abrahamic religions? — 180 Proof

No, it’s not, although I don’t expect to be able to wade through the impenetrable barriers of your professed anti-theism so as to demonstrate why.

And if there was something with all those omni-properties, that would logically entail that nothing bad would ever happen — Pfhorrest

Right. So in your perfect world, ruled by aforesaid perfect deity, there would no birth, death, or illness, right? Because all of those entail suffering, and according to this model, no suffering could exist, so nobody could ever be born, right?

I do have a better answer than dismissal, but it’s long.

I’ve been contemplating the idea that the monotheist ‘One’, the source of the God idea, was understood by the Mediterranean cultures in which the belief appeared in similar terms to the various pantheistic gods that were to be displaced - Baal, Zeus, Jupiter, and the remaining members of the pantheon.

I actually do believe in the subject of monotheist religion - I’m not atheist - but at the same time I think that this being, whatever or whoever, is depicted as ‘a God’ in the polytheist sense, and is very much like Jupiter, which means ‘sky-father’ (from the Indo-European root Dyaus Pitar.)

So, in my view, many believers accept, and many atheists reject, something very much like Jupiter, a deity of ancient Middle-Eastern provenance. I have relatives who earnestly pray to ‘Jehovah’, and I’m sure that’s what they envisage (even though ‘Jupiter’ and ‘Jehovah’ spring from completely divergent linguistic and cultural roots.)

But I don’t think that’s what classical theism really believes (and, neither do I). If anything it’s a concession to the popular imagination, although regrettably the biblical tropes of tares, sheep, fields, and blood sacrifice mean nothing in post-industrial culture so to that extent, Christianity has lost its hold on the popular imagination. (No kidding!) But in light of that, I don’t simply reject ‘religion’ as a ‘bronze age mythology’. Behind those ancient ruins .... and so on.

The question I would put to the Epiucureans is that, Socrates was accused of atheism, but he denied it. He didn’t profess any belief in the Athenian pantheon - that was one of the causes of his condemnation - but he also said he wasn’t atheist. Of course, it is legendarily difficult to pin down what he did believe in, but he denied being atheist. So is that complaint of the Epicureans directed at whatever deity Socrates did believe in?

So is that complaint of the Epicureans directed at whatever deity Socrates did believe in? — Wayfarer

Only Socrates knows. (IIRC it's a daimon, not a theos ... and, therefore, not an epicurean concern.)

But I don’t think that’s what classical theism really believes (and, neither do I).

As Pascal noted: this suggests "the god of philosophy" and not "the God of Abraham"; it's the latter (deity type) that ancient as well as modern "atheism" concerns itself. No one, to my knowledge, has ever lived, sacrificed, sworn, persecuted, killed or died in the name of "the god of philosophy", but only, maybe, to suppress it (e.g. Socrates' "deity"?)