I say I "believe" in God.

And if an atheist, I say you don't "believe" in God.

Then some on the board go wild and whacky over the word "believe."

They're a perfectly good words, "I believe" and "I don't believe."

I have no concrete belief that there is a God except by trust or faith, and by the same token, can't an Atheist say the same?

If some say that "I know" that there isn't a God, wouldn't that be the same in Mormonese talk that "I "know" there is a God"?

Science hasn't found all the answers yet. Until it does, "to believe" is perfectly legitimate way to express what we, well, believe.

I don't use the word "believe" too often any more. It's a perfectly acceptable word and we know what it means..

My framework is:

The TBMs (Zealots by definition) prefer "know" to "believe" and I prefer "reasonably certain" to "believe."

The bulk of the discussions is about "belief systems". Theist try to claim that Atheism is a belief system, so it is thus as dogmatic as religion.

It is a false statement that can and should be rebuffed.

I don't say I don't 'believe' in God because the people who do believe in God are so sure they are right that they take it to mean that since he is really there you are just snubbing him.

It is taken out of context. To religiosos it is like saying you don't believe in using a creme rinse after you wash your hair. The fact that creme rinse is available isn't the question, it's just that you don't believe in using it, as in you don't find it necessary.

Theists think that for sure God 'is' available, and we are just saying we don't believe in him as in 'he is not necessary'. Then they insinuate that your non-belief is a belief system which is absurd since 'no belief'= no system.

I think that is why the word belief is a sensitive issue

To me, saying that "lack of belief is a belief system" is a theist way of framing the discussion. It's like a Mormon calling a non-member a gentile or calling a former member an apostate. I am not a gentile just because a Mormon sees me that way. Mormons don't get to define who I am.

That's one of the best ways I have heard it put.

I just re-read what I wrote and I'm not sure even I understand it.

It's a simple matter of semantics. It all boils down to the same thing.

You either believe in God or you don't.

How complex is that?

Who gives a shit how others perceive you as they use the word "believe" to pass it off as snubbing God?

I don't look down on atheists but when you get your panties in a twist when someone says that you "don't believe" it give more mileage to the believers to go after you.

Why not use their language rather than being contrary?

When I went on my mission I learned how to say "I know this is true..." when I really did not 'know' at all. It was completely dishonest, to myself and all those people I said it to. To me it is acceptable to profess a belief in God/religion, a honest way of expression.

Many atheists aren't crazy evangelical atheists. The less cantankerous ones are pleasant to talk to and know how to express themselves in a way that makes sense to most other people. They've convinced me into a sort of agnosticism.

There's a subgroup of atheists who make it their business to jump on believers and start scrapping it out. I've wondered at times why they jump into conversations the way they do.

They practice this like practitioners of any religion, and they are the charismatic evangelicals of atheism, whether they like it or not.

"Believe" is one of those words that has a lot of gradations in its meaning. This makes it ripe for equivocation--changing meaning in the middle of an argument.

On the one hand there is the use of the word "believe" to mitigate things, to point out that I could easily be wrong:

"I believe that that big storm we had was in the winter of '57."

or

"You want Bill? I believe he's in the back yard; I'll go and look."

On the other hand it can be a statement of firm assertions that will never be questioned:

"We believe in God the Eternal Father, and in his son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost."

The equivocation is when a Mormon points out that people (including you) believe all kinds of things, so who are you to question what they believe? The other equivocation is that since you once "believed" something then you must have become a hypocrite to deny it now. Any "belief" that an ex-Mormon once had is thrown back in their face as an absolute statement of unchanging TRUTH, rather than "what I was thinking at a time of great duress."

Then there's the old joke: "everyone has to believe in something; I believe I'll have another beer."