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[Urist McDerp]

Part time lurker here. Holy carp. Come for the dwarves, stay for some rational people. Before this inevitably goes down the magma-tube I just want to say: well played.

Do you mind if I ask you what exactly you mean by god? It seems that a lot of atheists do not understand what religious people mean when they talk about god. Instead, they make a guess at what god is to religous people, which tends to result in something absurd.

Thiiiiis.

I'm just going to leave this here, because I spy a few people that should learn the term for a particular bit of theology:
(My personal beliefs on the topics at hand):
Ignosticism, or igtheism, is the theological position that every other theological position (including agnosticism) assumes too much about the concept of God and many other theological concepts. The word "ignosticism" was coined by Sherwin Wine, a rabbi and a founding figure in Humanistic Judaism.

It can be defined as encompassing two related views about the existence of God:

1)The view that a coherent definition of God must be presented before the question of the existence of god can be meaningfully discussed. Furthermore, if that definition is unfalsifiable, the ignostic takes the theological noncognitivist position that the question of the existence of God (per that definition) is meaningless. In this case, the concept of God is not considered meaningless; the term "God" is considered meaningless.
2)The second view is synonymous with theological noncognitivism, and skips the step of first asking "What is meant by 'God'?" before proclaiming the original question "Does God exist?" as meaningless.

Some philosophers have seen ignosticism as a variation of agnosticism or atheism, while others have considered it to be distinct. An ignostic maintains that they cannot even say whether he/she is a theist or an atheist until a sufficient definition of theism is put forth.

Pet peeve of mine: EVERYONE always uses the term "atheist" or even "shade/flavor/tint/partial-atheist". It begins to remind me of two party American politics, where there's two "sides" even though the candidates themselves are all over the place on individual topics and personal beliefs; yet they're always lumped in with their sponsoring party. It begins to dumb things down and invokes some unconscious psychological pre-dispositions to bad habits. There's a whole rainbow of theological positions out there on religion, yet everyone only seems to know two.

[freeformschooler]

Pet peeve of mine: EVERYONE always uses the term "atheist" or even "shade/flavor/tint/partial-atheist". It begins to remind me of two party American politics, where there's two "sides" even though the candidates themselves are all over the place on individual topics and personal beliefs; yet they're always lumped in with their sponsoring party. It begins to dumb things down and invokes some unconscious psychological pre-dispositions to bad habits. There's a whole rainbow of theological positions out there on religion, yet everyone only seems to know two.

That has always also bothered me, but then again, I hear a lot of people calling themselves just "atheist" or "christian" or what have you as opposed to other people, so I'm gonna let them do what they want.

[Criptfeind]

Meh. What do you want me to call them? Cause I can not list the whole spectrum every time I talk about it.

[Siquo]

Meh. What do you want me to call them?

You're doing it wrong again

[Cthulhu]

I see your tactic now, pretty ingenious.  Destroy the argument by dividing the sides up into so many mutually exclusive subtypes that you can no longer meaningfully argue.

[Leafsnail]

There are lots of different subtypes, and people have a wide variety of beliefs.  "Atheist" is an umbrella term covering lots of these positions, with the requirement that the person doesn't believe in God.  In the same way that everyone's different but you can still roughly group them if you're talking about one clearly defined variable (in this case, relating to beliefs).

It's nothing like two party politics at all - the problem with that is that it (supposedly) involves people changing their viewpoints to match an established party line, rather than just categorising people by a specific belief.

[Bohandas]

I see your tactic now, pretty ingenious.  Destroy the argument by dividing the sides up into so many mutually exclusive subtypes that you can no longer meaningfully argue.

Well I just find it racist that most so-called athiests insetead of just generally not believeing in god instead specifically don't believe in the Christian God.

[Knight of Fools]

The dividing line between beliefs is a pretty interesting one, especially since the line is more of a giant wavy, fuzzy shadow.  I think that most people who get thrown under the Atheist tag are, in fact, Agnostic, which is a position of "We just don't know!" when it comes to religion (Or anything else, for that matter - An individual can be agnostic about the idea of psychic powers).  Of course, the agnostics have lots of fun with those that believe in Deism, who observe the the same things and come to a more concrete conclusion.  Interestingly, most fair minded Christians might be found to be Deists who could also be agnostic when it comes to invisible shoe gnomes, so the fundamental ideas of the two philosophies aren't in complete opposition.

The fact that a person can fall into several categories at once, and that even within certain parameters and religions people have wide and varying degrees makes things even more interesting.  The fact that views and opinions shift imperceptibly with every new piece of information, even if the person holds fast to their old views and doesn't notice the change, muddles stuff up even more.

[Leafsnail]

Well I just find it racist that most so-called athiests insetead of just generally not believeing in god instead specifically don't believe in the Christian God.

Firstly... it's not in any way "racist".  Race isn't directly linked to religion (except arguably with Judaism?  Maybe?), and even if it were, finding fault with one particular idea doesn't imply that you do so because you think the people who follow that are inferior.

Secondly, I don't think that's how it works (certainly, I don't know anyone who "specifically disbelieves" in the Christian God and have that entirely define their theological views).  Generally atheists in the US and other western countries argue against Christianity, because... more people know about it, it's easier to research and people sometimes use the Bible itself as an argument for the existence of God (it's then a perfectly valid strategy to point out contradictions in the Bible to cast doubt on its credibility).

The dividing line between beliefs is a pretty interesting one, especially since the line is more of a giant wavy, fuzzy shadow.  I think that most people who get thrown under the Atheist tag are, in fact, Agnostic, which is a position of "We just don't know!" when it comes to religion (Or anything else, for that matter - An individual can be agnostic about the idea of psychic powers).

I think that labelling people "agnostic" is far more misleading than labelling someone atheist.  Apart from anything else, it puts everyone except the absolute believers into the same category, and as you say, "agnostic" can refer to any issue, not just the existence of God/ gods/ whatever.  "Atheist", the lack of belief in a God, provides a more meaningful category, I think.

[G-Flex]

I see your tactic now, pretty ingenious.  Destroy the argument by dividing the sides up into so many mutually exclusive subtypes that you can no longer meaningfully argue.

Well I just find it racist that most so-called athiests insetead of just generally not believeing in god instead specifically don't believe in the Christian God.

I don't think I've met a single atheist who's acted that way in conversation. Also, I'm pretty sure Christians aren't a "race".

[Phmcw]

I find amusing that most statement about the existence of "god" would work for an of them. Letting the believer with the quasi certainty to be wrong in its belief.

About miracle, I'll believe it when I've studied them. But every religion claim some so god may or may not be trolling you. 'nuff said that a routine miracle would be that by giving anyone a pretend medicine, you actually improve it's chance to get well.

... maybe I'll make a fortune with a placebo church.

[Phmcw]

Well I just find it racist that most so-called athiests insetead of just generally not believeing in god instead specifically don't believe in the Christian God.

Apart from the WTF "racist" statement that everybody made, "god" has been used to describe such a variety of objects and concepts that it's a bit hard to argue against all of them a the same time. Or even meaningful. And anyway, they doesn't usually believe in any proposed god (like me) and really doubt the existence of a thing that could be meaningfully called god (belief is for religions).

Edit : sorry for the double-post, made a mistake.

[Criptfeind]

If you specifically do not believe in the Christian god, does that mean you believe in all the other mutually exclusive gods? What about the Muslim god and the Jewish god? I believe that they are both the same God as the Christian god.

[bitterhorn]

Well I just find it racist that most so-called athiests insetead of just generally not believeing in god instead specifically don't believe in the Christian God.

You're right, I'd totally believe the Christian God literally existed if he weren't Jewish.   

[Africa]

If you specifically do not believe in the Christian god, does that mean you believe in all the other mutually exclusive gods? What about the Muslim god and the Jewish god? I believe that they are both the same God as the Christian god.

I dunno. From a critical viewpoint can you really say they're the same? The religions themselves identify them as such, but they have so many vastly different characteristics that I don't know if it makes sense to call them the same entity. Just as, if I wrote a comic about Batman where he flies around with a jetpack and blasts people away with machine guns, it would not make sense to say he's the same superhero that appeared in "The Dark Knight."