In my last diary, I wrote about Elon Musk and closed with the sentence: "God, I hope he succeeds." As most of my friends know, I am an atheist. How, then, can this idiot ask for divine intervention in the case of Mr. Musk and his challenge to our build-to-wear-out culture capitalism? Easy.
There is nothing about my atheism that denies the existence of God. In fact, I maintain that this kind of atheism allows for it. The reasoning is pretty simple. There is no way in hell (another interesting construct) that I, or anyone else, could hae been present at the creation of the universe. Therefore, by what conceivable act of egotism could I, or anybody, state categorically that there isn't (or wasn't) some Prima Causa that started it all? As the old Jewish joke ends, "Vas you dere, Charlie?"
Read on.
My atheism is a statement of personal belief, which can't be contradicted, as opposed to a flat statement of fact, which can. If I declare blue is the "best" color, I can anticipate anything from a parade of statistics from decorators to a black eye, whereas if I say that my favorite color is blue, only a complete moron will reply, "Sorry, it's green."
God works the same way. If there is infinity, on which most people agree, this must apply to all facets of the universe, including its Creator, if any. So, the person who believes God is an old man with a beard is absolutely correct, but so is the person who thinks God is a disembodied force. It's not a case of one or the other. When dealing with Someone or Something thought to be infallible, omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient, isn't it a sort of insult to slap any kind of label and declare it the only accurate one? Wouldn't it be better to accept all labels as correct since any God worthy of the name would embrace all of them?
I find no problem with my own brand of atheism as long as I don't try to jam it down the throats of others. All I ask is for others to show the same courtesy to me. I reserve the right to think that if a God is fair, that God wouldn't act in an arbitrary or capricious manner, including listening or responding to prayers from Yankee or Met fan or those of their opponents. For that matter, I feel I'm well within my rights wondering how a God could be fair answering any prayers at all, since that would imply favoritism, which is not fair. Is this agnosticism rather than atheism? Maybe. Perhaps it's the easiest way to get out of pondering unanswerable questions.
Hope this explains things.