What type of atheist are you?

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2013/07/15/the-six-types-of-atheists/?hpt=hp_c4

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

1, 2 if provoked.

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

On the inside (and at times on the outside) I've been a 4, no doubt about it.  What I am moving towards, however, is an approach that promotes the benefits of being an atheist; that is, the good things it has done for me, rather than trying to say why the other side is bad. 

That is not listed here, so I'll say I'm a 4 who is moving towards a new way of doing things (other).

[Mopsus]

Of these choices, either Ritual Atheist or Seeker-Agnostic. None of these options fully encapsulate my views - I'm an atheist who is sure of the non-existence of God, but believes that it would be better if He did exist. What does that make me?

[°Leprechaun]

voted: seeker-agnostic

non theist would be a better label, but I don't fit the description

I am basically an existentialist atheist (maybe Taoist or Buddhist), and/or truth seeker
pondering the meaning of life

[DemPGH]

Choice 1 of the choices. The anti-theist choice is interesting, although I am somewhat uncomfortable with it. It probably works for me on certain occasions. I am, though, first and foremost anti-clerical and anti-religion, not really anti-theist per se. There's a sort of obnoxious faith crusader (faith healing or TV types, etc.) that can bring the anti-theist in me out, though.

[Dr. Cynic]

Number 1, though if I'm upset about something, I'll slip into anti-theist territory.

[Oakvale]

5 with parts of 6, but 5 is by far the most accurate description of me.

[Marokai Backbeat]

A mix of 3 and 6.

[afleitch]

I suppose my atheism takes a bit of an explanation. I don’t believe in the existence of a god, though people’s beliefs in god in theory don’t bother me. It just so happens that a significant majority of those who believe in god then subscribe to a theology that makes specific and often exclusive claims about what the god is and what it wants. That then trickles down into power systems, society and politics and makes people exercise their own power and influence, often to people’s detriment (and specifically, often to my own) under the guise of some divine will. The existence of (and denial of) god/s is very much intertwined with the human experience, so much so that to me it is a reflection of the human psyche. Because we as humans understand the concept of ‘cause’ (pick up rock, throw to ground. Man made that happen) in our formative years we saw events happen to us and believed that they must be happening for us and therefore have happened for a reason. The crops failed, we needed the crops, so who made the crops fail and why would they do such a thing? It can’t ‘just have happened’ because it has specifically affected us. We therefore thought that nature was a sentient agent acting against us. That is why our early gods are often elemental in what they represent (air, fire, the sun, fertility etc) but human in their actions. As man settled down into communities and created power structures then gods became law givers and representatives of tribes and peoples combined with their elemental nature. They were then as ‘Lady Liberty’ or ‘Marianne’ were to the Enlightenment; embodiments of community sentiment, but embodiments who exercised an unseen authority and from which community leaders could derive their authority from.

So what am I getting at? You cannot trust man’s interpretation of god even if there was one out there, given how infused with human strengths, weaknesses and concerns nearly all interpretations of these gods appear to be. It is entirely presumptuous to assume that we could see or interpret a divine presence anyway given how limited our senses are. We literally see the world the only way we can and with the senses and faculties we have. Perhaps the traces of god are found only in sonar waves and therefore dolphins and bats have the upper hand on universal knowledge and the purpose of being. Yet of course, conveniently, our gods tell us they are there and we can know of them. These gods know of our fear, and love, and laughter, tears, rage and jealousy because they experience it too. They never seem to demonstrate an emotion that we ourselves are not aware of or capable of. Because of this, we are told various iterations of ‘of course you can understand god because god reveals himself.’ So we therefore have gods that are coincidentally like us, adept at our emotional ranges and interested in just us. This position bears the hallmark of human influence so would make me doubt any human claims to have knowledge of god. Most deities were presupposed at a time when we genuinely thought we were the centre of the universe; a literal centre where the sun and the stars were almost within touching distance. No we know we are not. We are probably not alone as intellectual life forms go. So how then can a creator god of an expansive universe care about ‘love’ or ‘hate’ when these are human emotions? What if there are parts of the universe where there is no love, or where ‘hate’ is actually advantageous to survival? How can there be a universal moral and ethical code in that case? What about a life form that cannot theorise the concept of power and therefore cannot understand the notion of a god at all?

Furthermore we actually understand very little about our environment. We struggle to even know much about ourselves. Yet for those religions that are founded on a god that ‘revealed’ itself, not only is god known, but his wants and desires are also known. Yet we have only scratched the surface of knowing about this god’s supposed creation on this planet or outside of it. So what should, by strict definition, be the most unknowable (i.e a creator god) is, according to theologians, known and has been known for thousands of years yet the mechanisms of the universe which by comparison to a god should be fairly simple are not yet fully understood. Especially when compared to a god that supposedly exists outside of those very laws.

This does not exclude the possibility of a god that exists entirely outside of our reasoning. If so it makes all attempts to understand it a futile exercise and therefore only deserves a sentence!

[anvi]

I suppose I'd call myself an intellectual atheist.  I don't believe in God, and if people ask me, I'll tell them why.  But I respect other people's right to believe what they like, and I even have a positive respect for religious beliefs if they help others actually be better people than they might be otherwise.  There is nothing "activist" about my atheism, as I don't go around telling other people what to believe about anything, nor is it in any way ritualized.  But I am certain that I am an atheist, and I'd be quite surprised if anything diluted or changed that.

[RedSLC]

Seeker-agnostic. However, I can slip into anti-theist territory if sufficiently pissed off by religious zealots.

[TNF]

Non-theist, though I suppose you could describe me as culturally Baptist owing to my upbringing, if that makes sense.

[Redalgo]

The seeker-agnostic description fits me best, though I do slip a bit into the realm of the "activist" group when confronted with arguments that society or state should be made more religious.

[pbrower2a]

Any God that exist is linked intimately with the mathematical and physical laws of the universe as they apply to particles and to rules of classification that we think of as logic. Beyond that it is all up to us.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

Option 3 seems the best of these.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I have elements of the non-theist, the agnostic/seeker, the ritual atheist and the activist. Voted non-theist.

[opebo]

Non-theist.  I consider any consideration of the 'question' of religion perfect nonsense and a waste of time.  Only dumbs would even take such things seriously for a millisecond.

Now, it is true I'm militantly anti-religious, but that is a political position against people, not against religion.  I would like to see all the religious fed to lions, but that doesn't mean I have ever needed to focus on being an atheist - it just comes naturally to me.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Number 1. Jesus who some say was a prophet who wanted people to believe that he was their savior.  But the problem with the religion is that they say your soul goes back to him when u die and only upon his return do u return from the dead, but u suppose to have an eternal soul. Sounds contradictory to me.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Number 1. Jesus who some say was a prophet who wanted people to believe that he was their savior.  But the problem with the religion is that they say your soul goes back to him when u die and only upon his return do u return from the dead, but u suppose to have an eternal soul. Sounds contradictory to me.

That doesn't seem a good credo for rejecting all religion. Not saying you should or shouldn't, but I tend to suggest a larger philosophical scope than isolating religion and your reasons not to have it as a seeming contradiction of Christianity.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

I don't reject spirituality, but Christianity should be questioned and always will. Meditation is good to rid the demons.

[Mehmentum]

Somewhere in between intellectual atheist/agnostic and non-theist.

[The Simpsons Cinematic Universe]

1-2-4. There's a lot more overlap between groups than this makes out.