Every time I read something like this I think this person is American. Even subscribers on this site seem to be recovering from religious indoctrination and it shows. I am a great admirer of nature but it has nothing to do with any god

If I see beauty in the natural world, I call it beauty, not god. I feel no need to re-label it. The only reason to call something a god is if it behaves like a magical being with control over all or part of the environment in which one lives. Since nothing I have seen does that, I call them by their designated names: weather, nature, an unfortunate occurrence, or even "I just don't know." I have never been so unable to identify something that I would attach to it the moniker of "God."

Why mislead the world at large. Why not use the words beautiful and nature? Seems intellectually dishonest to call things we know as naturally occurring some supernatural title. Like calling your rock. ... a magic wand instead of Rocky

I stick with objective ideas because they are dealing with facts as we know them. Subjective is where you make something up and call it whatever you want it to be. "Rocky" might be just a rock but believers use this way of thinking to promote anything they like about their god.

You need to explain why you are still talking about God. How does it benefit you? Are you hedging your bets?

It appears to me you are conflating belief in god and actions based on belief in god. I could care less whether someone believes in a god but I care immensely what they do with that belief. I can have friendly discussions with folks that are religious and that are spiritual and not religious but the ones that use their belief to rule are the problem.

The problem I see is that your neighbor also picks up a rock and takes it home, but he named his Jesus and now he keeps hitting people with Jesus and saying look how beautiful he is. And he trying to get all of the rest of us to change the name of our 'Rocky' to Jesus. Plus, he is having a personal relationship with his rock (?) and trying to get kids to have relationships with his rock. She also is trying to get me in trouble with the community because I am neglecting my rock. She thinks I am a monster because I want to run scientific experiments on my rock to find out what it's made of. If I shoot myself in the foot, it was because I missed his rock.

There is an undeniable conceptual entity that is the entirety of reality. We can call that thing "the entirety of reality" or we can shorten it to "nature" or we can call it Goddy McGodface or Suzy; it doesn't matter what we call it. It exists. Humans like to personify and name things. We name our pets. We name our cars. Sometimes we name our favorite body parts. We are pattern detectors. We see faces in the moon and all kinds of things in clouds, not to mention tortillas.

We are metaphor-makers. It's one of the main things that make us human; we can use the image or idea of one thing to represent another thing. It's a kind of shorthand. It's a central part of our communication skills. We are able to symbolize complex ideas with abbreviated imagery or utterances. We could change what we call that largest of concepts. We could change how we think about it. But we can't make it not exist. It created us, and it will still be around long after we're gone. It has undeniable god-like qualities. It doesn't offend me to personify it and call it God, for ease of handling.

I'd rather look for commonality with my fellow humans than to look for excuses to belittle and despise them. Religion is a social and psychological art-form. We could no more get rid of it than we could get rid of music or dance. It's part of who and what we are.

My thoughts are, I’m happy without any any definition of god in my life, metaphorical or any other. I can see nature and it’s beauty and wonders. and I can also see nature’s powerfully destructive forces and it’s ugliness too. What I cannot see is any semblance or hand of god in any of it. My view hasn’t changed for more than 60 years...I believe god is manmade and organised religions peddle this spiritual dimension to god because they have no material evidence of his existence to justify belief in him otherwise.

You do you.
I have no use for any of it, and don't want it influencing public policy, my life, or
the lives of others.

Your concept of God sound very much like the way Einstein referred to God. Einstein would regularly make references to God in his writings as the beauty he found in the natural world and as represented in the equations physicists found in the natural world. But Einstein's references were often musunderstood by those who conceived of God in a different way. Because the term being used is the same, it gave theist the opportunity to claim that Einstein believed something he didn't actually believe. Einstein once stated, "It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.” My conclusion is that it is probably better to avoid using the term God in order to avoid this confusion and misunderstanding (whether accidental or intentional). Terms like natural order or somthing similar may be close enough to convey the wonder and spiritual-like awe for the beauty and wonder of the natural world.

As a side line: My God concept - the closest to a belief, but not a belief - is a pantheist concept of God where God is the equivalent of everything real in the universe. This is not a personal God that one can pray to and expect an answer or response, and it would include all the ugly things of the universe - like predation, starvation, disease, pain and suffering, etc. It isn't necessarily a pretty or feel good version of God we generally like to conceive, but it includes all this but also all the opposites as well.

Why is there a need to call it "god?" Knowing the science causes me to feel a strong connection to nature--after all everything in the universe is connected. Everything comes from stardust and there is no need to call any of it "god;" especially given the connotations of using that word.

Using the word "god" implies intent and I see no reason to think that any act of intent was/is necessary. And, the danger of using the word god, and therefore implying intent, is that humans invent religions because they claim to know the intent this god; and then many, most even, try to push those beliefs onto others--either by persuasion or force.

"It is a word. What matters is the connection the word implies." From the Matrix Revolutions

I think the god of biblical revelation is a disaster but the concept of god, according to Kant, is unavoidable even if unsupportable by reason or nature. He thought of it as an ideal from which moral principles could be made. I can relate to non-believers reacting in horror to the political implications of a belief in the Third Temple but god as an aspiration is just a form of human spirituality.

Quickly...A God concept, in the best of all possible worlds, pulls one's thinking beyond the immediate and takes it to a vast perspective. When you see things from a larger standpoint, from a greater distance, you see more facets, more reasons to come to your conclusions. In short, you become wiser. That is not true when your God has been defined for you and you do not think beyond what you have been taught...especially when that God they foisted on you attacks you making you a slave to their aims.

What atheists, aside from Anti-Theists, are trying to get totally rid of the God concept? I'm not. I'm just trying to totally get rid of theists trying to force ME to follow their warped view of the world. They can believe what they want; just keep me out of it.

This is an excellent point. I don't think gods meant what it grew into, in the religious context and paradigm. Gods were often simply representations of natural concepts. In ancient languages the word simply meant "power" and could be used in reference to powerful people even. It's just that religion took these concepts, took everything literally, put everything in a box, and then encrypted that box so that only those of that religion could be "Worthy to open the seal". This then leads to an "us vs them" scenario of high and mighty judgmental interactions between saints and sinners.

You can also understand God as a principle that is manifested through you, without thinking there has to be someone higher, with magical powers, but rather the magic is science and is found in everything we have been able to accomplish as a species. I have no doubt that one day we will even create a sentient species. What would that make us? I think it is the current political state of affairs that requests us to react and respond by being more militant towards religious ideology because we do not want the damage it causes. And we react on the behalf of those billions who just cannot see the damage they are doing in the name of "God". But we do need to be wise and intelligent in how we go about the task of correcting this mistake of religion and replacing it with something better; like a loving society.

Calling the beauty of nature 'God' isn't religion, isn't creating some all powerful, invisible policeman in the sky that's watching your every move. It's not the word 'God', it's they it's used to give one group power over another, to justify oppression and control 'for their own good'. As long a that's out there, I'll fight it tooth and claw.

I have yet to have a theist provide objective evidence that their god is real. As an atheist I have a lack of belief in gods. If a god was proven real, then I wouldn't be an atheist to that god. Doesn't mean I would worship that god either.

I consider the concept of God as a psychological need for some people. It is almost like a security blanket. If it makes them happy, then why knock them down.

The closest thing we have to god is the concept of "irony". We live in a world overflowing with "irony"

The only time I would get in an argument with a believer in gods is if:
a. Their actions do not seem to match what they preach. - I would point out their hypocrisy or tease them.
b. Their values step on the rights of others or do not follow the basic principal of equality.
c. They try to convert others aggressively or take it way to seriously.

I am not sure what you mean about atheists shooting themselves in the foot? Live your life, believe what you want and be happy.

If someone is talking about a subjective god, religion, spirituality, hell, heaven, angels, devils, demons from a metaphorical standpoint, it is only that: "metaphorical, figurative, non literal, smoke, vapor, nonexistent, unreal". To me is trash, the building blocks of religions and all the damage they have made to mankind.

The concept of God exists. To claim that "God exists ... as the beauty we see in the natural world" is to conflate ideas which conflating inevitably results in confusion.

Religions, along with all their associated concepts, also exist. Trying to get rid of all concepts dealing with religions is as absurd as trying to get rid of the ideas of balrogs, pixies, and phlogiston.

Totally agree. If there are beings in different dimensions that we know nothing of they are the same as us, probably trying to work out what the fuck goes on.

I don't believe so. If a belief is false then it is dangerous to live ones life according to that belief. There is a huge difference in accepting a fictional story as fiction and "likeing" things like spiderman. Expecting spiderman to save the day is all together different.