Atheism is a belief fueled by jealousy

[Magical Realist]

Is a missing daddy the reason you were once drawn to religion? Did you feel like you needed to reject it so you could grow up?

It's the reason everyone is drawn in to believe in God, coupled with the fear of hell and punishment for doubting his existence despite the undeniable evidence of their senses. Daddy loves me and watches over me, but I have to behave so he doesn't get mad at me and punish me. It's a pathetic regression to and fixation in an egocentric infantile state motivated by the craving for adoring attention and the fear of parental punishment.

[Syne]

Is a missing daddy the reason you were once drawn to religion? Did you feel like you needed to reject it so you could grow up?

It's the reason everyone is drawn in to believe in God, coupled with the fear of hell and punishment for doubting his existence despite the undeniable evidence of their senses. Daddy loves me and watches over me, but I have to behave so he doesn't get mad at me and punish me. It's a pathetic regression to and fixation in an egocentric infantile state motivated by the craving for adoring attention and the fear of parental punishment.

So that's a yes, you were drawn to religion due to a missing daddy?
Did you live in fear when you were religious?

Religion is a poor substitute for an actual male role model, no one would want to live in fear.
But it doesn't seem to comport with reality that most religious people are thus fatherless and willingly live in fear.
Again, fear of parental punishment is a childish notion of religion.

And I've never heard of anyone thinking they get "adoring attention" from god.

[Magical Realist]

Everybody sees in God the male father figure they never had. And the teaching of religion is that God is your Father who loves you and protects you but who will punish you if you sin. This is the standard idea of God for billions of believers the world over in all three monotheistic religions. It's just the way it is. I didn't make it up. It is the standard popular conception of God taught in churches and mosques and synagogues everywhere. Very few believers would agree that God amounts to some impersonal metaphysical abstraction.

[Yazata]

[...] no clue whether or not God exists [...]

To define them in a way that avoids often non-cullable metaphysical speculation, hypotheses, and issues:

I'm not sure that we can divorce the concept of God from metaphysical speculation, hypotheses or issues. At least not if we continue to imagine God as creator, law giver, ultimate goal of human striving and so on.  

One like the Abrahamic deity thus "exists" in that thought-virus or primitive information entity context; and thereby has historically affected the world via events, movements, policies, etc enacted by those humans which serve as embodied hosts for it (i.e., followers / believers).

I don't doubt that a/the monotheistic God exists in much the same way that fictional characters like Sherlock Holmes exist. Presumably there's something that makes the proposition 'Sherlock Holmes was a detective' truer (or more truth-like) than the proposition 'Sherlock Holmes was an astronaut'. Zeus and the other gods presumably exist in the same way. Or existed (past-tense) if they are irretrievably lost to history.

So while (as an atheist) I express the belief that deities (whether monotheistic or polytheistic) don't literally exist, I still acknowledge that they probably do exist in the sense that fictional characters in literature exist.

[Ostronomos]

[...] no clue whether or not God exists [...]

To define them in a way that avoids often non-cullable metaphysical speculation, hypotheses, and issues:

I'm not sure that we can divorce the concept of God from metaphysical speculation, hypotheses or issues. At least not if we continue to imagine God as creator, law giver, ultimate goal of human striving and so on.  

One like the Abrahamic deity thus "exists" in that thought-virus or primitive information entity context; and thereby has historically affected the world via events, movements, policies, etc enacted by those humans which serve as embodied hosts for it (i.e., followers / believers).

I don't doubt that a/the monotheistic God exists in much the same way that fictional characters like Sherlock Holmes exist. Presumably there's something that makes the proposition 'Sherlock Holmes was a detective' truer (or more truth-like) than the proposition 'Sherlock Holmes was an astronaut'. Zeus and the other gods presumably exist in the same way. Or existed (past-tense) if they are irretrievably lost to history.

So while (as an atheist) I express the belief that deities (whether monotheistic or polytheistic) don't literally exist, I still acknowledge that they probably do exist in the sense that fictional characters in literature exist.

God does not exist in the sense that you would ascribe to a plant or animal. It carries itself into existence.

[Yazata]

No, you just dismissed your grade school notion of "an invisible magical person existing somewhere unknown" and that the people who wrote the books and teach it do believe they see and/or hear god.

I'm not convinced that those are "grade school notions". I do agree that the theological traditions provide us with what are (in my opinion) more sophisticated ways of imagining the divine (assuming that one is motivated to do that), but they aren't all that widespread in the 'Abrahamic' religions or even in popular Hinduism. They are more prevalent among intellectuals and mystics of various sorts.

Most believers in God seem to believe that God is a person in some fundamental psychological sense, a personality about which it makes sense to employ psychological vocabulary, such as goals, purposes, emotions and will, in ways analogous to how we use the words to describe ourselves. We can supposedly enter into a personal relationship with God. God is typically referred to with personal pronouns. God isn't typically imagined in a non-personal Neoplatonic manner (the ineffable 'One') or in the manner of non-personalistic Vedanta's Brahman.

Most believers in God believe that God possesses extraordinary supernatural powers. "He" would seemingly have to possess them if he created the the entire natural universe simply by an act of will. That kind of power would certainly qualify as 'magical', much more akin to the powers of a great wizard than the kind of principles that engineering uses.

God is invisible in the sense that god can't be seen with human eyes by conventional vision. He doesn't reflect light or have a shape or a form.

Most theists aren't pantheists and don't believe that when they look upon the created world they are directly perceiving God. At best, most of them imagine that what they are seeing is God's works. As to God "himself", the deity is imagined to reside in a different realm of being entirely, completely distinct from this space-time-matter realm which is the deity's creation.

(I should point out that Isaac Newton had some interesting ideas about that. He thought that the created universe constituted what he called God's "sensorium". In effect creation exists inside God's imagination (since there's nothing external to God for God to perceive) in much the same way that space and time are accounted for in the "transcendental aesthetic" in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Except Kant moves the whole thing from God's mind to... what? If it's my individual human mind, then I'm stuck in solipsism. If it's some generalized 'Absolute' mind, then we would seem to be back with God's sensorium again.)  

And many Christians do seem to consider the Bible to be the "word of God". It isn't always clear how they conceive of the Bible's origin. Most of them seem to accept that it was written by ancient Hebrews, but seem to imagine that the various writers were "inspired" somehow by God to write down precisely what God wanted said. Orthodox Islam even insists that the Quran existed eternally in God's mind before it was revealed to Mohammed.

[Syne]

Everybody sees in God the male father figure they never had. And the teaching of religion is that God is your Father who loves you and protects you but who will punish you if you sin. This is the standard idea of God for billions of believers the world over in all three monotheistic religions. It's just the way it is. I didn't make it up. It is the standard popular conception of God taught in churches and mosques and synagogues everywhere. Very few believers would agree that God amounts to some impersonal metaphysical abstraction.

It really sounds like you're just projecting your own experience on everyone else. Most people didn't have absentee fathers, and God the Father describes a relationship that, no doubt, people with poor/absent father figures will likely only see as a caricature. A Homer Simpson to strangle Bart when he's bad, instead of a loving father who seeks to teach, even lessons that can only be learned the hard way. The idea of punishment isn't an end in itself.

No one said god was "some impersonal metaphysical abstraction", so that's a straw man.

[Magical Realist]

Most people didn't have absentee fathers

Everyone has absentee fathers. He goes to work all day while you stay home with your mom for the first 6 most formative years of your life. Then when he gets home from work he just wants to watch TV and relax. There was never enough time with dad no matter who you are. Hence the longing for Skydaddy.

[Syne]

No, you just dismissed your grade school notion of "an invisible magical person existing somewhere unknown" and that the people who wrote the books and teach it do believe they see and/or hear god.

I'm not convinced that those are "grade school notions". I do agree that the theological traditions provide us with what are (in my opinion) more sophisticated ways of imagining the divine (assuming that one is motivated to do that), but they aren't all that widespread in the 'Abrahamic' religions or even in popular Hinduism. They are more prevalent among intellectuals and mystics of various sorts.

Most believers in God seem to believe that God is a person in some fundamental psychological sense, a personality to which it makes sense to attribute human-like goals, purposes and emotions. God is typically referred to with personal pronouns. God isn't typically imagined in a non-personal Neoplatonic manner (the ineffable 'One') or in the manner of non-personalistic Vedanta's Brahman.

Why would a more mature, nuanced, or sophisticated notion of god be mutually exclusive with one that has fathomable goals, purposes, and emotions (but isn't a man with a long beard on a thrown in the clouds)? A deistic god is not a very sophisticated notion, but a neoplatonic god is akin to the Abrahamic god in its lack of amoral characteristics displayed by many polytheistic gods. Why would such a notion of god preclude personal pronouns? The saguṇa Brahman is a personal god.

Most believers in God believe that God possesses extraordinary supernatural powers. "He" would seemingly have to possess them if "he" created the the entire natural universe simply by an act of will. That kind of power would certainly qualify as 'magical', much more akin to the powers of a great wizard than the kind of principles that engineering uses.

Supernatural is derived from the naturalistic idea of "natural", which we often deny of many human creations that we don't call supernatural. Believers think god is transcendent, and that people can attain to such themselves. IOW, where atheists think the supernatural would be real magic, believers think it is attainable knowledge. So your magic/engineering dichotomy is a bit naive or a straw man.

God is invisible in the sense that god can't be seen with human eyes by conventional vision. He doesn't reflect light or have a shape or a form.

By that definition, air, germs, cells, molecules, atoms, etc. are invisible. So that doesn't, itself, imply magic.

Most theists aren't pantheists and don't believe that when they look upon the created world they are directly perceiving God. At best, most of them imagine that what they are seeing is God's works. As to God "himself" (that word is telling), the deity is imagined to reside in a different realm of being entirely, completely distinct from this space-time-matter realm which is the deity's creation.

Many theists believe in the immanence (permeation throughout all, omnipresence), as well as the transcendence, of god. https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/G...nipresence
That personifications of a personal god seem to contradict that is just that...seeming. The personal god also resides in the heart of the believer.

(I should point out that Isaac Newton had some interesting ideas about that. He thought that the created universe constituted what he called God's "sensorium". In effect creation exists inside God's imagination (since there's nothing external to God for God to perceive) in much the same way that space and time are accounted for in the "transcendental aesthetic" in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Except Kant moves the whole thing from God's mind to... what? If it's my individual human mind, then I'm stuck in solipsism. If it's some generalized 'Absolute' mind, then we would seem to be back with God's sensorium again.)  

Yes, most people have trouble with creation from nothing, so it's easier to conceptualize it being within the mind, or of the substance, of god.
Personally, I think this "nothing comes from nothing" bromide is a justification for god's existence that also obscures its nature.

And many Christians do seem to consider the Bible to be the "word of God". It isn't always clear how they conceive of the Bible's origin. Most of them seem to accept that it was written by ancient Hebrews, but seem to imagine that the various writers were "inspired" somehow by God to write down precisely what God wanted said. Orthodox Islam even insists that the Quran existed eternally in God's mind before it was revealed to Mohammed.

Yes, most Christians do think god inspired, or even dictated, the words written in the Bible. Not sure how that either refutes people hearing god or affirms god being magic.

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Most people didn't have absentee fathers

Everyone has absentee fathers. He goes to work all day while you stay home with your mom for the first 6 most formative years of your life. Then when he gets home from work he just wants to watch TV and relax.  There was never enough time with dad no matter who you are. Hence the longing for Skydaddy.

Wow. That's one hell of an insight into your childhood. Your dad's emotional distance sounds like it really did a number on you.
Again, just projection.

[Magical Realist]

Everyone has absentee fathers. He goes to work all day while you stay home with your mom for the first 6 most formative years of your life. Then when he gets home from work he just wants to watch TV and relax.  There was never enough time with dad no matter who you are. Hence the longing for Skydaddy.


Wow. That's one hell of an insight into your childhood. Your dad's emotional distance sounds like it really did a number on you.
Again, just projection.

Everyone has absentee fathers. I just pointed that out.