emotional

When you divest God (or the gods) of His personal being, of His transcendence, so as to make Him synonymous with the creative principles of nature, what is left? I used to call myself a pantheist and say "God is Nature". Then I thought to myself: the term "Nature" is sufficient unto itself, and there's no need to use the already occupied term "God" as a synonym.

Then again, deists believe in a first cause that doesn't do anything personal, and they call it "God". Does "God" mean "first effective cause"? The word "god", once so clear as to its meaning (all people used to believe in the sovereignty of the gods), is nowadays a confused term whose meaning varies according to the speaker. Without a proper definition, all this God-talk is meaningless.

Calzaer

Do what I do. Define "God" to fit that which you revere. Not only is it very freeing in both an emotional and semantic sense, you also get to avoid religious arguments started by someone asking "Do you believe in God?"

It's much less stressful to just say "Yes, I believe in God. Gotta run." than it is to say "Well, it depends on how you define 'God'..."

Harumi

Put it that way, and doesn't that rather make the term "atheist" rather obselete then? Anything can be a God. Sheesh, I can be a God if I truly worshipped myself. That makes the word God meaningless as well, although as an atheist, I've never found it to be particularly meaninful in the first place.

It makes things easier, but it almost feels like a cheap way out.

Nowhere357

This is good advice, Calzaer. I think you must admit, however, that when it comes down to communication, to trying to understand what is going on, then we need to go a little deeper than that.

I like Emotional's point, also. I am annoyed that we seem to have allowed religion to corrupt the meanings of otherwise perfectly valid and usable words. "Spiritual' for example is a very useful word, and it's distressing that many athiests dismiss it a priori.

It's contrary to communication when someone answers 'do you believe in god?' with anything other than 'first let's define the term'.

emotional

I honestly can't. I revere (in fact worship) the Sun and the Moon, but I don't call them God or gods, because I don't believe they are controlling me. Gods are supernatural lords. I don't believe in any supernatural lords. I'm a godless atheist.

I'd rather be honest and count myself among the atheists of the world. Never mind the religious arguments, I can manage those. I just can't deceptively label myself what I'm not.

I suppose you, as a Wiccan, believe in a Lady and a Lord. There you are. Those are gods. I believe neither in a Lady nor in a Lord. I don't believe in any supernatural intelligence existing since the beginning of time. It would therefore be dishonest of me to say, "I believe in God". I simply don't.