Faith in Atheism

[Newme]

What I consider group thought is insanity people believe because everyone they want to be liked by believe it.

Kinda like how everyone thought this looked cool in Jr high school?

I get it, some people don't put a ton of thought into their worldview. I think they are probably the minority though.

As dogbite has demonstrated there is much more thought put into this than what your average 7th grader uses to decide what to wear. Claiming otherwise could come off a little condescending.

Yes - kind of like that! (Can you believe some of the things we used to wear - and how we did our hair?? )

I apologize for being a bit condescending. But I wrote it after reading some condescending comments by others on this forum - toward people who believe in God. I think it's a mutual thing that we all could be more respectful - and consider that there are more than one valid way of looking at things.

[Dravin]

It seems you haven't made yourself aware of many that are right under your nose.
"God is love." - That's in the scriptures which several major religions believe.
How would you deny love? Can you?
"The kingdom (realm/experience) of God is within you." Of course it is - where else would it be?
How can you deny that the experience of God is within someone? And how can you deny what's going on inside others?

I will say that I've never encountered a believer that believes god is simply a different name for the emotion called love. Oh sure, we can quote the Bible and say, "Hey, it says God is love!" but others aspects of their belief clearly show that they aren't only defining god as the emotion called love. It's on the level of asking someone if they believe in Jesus and then going, "How can you deny Jesus is real? Are you saying my Hispanic friend at work doesn't exist?" So sure, if we define a god as the emotion called love I believe in a god, but claiming I believe in a god is going to result in massive miscommunication with those around me.

[didyoumythme]

All have faith but not all are conscience of having faith.

What do you mean by this? All have faith in God? No, not everyone believes in God. A lot of people (atheists included) may wish/hope God was real, and they may recognize some positive effects of having hope in a God story, but that doesn't mean they have faith in it.

Yes, it is nonsense! How can I or you or any person - even a genius - possibly know enough about every description of God to deny them ALL - as Athesim does? It makes no sense!

You are misrepresenting atheism. There are "positive" and "negative" atheist positions. Positive asserts that there is no God (as you have described), but negative only asserts a disbelief in any Gods (but does not claim to know for sure that no Gods exist).

It seems you haven't made yourself aware of many [definitions of God] that are right under your nose.
"God is love." - That's in the scriptures which several major religions believe.
How would you deny love? Can you?
"The kingdom (realm/experience) of God is within you." Of course it is - where else would it be?
How can you deny that the experience of God is within someone? And how can you deny what's going on inside others?

Do you consider the concept of "Love" to be worthy of worship? Anyone can define God however they want, but that doesn't mean that 1) there is sufficient evidence that the God they defined exists or 2) that the God they defined should be worshiped as such. Defining God as love serves no purpose beyond complicating the question even more. If God is literally Love, then lets just leave the less understood God word out of our vocab entirely and only refer to love. Also, most atheists do not "deny the experiences" of others, they just don't believe them.

Note that Atheism points at something they fail to define and then says, "That doesn't exist!" How logical or scientific is that?

Which is why dogbite says that he does not accept any definitions of God for which 1) there is not sufficient evidence that said God exists or 2) that the defined is not worthy of worship as such. You are right that denying that something undefined exists is silly, which brings us back to my previous comment about the ignostic position. Ignostic is the view that any religious term or theological concept presented must be accompanied by a coherent definition before it can be meaningfully discussed. If anyone comes up with a definition, then refer to steps 1) and 2) above.

What about the other ways to consider God? Just toss them out the window? What about the scientific method - which tests every known possibility before concluding?

Science doesn't do this. There are almost infinite ways to test things, so if this were true, science would have no conclusions. Science comes to conclusions based on repeatable results. Science also welcomes new evidence to inform/change understanding of the universe. Traditional faith seems to do the opposite by first defining God, then ignoring counter evidence proposed against that definition. People who maintain faith in the face of counter evidence are often praised for having "strong faith" and not wavering.

[Hagoth]

I don't think the sun rising is a matter of faith even for non atheists, at least in the developed world.

I would agree, but nonetheless I still hear this comment at church.

[Hagoth]

I think agnostic is a great word that has been stomped all over so much that it has practically lost its value. if we're honest with ourselves we're all agnostics. We don't and can't know whether there is or is not a God. We can have powerful emotions that lead us to believe that there is a God, but those kinds of emotions aren't exclusive to God. I had them about Santa Clause, Robin Hood and King Arthur. Even someone who claims to have seen God can't prove that it wasn't a hallucination or dream. We are all agnostics in varying degrees or flavors.

[wtfluff]

I don't think the sun rising is a matter of faith even for non atheists, at least in the developed world.

I would agree, but nonetheless I still hear this comment at church.

That's when you ask them: "How many times have you seen the sun 'NOT rise" in a 24 hour period? What's that? Zero? So there you go: You have THOUSANDS of literal experiences where you've seen the sun "rise", that's nothing like blind faith."

[LaMachina]

I think agnostic is a great word that has been stomped all over so much that it has practically lost its value. if we're honest with ourselves we're all agnostics... We are all agnostics in varying degrees or flavors.

I think you nail it.

Honestly, I've never heard an atheist insist they know there is no god. Any I know, including some very outspoken ones like Dawkins or Hitchens, tend to speak in probabilities, not absolute knowledge.

Belief is powerful - even to affect your body - so why would anybody want to believe things that make them sick - rather than make them their optimum best?

This is a fascinating position. I guess it could be akin to Pascal's wager? I have a couple issues with it based on my understanding:

1st - You seem to place placebo on equal standing with remedies scientifically determined to be effective (you say people use drugs with dangerous side effects when "belief" does the trick? I may have misunderstood your position.)
The problem with this is, if a remedy is determined to be no more effective than placebo than it is declared ineffective. At least that's my understanding of science. Something is going on with placebo, absolutely, but it is not a panacea. Science tries to find remedies that are far more effective than chance or placebo.

2nd - Belief, as you admit, is also dangerous. Locally we've had two awful cases of parents killing their children out of ignorance because they placed more faith in superstition than science. What is the boundary between "good" belief and "bad" belief? For me personally, it's whatever appears to reflect reality.

3rd - Placebo is entirely based on deceit in scientific research. I would have to try and decieve myself to believe in a biblical or personal god. I'm just not in a position to be double-blind anymore and in order to believe again I simply require better evidence.

[LSOF]

"Faith in atheism" is nonsense. Atheism is not a religion any more than theism is; atheism and theism are positions regarding gods. Atheism and theism form a true dichotomy: theists believe that at least one god exists, and atheists do not. There exists a subset of atheists that believe that exactly zero gods exist, but that position is not a necessary part of atheism.

Suppose we define a god as an anthropomorphic immortal with supernatural powers. All gods ever conceived fit into this category. I do not believe that supernatural powers exist, and I do not believe that immortality of the godly sort is possible. Therefore, I do not believe in gods. As a matter of fact, I believe positively that immortality of the godly sort is impossible, because immortality implies perpetual motion, which is impossible. But, the theist may object, the immortality is a consequence of the god's supernatural powers! Then let them be evinced; let it be shown that anything apart from the natural exists. Let it be shown that the laws of physics can be suspended at will. Every attempt at demonstrating supernatural powers has failed, and I see no reason to believe that the pattern will break.

But the word "god", as used by the theist, may have a referent that is not a supernaturally powerful anthropomorphic immortal. I do not see any reason to call those things gods, and if such things can be proven to exist, I still do not acknowledge that they are gods. Calling them "gods" only serves to obscure and retard discourse.

Atheism is a lack of belief. Having faith in a lack of belief is nonsense. The concept is incoherent. I don't trust Prager and Ben Shapiro as far as I can throw them.

[dogbite]

I'm happy to consider new evidence as it arises.

If you define God as intelligent design and still see no evidence, you haven't opened your eyes.

Your statement itself shows the problem with the intelligent design claim. It starts with a conclusion and then tries to make evidence fit and fails. Understanding reality works the other direction. Thats why we take the evidence and follow where it leads.

Similarly the statement about opening my eyes for evidence indicates one of the problems with the faith claim. Man is a terrible and unreliable observer. Human testimony is rarely little more than anecdote. Testimony is the lowest grade of evidence in a court and the most easily defeated. Indeed the best observational evidence does not come from man but from instruments.

Coming at this from epistemology the first statement is usually Descartes' I think therefore I am. This is purely an assumption but without this assumption, there's nowhere else to go. Second is something along the lines of at least sometimes my senses feed me accurate information. But I can't trust them exclusively. I have been deceived by every one of my senses at one time or another. The more evidence I can gather that is not reliant on my physical senses the better I can trust that evidence.

None of the sensations that I perceive through my senses is actually a direct input. it is transferred, translated, distorted. It is passed along in my body in other formats and then assembled and constructed in my brain as a metaphor of reality. My visual construct that I use to model reality doesn't include the blind spot that I know my eyes have for example. The basic tool I used to navigate the world is based on a flawed reproduction of my flawed input. This is true for all of my senses.

Consciousness exists in the past because of the time delay in transmitting the data and constructing it. For the most part of our existence is doesn't matter because the time delay is fairly short. But we can never perceive reality as it is because we're never in it as it is. We are in it as it was. What we perceive as real right now is entirely a construction of our minds. Is it any wonder then that a placebo can have an effect? Is it any wonder then that I would have doubts about faith and its accuracy? The placebo has a start in something that we would call real. Faith is entirely constructed in the head from only our imagination, usually from some interpreted experience which interpretation is without basis beyond our minds.

My issue with people's claims about an experience meaning there's life after death or was a spiritual experience or God communicating is not that they had an experience. I fully accept they had an experience. But that they imbue that experience with particular and specific meaning without a specific evidential basis. Often using words like I think about it every day or I can remember every specific detail. Rather the evidence shows that the more we remember something the more we distort it and add false detail. So as the belief in the meaning of the experience grows the claims of its reliability actually decrease.

Our minds and our senses are not reliable on their own. It is only through careful rigorous process and testing and validation of those processes that we can say we know anything.

The common rebuttal is something like but I know I love somebody. This involves an emotional state that is also entirely within our head. But emotional states are related to chemicals in the brain and we can measure those. Many of them we can induce chemically or electronically. So there are physical things we can say about those emotions. But all of us have been deceived by our emotions too.

Our emotional existence is usually key to the basis of where we find the meaning in our life. Religion is pretty much an emotional response. So while I don't believe in religious experience as reflecting reality I don't deny that people have religious experiences or that that experience is not meaningful to the person. I dispute rather that there is universal meaning from that experience that applies to all people all the time.

We are learning more now about the triggers for religious experience of the emotion that response to them that is called elevation by psychologists. Elevation is pretty much a confirmation bias of your moral preferences. This doesn't make one wrong or incorrect about their morals. But it is incorrect to view that experience as indicating absolute truth in all aspects. it's merely a personal experience not a universal experience. It doesn't prove an afterlife, or of the spirit, or existence of God. It's just a feeling. I can find no basis for ascribing meaning of a feeling beyond to oneself. Feelings don't prove truth for example. Just because you feel love for someone doesn't mean they love you too. As with our other sensations, feelings aren't reliable inputs.

There are interpretations of this feeling in the scientific world mostly about how it was rewarded in our evolution to help us work together in groups and build community. This is based on anthropological evidence and analysis.

Religion and Faith are human constructs that co-evolved to trigger and reward elevation in humans. The individual reproductive benefit of cooperation is the evolutionary path of elevation via religion. Humans evolved to deceive themselves about reality via faith as an evolutionary benefit. It works because humans perceive reality very inaccurately and very poorly. Reality is only a model in our minds. This made it easy to hijack our model for evolutionary benefit.

[Newme]

And ironically Atheists accuse others of faith and no doubt, yet I've yet to known of an atheist who expresses any doubt in Atheism.

We generally refer to such people as agnostics.

Yes, and that's why I (& others who love logic) see Agnosticism as the most logical, though to me it isn't as intuitively smart.
If we're all honest - we (theist, atheist etc) are all somewhat agnostic - we really don't know for sure!

(I just realized you wrote this later... great minds think alike! )...

...We are all agnostics in varying degrees or flavors.

As for hope and hopelessness, you might consider the Santa Claus analogy. It may be disappointing to lose your faith in Saint Nick but that doesn't stop you from finding joy and value in the holidays, you just move on to other things that make you happy, and you can stop agonizing about whether or not you're going to get a stocking full of coal.

But Hagoth, that, to me is throwing the baby out with the bath-water - so to speak.
It seems that many people who adhere to Atheist beliefs do so because they don't want coal - they don't want to believe in a tyrannical grandpa in the sky. Well, who does? I don't want to believe that either! But I don't consider the case closed - to me God is not a tyrannical grandpa in the sky but involves so much more (both within me and in this world) - even though many (subconsciously) believe God to be that and only that one dysfunctional idea that has been spread for centuries.

[Newme]

Also...

We have all heard people deride atheism by saying "even atheists have faith that the sun will rise tomorrow," as if this proves that atheists are somehow disingenouous. Really, it just clarifies the basic difference between theist and atheists. We have all seen the sun rise every day of our lives, but none of us have ever seen Jesus rise from the tomb. Atheists just narrow their faith to things that seem highly likely.

I have known atheists who love the Jesus story and would love to believe it's true. They just can't and they don't see any point in pretending to believe it. Why should anyone be derided for not believing something that they simply cannot because they have the kind of brain/personality that is dependent on evidence? Why should someone be praised for believing something without evidence? People are just different, that's all. There's no insideous underlying plot, just variety within human nature.

Fair point. I think it was Steve Wright who said, "And I cannot disprove that mushrooms are spies from intergalactic spaceships."
Still, there is a HUGE - massively personally influential chunk of evidence that Atheists ignore - and that is the power of belief.
There is real power in belief, as evident by the placebo effect. Now, since we KNOW that our thoughts that we really believe have influence on our bodies - what next? If we ignore the power of belief - then does that make it so our thoughts mysteriously no longer affect us? Of course not. Our thoughts are affecting us this very moment - and evidence shows that spiritual practices like prayer, meditation, cultivating faith/higher beliefs - have REAL positive influence.

Of course, it doesn't mean you have to force yourself to believe what is illogical to you - if that's even possible.
Skepticism (i should know) tends to be paralyzing - however blind faith can also take you down the wrong road.
You know Fowler's stages of faith, right? Atheism is stage 4 - it's not the end - there's more!
Einstein said something like, "Logic will get you from A to Z. Imagination will get you anywhere."
SPG on old NOM said, "Functional illusions are priceless." We desperately need motivating beliefs!
Ideally - there's a good harmony of faith and reason - and realizing that there are truths in logic as well as intuition/spirituality (Fowler's stage 5).

[Dravin]

There is real power in belief, as evident by the placebo effect. Now, since we KNOW that our thoughts that we really believe have influence on our bodies - what next? If we ignore the power of belief - then does that make it so our thoughts mysteriously no longer affect us? Of course not. Our thoughts are affecting us this very moment - and evidence shows that spiritual practices like prayer, meditation, cultivating faith/higher beliefs - have REAL positive influence.

How is that evidence of god rather than a psycho-physiological effect? The argument that belief influences us in ways we don't fully understand therefore god is a god of the gaps argument. If that's not where you're going with the above comment, please, correct my understanding of what you are getting at.

[Newme]

Another thought I had is that atheism is not the opposite of Christianity or of any specific belief system. The term 'atheism' is only the opposite of 'theism'. To say someone is a christian says a lot about them. You can assume they believe in Jesus, in praying, in forgiving, in building community, in serving etc. However, to say someone is an atheist only indicates that they don't believe in God. It says nothing about the value system they do subscribe to. Christianity is more comparable to something like secular humanism.

Atheists, by definition, do not have faith (believe) in God, so I do not understand what you mean when you say "faith in atheism". Many atheists do not take the position that they are certain that God does not exist, but rather that they do not believe it. They are open to the possibility if presented with convincing evidence.

Personally, I relate most with the term "Ignostic". Ignostic is the view that any religious term or theological concept presented must be accompanied by a coherent definition. Without a clear definition such terms cannot be meaningfully discussed.

Amen, Brother!
Who is this being/entity/thing that Atheists confirm does NOT exist?
How logical is it to state, "I don't believe it" when "it" isn't even defined?
My guess is the reason it isn't defined is because it's too overwhelming - it's much easier (though less logical) to just cling to the most absurd definition - even though there are countless attributes of God (Islam lists 100 - 1 being it's impossible to name all aspects of God).
How logical is it to state that one KNOWS (without a shred of faith) that "it" doesn't exist?

Can they prove with evidence that love does not exist? "God is love."
Can they prove that there is nothing going on inside me or others? "The kingdom (realm/experience) of God is within you."

[dogbite]

You know Fowler's stages of faith, right? Atheism is stage 4 - it's not the end - there's more!
Einstein said something like, "Logic will get you from A to Z. Imagination will get you anywhere."
SPG on old NOM said, "Functional illusions are priceless." We desperately need motivating beliefs!

That is a major mischaracterization of stage 4.

[Newme]

I agree that people can write books on various topics without it being a religion... unless it specifies habitual, "standard" works - some agreed on beliefsnin relation to God/Spirituality. Re-legion - many people thinking similarly in some way. If Atheism were not unified belief - herd mentality - there would be no term for it.

Atheism is based on faith that one knows enough to deny all possibilities of God.

And ironically Atheists accuse others of faith and no doubt, yet I've yet to known of an atheist who expresses any doubt in Atheism.

Let me ask you something then (and I'm going to continue no matter what, but it's only fair to ask).

How familiar are you with the concept of the Null Hypothesis?

For those not familiar, the null hypothesis is a tool in science that basically states that a particular phenomenon is unrelated to another particular phenomenon. Usually this serves statistics and significance testing, but it has other uses. So assume that the hypothesis of a creator is proposed. This hypothesis ties the existence of the universe to the existence of, and dependence upon its own existence to, a creative force. The null hypothesis to this states that the universe's existence has no dependence on a creative force.

As impossible as it is to explain all natural science, suffice it to say that galaxies, solar systems, stars, planets, planetary/geological features, living creatures, protein, DNA, organic molecules, etc have all been observed in formation or have other theories substantiated that explain these phenomena without the need for a creative force. Thus for all these phenomena, and many more, there is no need to link it to the phenomenon of creation. Thus failing to reject the null hypothesis. This is the basis for how all science works. When you can reject the null hypothesis, you have graduated your own hypothesis to a theory. It's beyond the scope of a simple post in a thread to cover exactly why these things can be proven to form without the need for a creator, and would take pages, but I encourage you to look into natural synthesis of all these molecules and into accretion theories for stellar formation.

I think this is an essentially justified position for atheism. No faith required. If a creation hypothesis becomes a theory through rigorous scientific demonstration and passes peer review, many atheists who don't believe in a creator for this reason (myself included) will begin to accept the existence of a deity. But that hasn't happened.

My understanding of null hypothesis is also when a conclusion is made without complete information.
How do you define God?
How many definitions of God are there out there?

Stephen Hawking defined intelligence as "ability to adapt to change."
If God is "intelligent designer" - a common definition - and if you believe in the evolution, how can you say that we live in a stupid universe that has no ability to adapt to change?
How can you say you don't believe in creation - when you are living proof?
Just because there is obvious proof of intelligent design and creation does NOT mean that the story of Adam and Eve is historically accurate.
The bible is a spiritual book of parables - not a history or science book.
I can accept spiritual truths of religious faiths without getting caught up on skepticism from literal interpretation.

[Newme]

It seems you haven't made yourself aware of many that are right under your nose.
"God is love." - That's in the scriptures which several major religions believe.
How would you deny love? Can you?
"The kingdom (realm/experience) of God is within you." Of course it is - where else would it be?
How can you deny that the experience of God is within someone? And how can you deny what's going on inside others?

I will say that I've never encountered a believer that believes god is simply a different name for the emotion called love. Oh sure, we can quote the Bible and say, "Hey, it says God is love!" but others aspects of their belief clearly show that they aren't only defining god as the emotion called love. It's on the level of asking someone if they believe in Jesus and then going, "How can you deny Jesus is real? Are you saying my Hispanic friend at work doesn't exist?" So sure, if we define a god as the emotion called love I believe in a god, but claiming I believe in a god is going to result in massive miscommunication with those around me.

You make a good point - some call it moving the goal posts.
And I will admit to doing this - and tell you why.

Currently, a lot of people are suffering from belief in dysfunctional definitions of God.
I want to focus on the more functional definitions of God - for myself and others.

Think about love. It's a word like God - full of countless potential meanings.
I consider love as appreciating what is (easier said than done sometimes) & striving for what's best (for myself & others) - through trial & error - active faith. In some sense, we all do this anyway - as if it's built into us. Still, I find this idea of God as the highest possible GOoD I can imagine and pursue to be more inspiring than other dysfunctional, though "orthodox" ideas. Also, "the kingdom (realm/experience) of God is within you" seems obvious. Within you, is amazing potential - your subconscious mind really makes up your world - your subjectively limited view of this world. The easiest way to tap into this amazing potential we each have within us - is through belief in something higher than pride and other trappings inherent in being human.

Philosopher Paul Tillech defined god as "one's ultimate concern." A TBM could say they worship God but really, they worship (prioritize, are most concerned with) the church. An Atheist may say they don't believe in God but if they spend all their time thinking and being concerned with shooting down God in the name of Atheism, then ironically, Atheism is their god.

Dravin, I will not pretend to know even a tiny fraction of a fraction of all there is to know about intelligent design and the kingdom of God within. However, just because I know I'll never know it all - doesn't keep me back from doing all I can to find out and apply what will help me live better.

[Newme]

All have faith but not all are conscience of having faith.

What do you mean by this? All have faith in God? No, not everyone believes in God. A lot of people (atheists included) may wish/hope God was real, and they may recognize some positive effects of having hope in a God story, but that doesn't mean they have faith in it.

I mean that there are no guarantees - we really do live and walk by faith. 100% determinism is impossible.

Yes, it is nonsense! How can I or you or any person - even a genius - possibly know enough about every description of God to deny them ALL - as Athesim does? It makes no sense!

You are misrepresenting atheism. There are "positive" and "negative" atheist positions. Positive asserts that there is no God (as you have described), but negative only asserts a disbelief in any Gods (but does not claim to know for sure that no Gods exist).

Please, explain to me, how you can "not believe in something" without defining that something, and how such "not believing" can inspire so many A-theist books, churches and other organizations?

It seems you haven't made yourself aware of many [definitions of God] that are right under your nose.
"God is love." - That's in the scriptures which several major religions believe.
How would you deny love? Can you?
"The kingdom (realm/experience) of God is within you." Of course it is - where else would it be?
How can you deny that the experience of God is within someone? And how can you deny what's going on inside others?

Do you consider the concept of "Love" to be worthy of worship? Anyone can define God however they want, but that doesn't mean that 1) there is sufficient evidence that the God they defined exists or 2) that the God they defined should be worshiped as such. Defining God as love serves no purpose beyond complicating the question even more. If God is literally Love, then lets just leave the less understood God word out of our vocab entirely and only refer to love. Also, most atheists do not "deny the experiences" of others, they just don't believe them.

1)Yes, I do consider love to be worthy of worship - as I define Love. I define love as appreciating what is, while striving for what's best - through trial & error - active faith. This type of love/God is the only type (IMO) that prevents worship of false gods because it requires constant adjustment to figuring out what is and what's best in each evolving circumstance.
2) What would be sufficient evidence, to you, that Love exists?
3) Do you have any better ideas of what love/God is?
4) If, "Defining God as love serves no purpose beyond complicating the question even more" - what is the question?
5) There are various degrees of love - I consider God to the the highest GOoD type of love, and as I mentioned, I want to inspire in myself and others less suffering by focusing on healthier definitions of God.
6) It seems to require a lot of faith to deny that another person is having an experience that you yourself cannot experience and have no proof of either way. Even if a person is diagnosably delusional, if they experience pleasure or pain - they do! What kind of doctor would it be to not believe their patients when they say they are experiencing something? How scientific or logical?

Note that Atheism points at something they fail to define and then says, "That doesn't exist!" How logical or scientific is that?

Which is why dogbite says that he does not accept any definitions of God for which 1) there is not sufficient evidence that said God exists or 2) that the defined is not worthy of worship as such. You are right that denying that something undefined exists is silly, which brings us back to my previous comment about the ignostic position. Ignostic is the view that any religious term or theological concept presented must be accompanied by a coherent definition before it can be meaningfully discussed. If anyone comes up with a definition, then refer to steps 1) and 2) above.

Which of the countless definitions of God should be denied or not believed? All of them? Even monks who have spent their life times studying God/Spirituality admit to barely scratching the surface. How can someone be so all-knowing to deny in such massively broad terms?

What about the other ways to consider God? Just toss them out the window? What about the scientific method - which tests every known possibility before concluding?

Science doesn't do this. There are almost infinite ways to test things, so if this were true, science would have no conclusions. Science comes to conclusions based on repeatable results. Science also welcomes new evidence to inform/change understanding of the universe. Traditional faith seems to do the opposite by first defining God, then ignoring counter evidence proposed against that definition. People who maintain faith in the face of counter evidence are often praised for having "strong faith" and not wavering.

Science suggest being open to all known possibilities - rather than cherry picking and taking just the easiest hypothesis to refute.
To have faith in things that are obviously inaccurate is not real faith, IMO.
To me, faith is based on sound reason.
And in my every-day life, my faith is more about what I can accomplish with higher help, rather than faith that I can hike to Kolob.

[dogbite]

1)Yes, I do consider love to be worthy of worship - as I define Love. I define love as appreciating what is, while striving for what's best - through trial & error - active faith. This type of love/God is the only type (IMO) that prevents worship of false gods because it requires constant adjustment to figuring out what is and what's best in each evolving circumstance.
2) What would be sufficient evidence, to you, that Love exists?
3) Do you have any better ideas of what love/God is?
4) If, "Defining God as love serves no purpose beyond complicating the question even more" - what is the question?
5) There are various degrees of love - I consider God to the the highest GOoD type of love, and as I mentioned, I want to inspire in myself and others less suffering by focusing on healthier definitions of God.
6) It seems to require a lot of faith to deny that another person is having an experience that you yourself cannot experience and have no proof of either way. Even if a person is diagnosably delusional, if they experience pleasure or pain - they do! What kind of doctor would it be to not believe their patients when they say they are experiencing something? How scientific or logical?

God is a chemical state of the brain. OK.

[Newme]

Belief is powerful - even to affect your body - so why would anybody want to believe things that make them sick - rather than make them their optimum best?

This is a fascinating position. I guess it could be akin to Pascal's wager? I have a couple issues with it based on my understanding:

1st - You seem to place placebo on equal standing with remedies scientifically determined to be effective (you say people use drugs with dangerous side effects when "belief" does the trick? I may have misunderstood your position.)
The problem with this is, if a remedy is determined to be no more effective than placebo than it is declared ineffective. At least that's my understanding of science. Something is going on with placebo, absolutely, but it is not a panacea. Science tries to find remedies that are far more effective than chance or placebo.

First off, I don't hold the placebo on equal standing with meds. As I explained, placebo isn't trusted as much as medications because of the variability (untestability) of the placebo effect.
Also, a medication has to be only BARELY better than the placebo effect to be accepted by the FDA.
When you add all of the side effects so common to many medications, the placebo effect could potentially be much healthier overall.
The challenge is learning to train our thoughts and e-motions so that we can inspire such amazing power of belief.

2nd - Belief, as you admit, is also dangerous. Locally we've had two awful cases of parents killing their children out of ignorance because they placed more faith in superstition than science. What is the boundary between "good" belief and "bad" belief? For me personally, it's whatever appears to reflect reality.

Belief is powerful - for good or bad.
A 2nd mom to me used to pop a handful of pills daily for many years and died of liver cancer.
How many people believe it's ok to eat poorly, not exercise and get heart disease - when they're adding to the statistics of heart disease being the #1 killer in the US.
If you take any extreme - of course you'll get some dysfunction.
As Aristotle suggested, moderation in all [GOoD] things.
BTW - I do believe what we know of good and bad - right & wrong - is based on religious law. In the US Capitol is a plaque/statue of Moses being honored as one of our country's significant law makers.

3rd - Placebo is entirely based on deceit in scientific research. I would have to try and decieve myself to believe in a biblical or personal god. I'm just not in a position to be double-blind anymore and in order to believe again I simply require better evidence.

I agree, LaMachina. That's a challenge that I have too. I'm actually very skeptical - even as a TBM I was, but after my faith crisis, it's been a struggle to maintain faith. But I saw how skepticism was paralyzing and kind of depressing - at least to me. I was just watching this clip about affirmations and how let's say you're overweight & sick but you keep repeating, "I'm skinny & healthy." Well, what happens when you don't believe something but try to force it - is that after you state it, your deeper thinking which really believes it and ties emotion to it says, "BS! I'm fat and sick!" And in that case, the affirmation is actually causing worse problem than if you hadn't even said it. To have effective faith, it must be believable - with hope for a little better - and of course "faith without works is dead." You gotta do something about it - "Where attention goes, energy flows."

[Dravin]

And I will admit to doing this - and tell you why.

If you want me to take you seriously you'll need to stop it. If you want to discuss something else that's all well and good, but discussing something with someone who is just going to move the goal posts around is frustrating and generally unproductive. So if you don't like the goal posts that most of us are subconsciously using and prefer a different set, go ahead and stake them out and then engage in discussion, don't move them after the fact. Most here are going to be operating under a definition that more or less goes like:

(in Christianity and other monotheistic religions) the creator and ruler of the universe and source of all moral authority;

(in certain other religions) a superhuman being or spirit worshiped as having power over nature or human fortunes

Don't agree with that definition? Then explain yours and ask those you are engaging what they think about god in the terms you define it and cut the semantic 'cuteness' that's akin to calling someone out as being anti-Canola oil because they say rape is bad.

Currently, a lot of people are suffering from belief in dysfunctional definitions of God.

What makes these definitions dysfunctional? If they're generally agreed upon by a group then they are perfectly functional definitions. A group of employees at an office may define work differently than a physicist but but neither definition is dysfunctional they just exist in different contexts (which is why dictionaries often give more than one definition).

I want to focus on the more functional definitions of God - for myself and others.

Except if I adopt your definition of God it is less functional as the believers around me won't have a clue what I'm talking about when I say, "Hey, turns out I'm a theist." There is value in staking out a specific definition even if it isn't a common one but the limited context in which it is applicable needs to be conceded.

I consider love as appreciating what is (easier said than done sometimes) & striving for what's best (for myself & others) - through trial & error - active faith.

I define love as a feeling of deep affection. I do not define god as feelings of deep affection. I've already given my thoughts on what happens with my stance on the existence of gods if we do accept god as the emotion called love. It doesn't represent an great shift in my beliefs though, just the 'fun' you can have if someone gives you free reign over semantics.

Within you, is amazing potential - your subconscious mind really makes up your world - your subjectively limited view of this world. The easiest way to tap into this amazing potential we each have within us - is through belief in something higher than pride and other trappings inherent in being human.

That one is an atheist does not mean one does not believe in something greater than themselves. Take for instance humanism, a position that most if not all atheists are going to see as congruent with being an atheist. This smells a lot like the old saw about how atheists must worship themselves because they don't worship god. I can believe, work towards, and hope to achieve say the potential of the human family without believing in a god, defining humanism as god, or defining that belief in terms of worship which is going to carry senses of meaning that aren't applicable.

If I did so, speaking only of myself, I'd think I was trying to force anything I could into the box labeled "god" just so I could avoid calling myself an atheist.

An Atheist may say they don't believe in God but if they spend all their time thinking and being concerned with shooting down God in the name of Atheism, then ironically, Atheism is their god.

I doubt even Dawkins spends all his time thinking and being concerned with shooting down God in the name of Atheism. I know I don't.