First of all, welcome to atheist republic. It's good to have you. As atheists we promote, or should promote open discussion from anyone.

The employment of my rationality refutes any concept in the realm of the supernatural. Having analyzed at an academic level almost all the arguments and evidence available from all directions, I believe that there exists no realm of the supernatural and immaterial. This includes not just religion and God, but also any concept which has an immaterial substrate such as a soul or spirituality. God just happens to be one of these concepts that I think don't exist.

I think the biggest problem with your ideology is the assumption that a materialist has no sense of transcendent purpose or meaning. As emotional animals, humans must find their own purpose in life and strive towards it, because we appreciate the fact that our time is limited and that this is our only life. There is no collective purpose of humanity in the divine sense, but rather individual purposes that accumulate in the direction of making the world a better place.

I think I must also mention that many atheists are aware of the God you speak of as well as the ancient outdated version. I am one of them, and I still think that there is no God.

Hello dontsaygod and welcome. We welcome these conversation but please understand that you are coming to us with a pre-conception of god. Many of us did not make a conscious choice to not believe. We study and what is truth is truth. I would like to address your comment about how we ended our journey. You have that backwards. Life is a journey, religion is a destination. We continue to learn more and more everyday because everyday there is new information that challenges even the things we believe to be true. You "learn" the same thing over and over. This is not education. This is indoctrination. The truth is you don't need to learn the same thing over and over. That's more like brainwashing. You cannot "help" us because there is nothing wrong with us.

I am rather in awe of the sheer lunacy it must take to advocate that one should believe in something because they don't know what it is or understand it, whilst attempting to talk down to people for not seeking that which does not appear to exist by any measure, and stating that the opposite is a better foundation for knowledge or truth...

You sir, deserve a medal, but not in a good way...

Yes, just another guy who has taken the very concept of god from the book but then wants to defend him by claiming the book or preachers to be misleading or confused....and trying to get exempted from defending the bullshit in the books.

What is this "Spirituality" you speak of? I was an evangelical christian for several decades. After a several year "dark night of the soul" and deep depression, the entire time crying out to a petty and vile god, I came to my senses. I am now more moral with deeper "spiritual" connections and experiences than ever before in my life.

I came to understand I grew out of the universe, it wasn't "made for us". I am in fact made of star dust and my body will return to the beautiful circle of life. When our sun dies, my atomic structure will be used to create new stars and new life, as long as this universe exists. THAT is spiritual, beautiful, humbling and ultimately ineffable.

You say "help redirect those that believe there is no commonality between everything and that eternity doesn't exist". I believe in the commonality between everything and I have tangible evidence of such. I don't need to defer that to a magic man in the sky. I will exist for eternity, or as long as this universe exists. My consciousness will die with my body, but what I am physically will reincarnate a billion times into a billion different manifestations of our universe.

I spend a lot of time in the forest understanding I will soon be the dirt upon which I walk. I will become the trees I walk within, I will become the birds in the air, the water that rushes down a river. This is my spirituality. I know what god is, and I found it.

Interesting. Basically from what I take from you wrote, God created us ill-equipped to truly understand or appreciate what or who he is?

That would lead us down the road of deism more than it would any other religion.

As an agnostic-atheist, I am more inclined to side with a deist than any other person. They have nothing to prove and nothing to lose. God created everything and left it running as is while he went off sipping a Mai-Tai somewhere else in the cosmos long forgotten about us.

You mentioned very little of the Bible. For me, and many atheists, it is a story book written by men (no women, unfortunately) that might have some historical references to people and places that may have actually existed. But, a story tale non-the less. With some moral values and other values that are not very good at at all. I have never hesitated to even think for a moment that it was written by no other than man with no divine intervention. The Bible is VERY human. Only a human could write it. God (of the Bible) is also VERY human. Hence he was created by man.

What is this "that's where your journey ended"...where did you get that from? How and when did it end? I did not get that memo. Very few of life's questions has answers satisfactory to most atheist. Sure, science has come a long way but it has a HECK of a long way to go. We keep searching and looking for the answers. And that is okay. No answer or a part of an answer or even a theory of an answer is better than the wrong answer, especially when that answer is simply "God did it" without any other evidence at all.

Spiritually, we're all connected by matter and energy. I am in North America and I connect myself through matter and energy to the Eiffel Tower. Or to Mars. Or any where else. So, yes, we all share a connection that we exist in this universe. But, that is not God.

The story so far:
In the beginning the Universe was created.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.- Douglas Adams

You don't know god. You. Don't. Know. God.
God, you don't know. No one does. I maintain that no Gods exist as described by humanity. That is not to say that I can say definitively that no higher entity exists. And yet, it's entirely irrelevant. Any such being would be as beyond us as we are to microbes. More so perhaps. Do we heed salmonella prayers as we reach for Lysol? What then is any religion or "relationship" but delusion and futility? A being of such cosmic nature might even not take notice of our species. You may as well count the sand of the Sahara. We are the cosmic splatter patterns of the big bang. Shadow and stardust.

All Gods are fictional characters.

Welcome to Atheist Republic!
Always nice to talk with a believer, although I will warn you, you will have both though questions (and answers) and (sorry to say) some people who don't think you should be here who will aim to insult you rather than debate.
I hope you will find me in the first category.
I'll try to put my objections, things that need clarifications and maybe even some answers to your text.

"you don't know what God is."
Do you know god? By your own statement, knowledge can only be first hand, every other experience would be tainted by words.
Also by your own words, if you actually have first hand knowledge, everybody will think you are crazy.

"I understand the bible."
So what?
By your own admission, it's a tainted source, so your knowledge is irrelevant.
And why do you mention the Bible and not any other supposedly sacred text? Is it simply because you know the Bible, but no other ancient text or is there a reason for promoting that knowledge in particular?

"The audience of the bible was not supposed to be college educated and have the internet."
I agree, the Bible was written by and for people who didn't have very much knowledge of the world they lived in.

"Words are finite and the name is infinite. To try to put into words (a finite tool ) and sunopsize what it is, would only cheapen it and only confuse the audience if they happen to be well educated."
So from what I understand, talking about god cheapen god and confuse the audience?
Is it better if nobody talked about god? (That, by the way, I agree on, but it would be interesting to learn about your motivation why or why not that is a good idea.)

By the way, can you give a short definition of what you mean by 'god'? Just the least confusing bits that won't make you look too crazy, please?
(That was not in any way meant to insult you, but it's from your own words. I'm genuinely interested in knowing this, so we can have a conversation, there is no use to talk about things that we both agree on, or that we both disagree with.)

And I hope you will answer me, but I'm sorry, I can't provide any information about the god I don't believe in, beside the very short notion that I don't believe in any of the god-claims that I've heard about.

Again, welcome here!

Taking it line by line:

> I'm new to this site.

No answer necessary.

> I understand the bible.

This is ambiguous.

> The audience of the bible was not supposed to be college educated and have the internet.

Partially true. It was written and revised well before then internet. However, it was originally reserved for narration by fairly well educated priests.

> God is not something that can be put into words.

OK, so let's stop there.

> Saying the name cheapens the meaning of what is.

This implies that there is or was a value. That is unproven.

> If you think you could encapsulate what it is in three letters you've heard all your life,your discontent is aimed in the wrong direction.

I am unconvinced that this is a thing. Encapsulating it was not on my mind. I am not discontent.

> Athiests are closer to understanding a higher level of conscientious than others because you're not satisfied with what you've been exposed to.

It is unproven that there are "higher levels" of consciousness. How would we measure that? You claim that "atheists are unsatisfied with what you've been exposed to" but this is merely a claim.

> However, that's where your journey ended.

How do you know?

> And not searching for your own spiritual content isn't worth any title.

First demonstrate that there is any spiritual content.

> People are faithful because they've heard about the name from someone that doesnt need faith. However, that primary source is from long ago and the people assigned to pass along the message weren't apt to carry the wealth of responsibility that they were given because they never experienced it first hand. Like the game telephone. The first person sounded crazy. But they were saying something the second person couldn't understand.

This is a claim without much substance or meaning.

> Words are finite and the name is infinite.

This is self-contradictory. A name is a word. In addition, you claimed above that God was not something that could be put into words.

> To try to put into words (a finite tool ) and sunopsize what it is, would only cheapen it and only confuse the audience if they happen to be well educated.

See above. BTW what does "sunopsize" mean?

> I joined this site to find others that are familiar with what I'm talking about and to help redirect those that believe there is no commonality between everything and that eternity doesn't exist.

There is probably no argument here about the existence of eternity. Whether time is infinite is unknowable at present.

> I'm fond of debate and haven't engaged with anyone that feels strongly about anything having to do with theology since college. I Wana know about the God you don't believe in because I forgot what everyone else is so passionate about.

So debate. Make a claim and then prove it to be true. By this I mean use your model of the universe to make a prediction, demonstrate the correctness of this prediction and then submit the experiment to me so that I can test it in isolation.

> Thanks for having me.

You're welcome.

Necromancy at work!

I believe in the god of Abraham Isaac and Jacob revealed thru Jesus Christ himself.this is a great time of year with Passover and easter seasons upon us now. I worship and pray to Jesus Christ I`m convinced by both the old testaments and of course the new.the old prepared us for the new, what man was incapable in keeping the laws he was now allowed thru the new covenant.the old sinatic and Abraham covenants couldn`t deal with humanist sin as the bible amply says that bulls and goats cannot take away sins in humans, so the asecond adam jesus Christ did on our behalf.praise him all you ATHEIST stupid people who hold a grudge you think you can outbox GOD bjut your arms are too short to box with GOD you stupid ATHEIST,tell me what can Richard Dawkins do for you when you die.or for that matter right now. he will only poison your minds.