Can someone be an atheist but still believe in God ?

That defeats the whole purpose of being an Atheist. I mean, literally, that's the whole definition of the word "atheist".

"A person who disbelieves or lacks belief in the existence of God or gods"

 

No, I don't think so. The whole idea of atheism is that one doesn't believe in any sort of God. Perhaps agnostic would be a better word for that. Someone may believe that there is some sort of greater being out there, but believes that there is no way that we could ever know that.

 

Correctly, no. Ironically, yes.

 

i had a friend who did thia because she really wanted to conform to the athiest internet crowd but still believed in god so she called herself agnostic despite believing in the christian god


it was ridiculous so for the sake of sanity i will say no, lol

 

i'm gay, but straight too. :lol:

 

That... Is confusing behavior. Especially when atheists are consistently reported as the least trusted group in the US.

 

This would be an example of bisexuality, unless you were speaking exclusively for both.

But for my response, I'm saying no. Like others have said, it defeats the whole point of identifying as an atheist.

 

You can bielive in god but at the same time not bielive any religion. You can be non-religious bieliver.

 

I think technically it could make sense if you interpret atheist to mean "one who follows no religion" because they could believe in a god without associating themselves with any religion or carrying out any religious practices. But I think the most accurate term for that is agnostic theist: a typically nonreligious person who believes there is a god but accepts that there is no way to know for sure.

 

No, atheists do not believe in god(s). He could just be a secular theist.

 

Religious- People who believe in an established system of faith and worship.

Theist- People who believe in the exist of a God or Gods.

Atheist- People who lack belief in the exist of a God or Gods.

It's a shame that these differences in terminology aren't stressed highly enough in society. It might help the masses realize that there is little connection between religion and the discussion of the presence of a higher power. To be religious does not mean to have faith in a higher power, rather to have faith in an archaic perception of that power's expectations for its creations.

 

You might try reading Frank Schaefer's book Why I Am An Atheist Who Believes in God. Interesting book so far, I'm halfway through it. I don't really know all his conclusions yet, but I know a lot of people like to look at Jesus and God as intellectual ideas that influence positive morality--they pray, because it, like most meditation, is beneficial to our psyche. They believe in the concept of God--but they interpret it much differently than say the "distant guy in the sky" televangelist stuff.

God could be inside all of us, everywhere, every thing. If, essentially the concept of "god" is anything we consider the absolute most important thing in our lives--then even we can become gods to ourselves. Even atheists have their own sorts of gods--just because we're not sacrificing cattle to it, doesn't mean we don't give it highest praise in our minds. Maybe for some, just casting off religion is the absolute most important thing to us--it becomes god-like in our mind.

So in essence, I think, in a way, some people can believe in a god(s) of some sort (whether they realize it or not), and still call themselves atheists. Especially if they are mostly opposed to the Western ideal of the Christian God.

 

In short no. Atheism is a descriptive word on the single position of a lack of belief in any gods. Therefore atheism and belief in a god (theists) is mutually exclusive. Anyone who claims to be an atheist but believes in a god is not actually an atheist even if though pretend to call themselves one.

Happy days

 

No, Atheism is the lack of believe in God. That is all it is. It's like saying I'm a theist without believing in God/Gods.

 

No, that's contrary to the definition of atheist. However, it is possible to belong to a religion whilst being an atheist. My father is an example of that. He calls himself a christian because he "follows the teachings of christ", but he doesn't believe in god, or that jesus was anything more than a mortal man. Additionally, there a some religions, or traditions within them that aren't theistic.

 

No, someone who believes in a god or gods is a theist, which is an antonym of atheist.

Atheism and religion are not incompatible, but you can't believe in God at the same time as not believing in God.

 

It depends on what definition of atheism you want to use.

Technically the monotheistic religions (IE. Judaism, Christianity, Islam) are all atheistic of the polytheistic religion's (some forms of Buddhism, Hinduism) gods.
The wider accepted definition is atheistic of all Gods.
This is of course different than the historical definition of atheism, which was essentially rejection of divine providence (Thomas Paine), rejection of Divine Command Theory (Kant), or rejection of the power of the Church (See Thomas Hobbes for the last example). This was generally not a self definition because atheism was in general still punishable by death and was more often than not applied to these philosophers by the Church of their given society.

It really depends on what level of analysis you want to put into it.

You could be an atheist (reject any type of God) but still believe in some universal karma or the Just World Hypothesis, which in my mind isn't functionally different from believing in a God, you just aren't naming it.

Personally I'm atheistic about a personal God, but apatheistic (I don't care) about a non-personal God. I really find the bickering over the definition of atheist among the non-religious folks obnoxious and fundamentally a pointless exercise, but that's my inner Wittgenstein coming through more often than not.

 

This thread in general I think helps demonstrate the dangers of jumping down the rabbit hole of dissecting a label too much.

For me, as an atheist, he quoted snippet is actually a bit offensive, especially with how the bolder part is phrased. It implies the reasons I'm atheist, and how I approach the whole idea of value in my life and society, don't exist. It implies I must be placing something on a pedestal, when it is that very behavior that drives me to atheism in the first place. There isn't any one example of an atheist we can point to and say "they are all like that". It is just stereotyping in disguise.

I mostly get confused when people adopt multiple labels that contradict each other, since it conveys a very weird concept that is hard to grasp onto. There's obviously times where people simply aren't familiar with particular labels that might convey the concept better, and will grasp onto something they know. Or perhaps they want to fit in with a specific circle and adopt something without groking it. As an example, I see a lot of descriptions of agnostic, which would probably fit the term "deist" better. But it is what it is, and at most I'd probably just leave it at the level of suggesting a label that might describe them more accurately, and moving on.

 

Yes indeed. Basically all discussions about the definition of atheism turn into over analysis of the label and pointless definist bickering.
How they go: with emots.

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