I don't see gods as distinct from nature, they are nature. I view nature as all-encompassing and that it includes both the material and the conceptual. Gaia is the Earth, Thanatos is death, Nyx is the night and so on.
Here is where we differ.
I see the Earth as ….the Earth
death as ….the cessation of a life
night as….the period of time spent in the shadow away from the sun.
I tend to accept things for what they are.
I don’t see a need to add a “godly” quality to it.
An atheist (and indeed a theist) may agree that the things that are deified in those examples do in fact exist but would argue they don't actually qualify as gods. They presumably lack some kind of quality that would make them acceptable as gods to that person. That suggests to me a degree of expectation on the part of those who encounter these god concepts.
Here I think may be the crux of it.
Despite living in a society saturated with inferences about gods, I don’t have the presupposition that they actually exist.
I see them more as literary characters run amuk in the minds of people who have blurred the lines of imagination and reality to the point where they believe the imagined to exist in reality.
I just see the reality.
We can look at somethings and agree that they actually exists in reality…. the earth, the sun,
the ocean, the winds, a volcano, trees, the previously discussed ball as examples.
Because I don’t have a presupposition of gods, when I look at them I don’t try to add a godly quality to them.
I simply see them, accept them, and understand them for what they are.
I don’t expect anything different
It’s not so much that they lack a godly quality;
it’s that I see no reason to add any quality to them to enhance how I experience them.
To me they are what they are.
Like you, I have great reverence for nature.
As a matter of fact, in a week’s time I’ll be doing a 4 day backpacking trip into the Grand Canyon.
I’ve been monitoring the weather for the trip…,
at this point the forecast is tending towards cold and rainy.
I don’t have an impulse to pray to any god/gods to clear up the weather, because I understand that to be meaningless.
I understand (the basics anyway) of how weather works and accept that neither I nor anyone else can alter it.
I do hope it clears up.
But that’s the extent of it….wishful thinking.
I wanted to know people's baseline expectations and didn't want to restrict atheists to a singular definition. My own definition is just one of many and I feel that many people veer towards a rough definition of their own, even if they don't believe that god exists.
Now I do also think it's possible for somebody to have no expectations of what a god is at all. I know for example that there are people who consider the question of gods to be utterly meaningless due to the countless interpretations of what a god is.
This is part of what I found humorous from the beginning.
For me the baseline expectation is reality without gods. I think that’s true of most atheists.
Perhaps you should try with another thread…..
“Theists: What qualities should a god have?”
From my experience, you won’t need to worry about participants feeling restricted or being influenced by your views, they will more likely be happy to “correct” you on where you a “wrong”.
Cheers.
