I'm definitely not an atheist tho.
I find/believe:
- theistic religions and their people are gullible and dangerously irrational (Christians, Jews, Muslims, ...);
- religions openly more philosophical are objectively great (Taoism, Buddhism, ...)
- atheism is mostly being willingly ignorant and closed-minded and feeling superior for it
- scepticism and accepting to not know things is the actually reasonable answer
Simple illustration: the origin of the universe.
The irrationally religious will directly talk about their God.
The irrationally atheist will talk about the Big Bang until you ask "what about before that" and they'll either explode or murder you.
The sceptic or agnostic will accept there was the Big Bang, and that there's possibly something before or more meta that we don't know about (yet).
sceptic or agnostic: I prefer sceptic, as it leaves a place for the (yet). But whatever, both are okay.
@CobaltVelvet I am atheist and I won't explode or murder you, I will explain to you some of the leading theories, but end with "research is ongoing and we don't really know definitively."
@Benjamin well that looks a lot like scepticism :p
@CobaltVelvet I don't believe in the existence of any higher power and I don't believe that one COULD exist. I think that if you redefine some terms, then I could agree with your position, but using normally defined terms, I am not sure.
@CobaltVelvet See this is where our definitions depart from each other, in my mind they aren't gods unless they can not be explained within their own system.
@Benjamin well usually "cannot be explained" is very similar to "we don't understand it yet".
I don't think anything is impossible to explain, so I just define a God with what most religions require to consider something a God.
@Benjamin well, let's start with an easy theory: we're in a simulation. We can't prove we aren't. And the entities controlling it are, by most definitions, gods to is.