Atheism Stack Exchange Archive

What is god in atheism? Or “How do Atheists define god?”

What is god in atheism? or “How do Atheists define god?

Answer 352

But in order not to believe in something, you should know what is it.

Emphasis mine

It seems you’re confusing the map for the place. Just because we have a concept for something, doesn’t mean that thing exists on any level besides conceptual. I have a concept of leprechauns, and I don’t believe they exist. Are you going to tell me I should believe in them? What about the tooth fairy? What about Santa? What about the purple dragon who lives in my closet but only I can see?

The reason atheists can disbelieve gods—the reason we have a concept of gods, is because of communication. People communicate what they believe in to give us the concept, and we evaluate the merits of the claims. If you tell me there is an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent creator of the universe, I now have that concept in my mind. I choose to disbelieve in its existence, because those qualities result in logical contradictions.

The fact that I’m able to make this statement lends ABSOLUTELY no support to the idea that said entity exists.

Answer 326

The idea that you really have to commit to a side in the sky-fairy debate is a pet peeve of mine. The existence/nonexistence of God is about as interesting to me as who wins the national hockey championship.

So, instead of debating on a concept that has never been well defined, simply base your approval or disapproval on individual churches/faiths/people.

Answer 363

This question a fallacious. In order to not believe something, you have to define it first? Do you believe in red unicorns with yellow-spiral horns? no? How about red unicorns with green spiral horns? No? Then do you believe in red….

The set of all things it is possible for a being like a human to believe in is effectively infinite. The set of all things a human can actually believe in, or even consider believing, at once is finite. So, there must be by definition a nearly infinite set of things we never even consider. Our disbelief in those those things is not just practical, it is impossible to avoid. It must fall to the proponent of a new idea to define it. We, as atheists, have yet to encounter a idea of god that we find compelling. We’re under no obligation to go our and define all the possible permutations of the idea of god that we won’t believe in the future should someone present them to us.

Answer 457

No, in order to not believe in something you do NOT need to know what it is. In order to positively assert that something is false or untrue you need to know what it is. I don’t believe in the existence of wiggedly-womps because I’ve been given no indication that anything called a “wiggedly-womp” exists. However, I would hold off on saying that wiggedly-womps most certainly do not exist until someone defines what a wiggedly-womp is and I look into the evidence for their existence. But right up until I made up that word, I was getting along pretty well without any belief in wiggedly-womps at all, even though I had absolutely no knowledge of a collection of sounds that, when strung together, sounds like “wiggedly-womp”.

People confuse “lack of belief” for “belief of lack” all the time. Atheists who positively assert there “is no god” or “there is not that god” are a subcategory of atheist. But to be an atheist, all you need is lack of belief.

Also, the responsibility for proof lies with the one making the claim. So it is not the atheist’s responsibility to define a god in order to defend against the existence of one. It is the responsibility of the theist to define his god and provide evidence for it. A rational atheist simply resorts to the null hypothesis in the absence of any positive evidence, and can use logic and attempts to falsify falsifiable claims to refute any positive evidence or assertions presented, but it is up to the one making the claim to provide that positive evidence or assertions.

Answer 1010

What is god in atheism?

This question is meaningless. I’ll try to guess what you’re asking.

How do atheists define god?

Answering only for myself, I don’t. It’s up to people who believe in said entity to tell us what they’re talking about. Once they’ve explained a God-concept which makes sense, then we can talk about whether I believe in it. The answer, for all God-concepts I have so far been exposed to, is no.

But this is a Q&A site, not a discussion forum. And you asked about “atheists”, as a whole, not about me in particular.

So to answer the more general question, I’d say, from reading a fair bit of atheist debate, that many atheists define god in the way their majority culture does. If they were brought up in a religion, they may define god the way that religion does. Other atheists, like me, would ask believers to define god in any discussion on the subject. This is useful, because different believers have quite different understandings of God, so it’s handy to work out exactly what we’re talking about before continuing. This position is known as igtheism.

How do atheists relate to my God?

As another answerer here has already said, we see your God as your imaginary friend (I’ll say invisible friend if I’m feeling polite). Not much to add here.

What do atheists worship?

We don’t, generally. Some might, in some ways (especially if you count Buddhism as atheist, as some do). Of course, worship itself is a word with more than one meaning. I worship Terry Pratchett and Tim Minchin.

EDIT TO ADD:

What do atheists think god/God is?

We don’t. That’s rather the point.

Do atheists have a theory about why other people believe in a god?

There are some ideas, but most of the ones I’ve heard have come out of evolutionary psychology, which is itself a somewhat suspect field (not least for its tendency to claim that Western 1950s gender roles are part of the immutable nature of humanity). I’m not aware that any theories on this subject are particularly well-known among, or well supported by, atheists. Individual atheists may well support one or another. (Listing these theories would make a good community wiki question, actually.) Personally, I’ll settle for “I don’t know.”


I’ve tried to answer for “atheists in general”, which is what the question asked for, and I’ve also answered for myself. I hope I’ve made the distinction clear. And I hope I’ve also made clear the disclaimer that I’m not really qualified to answer for “atheists in general”. But then, only a sociologist would be.

Answer 323

Atheists don’t believe in god, the concept in itself is clearly defined as an overbeing that decides fate and all sorts of conspiracy theories.

Answer 325

According to us: god is anything supernatural responsible for the creation of the universe and/or affecting its events. Because there is no evidence for any such supernatural being, we don’t believe in it and are called atheists.

Answer 348

That’s a bit of a loaded question. There are many definitions of what makes a God, and it’s changed again and again over time. Part of the problem with arguing against a “God” is that the idea is so malleable that believers can simply say “Oh, well that’s not what my God is like”.

Answer 350

One generally cannot assume that the god an atheist might describe corresponds to the conception of god held by any theist one might encounter.

An analogy would be a used car: the number of used cars you wouldn’t buy has to number in the millions. The reason you wouldn’t buy it could be literally anything. Asking “what do atheists not believe in” is semantically equivalent to saying “what kind of used car wouldn’t you buy?”

One has to ask: what is the theist selling? Does it make funny smells? Are there strange noises coming from under the hood? Does it pass a basic safety inspection? To a first approximation, the number of gods being sold by theists which are worth buying into is zero.

Answer 385

Atheist lack belief in deities. Why? Because we don’t trust the veracity of the reasons given to believe in them.

Answer 752

nonexistent [min chars]

Answer 728

As Richard Dawkins and many of his peers have pointed out, almost all religious people disbelieve in other gods not of their particular faith. Atheists simply go one god further.

Answer 844

A self-referential proposition.

Answer 849

God is something worthy of worship, as nebulous as any of those terms are.

Answer 853

God is a quirk of our unique brains and culture. not a very good answer I am sorry

Answer 858

To me god is a thought in peoples minds.

Answer 2508

Santa Claus ________

Answer 2571

God is an illusion, created by man, partly to fool other people, mostly to fool himself, to explain things which are hard to understand (lightening, illness), to build comfort if someone dies.

It’s an materialisation of social ideas, which are hard to express if you live in a prescientific world, and not easy to express if do after all.

The basics of religion are: comming together, singing, preaching, praying, (poorly) explaining the world, giving very simple social rules, telling stories, making you fear, organizing against enemies. God is the symbol, the brand and label where you find your group, if you like to belong to one of them. It’s a symbol, and a very flexible one.


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