Quote:
Originally posted by skier
No, you can't. Atheism by definition is the disbelief in God. If you say everyone is God, or bits of god, you believe in god and are no longer an atheist.
But i don't think that's what you are trying to say. The way your argument is coming across to me is that you believe in certain qualities in people- trust, love, dependability, generosity- and saying that these qualities are what people should work towards. Which I find admirable, but does not have to much to do with the topic of the thread.
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I'm saying that the belief in God is a mechanism for organizing these qualities. If everybody believes that God is in everyone else, then loving God means loving your neighbor, which means that everytime somebody gets in trouble, the "hand of God" or "the Holy spirit" is there to help them, through the people around them, just as predicted in whatever scriptures you're using. For it really to all work, of course, everybody has to actually live by the religion they profess. Not the mumbo-jumbo around the edges, not the ceremonies, but by the base values. That's where we fall down.
Of course, this construct of God didn't create the universe. I don't believe in a consciousness that created the universe and all of us -- I can't rule it out, but I'm not putting any money on it. So how does my mindset help me survive without a belief in a creator, especially one who might reward me or give me life after death? Because I believe that I'm incredibly lucky, just to be alive. I do believe that, as a race, we're moving forward to eventually construct something on earth that looks like the biblical heaven. I won't live to see it, but I will -- as you will -- be part of what made it happen. That's good enough for me.