Because by and large we aren’t talking about it: we’re responding to other people talking about it. They define things, and we’re skeptical of those things. It’s not particularly our job to run around thinking up different things and definitions of things to not believe in.
I don’t think you are incapable of understanding what I said. Your response was “I believe you made it quite plain that you essentially define God as anything metaphysical and that you don’t believe in any of it. Did I misunderstand you?”
The first sentence is pretty hard to reconcile with the second being anything other than sweetly sarcastic, especially given that I don’t think any fair reading of what I wrote could get one to describe it as dismissing “anything metaphysical.”
First, my comment that the OP is flawed deals with the second paragraph of your OP, where you wrote “I think it’s especially important for an atheist to make a cogent definition of what it is he does not believe in; otherwise, how can he know he does not believe in it?” My incredulity is not directed at the sincerity of your concern for atheists’ perspectives, but at the approach you consider to be important. I offered my opinion (and I’m aware that’s all it is) that it would be more practical and productive to start from beliefs rather than disbeliefs.
Second, the only difference I see between a strawman argument and your request for atheists to define -cogently- what ‘it’ is they don’t believe is that unlike the first case, the second case gives us no actual insight into the real beliefs of the respondent! In point of fact, it doesn’t even tell us how the respondent views actual theistic beliefs; it shows us nothing but one out of many IPUs/sky pixies/thunder king concepts he finds incredible.
Third, I meant what I said in my personal response - grasping the idea of God is a far less lofty goal in existence than living as well as you can, according to your own beliefs of truth and correctness. -I don’t think that’s your goal here, but it is what the OP seems to point to.
God is supernatural. Anything working within natural laws is highly advanced, but not god. But not all supernatural things are god, otherwise Freddy Kruger is god.
God is intelligent - but that leaves out “the universe is god” people.
God created the universe. But not all commonly accepted gods did - Zeus, for instance, was created.
God has an impact on the universe. But that leaves out the deists’ God.
There are so many ways of defining god around these things, and others that I didn’t think of, that I give up. And here’s the difference between asking this of a theist and an atheist. A theist only needs to give one definition, the atheist needs to give all of them. If an atheist doesn’t, a theist can say "well, you don’t not believe in my god.
So I’m in the “tell me about your god, and I’ll tell you why I don’t believe in him” camp.
I’m a lot more sympathetic to those who believe that God has some affect on the world in some way. People that think God exists, but doesn’t interact with the world in any way seem pretty wishy-washy. I mean you’ve made half the leap, why not go all the way? It reminds me of the old ladies that would wade into the ocean up to their knees and then splash water on themselves.
Ok. So you call those things God. Also, some people once called certain volcanoes God. Some people today call “all that is” God. I believe in volcanoes, in “all that is” existence, and truth and love and so forth. But I don’t see what sort of helpful meaning is added by calling these things gods, except to cause unnecessary confusion about whether or not people think these things have psyches and intentions and personified psychological interactions and conversations with human beings, as most God concepts seem to imply.
The bit I’ve bolded seems like a baseless leap to me.
The problem with defining God as a personal aesthetic or whatever, is that all you’ve done is made the essential task of religious debates (conveying what you mean by what you say to others) that much harder, because you’ve moved into, IMO, an even more nebulous and ill-defined region.
Definitions for “Beauty”, “Edifies”, “Constructive” are, I think, going to be a lot less universal or transferable than “Omnipotent”, “Omnipresent”, “Omniscient” or “Sentient”. They do share a nebulousness with “Omnibenevolent”, though, but then, I’ve never felt that’s been one of the commonly conveyed characteristics of the usual Theist God. Claimed, yes, conveyed by example, not so much.
What is Love? What is creation (the thing or the act?)? What is Good? What is Truth? What is Justice?
Any definitions that even come close to mentioning God are going to be circular, of course. Or mentioning any of the other things that God “is” - so no defining “Love” using “Good”.
Love is giving yourself to another person. Creation is both. Good is what God does. Truth is God’s word, or anything not false. Justice is living according to how God set up the universe.
Each one of those can be argued forever and ever, but that’s what I thought off the top of my head.
“God is Love” is silly; love is just an emotion, not a being of any kind. That which is "absolute and necessary for creation"could be, and likely is natural forces and mathematical laws, or just random chance. And claiming that God is “Good, Truth, and Justice” makes little sense; not only are they abstract concepts that aren’t at all compatable with being some sort of creature, but they contradict the behavior and philosophy that most people claim for God.
Only in numbers.
Creation is morally neutral, not “love” or “good”. One could, for example, postulate an evil creator that created a universe filled with beings that do nothing but suffer, eternally, so it can gloat over them. Calling that loving or good renders the words meaningless.
That’s the amoral, authoritarian definition of good truth and justice, and rather meaningless. It’s exactly the definition that leads people to commit massacres because God wants it, and feel that they are doing good because God’s will is good by definition. It’s the sort of belief that leads people to ignore scientific evidence because it contradicts what their holy book says. It’s the attitude that leads people to follow barbaric religious laws because that’s God’s definition of “justice” in their religion.
And you’ve also implicitly defined such things as rocks falling when dropped as “justice”, since that’s part of how the universe is set up, which is bizarre.
As far as my definition of God(s), I agree more or less with Diogenes; it’s an incoherent concept at best, and outright contradicted by reality or logic in many cases.
Lib, to understand the difficulty some of us are having with the OP, I wonder if you would mind offering the definition of God that you don’t believe in.
I think people who use the word “god” to replace other, more easily understood words are muddying the waters. There’s no need to use a word that is ALSO used to describe an omnipotent being when the existing words are NOT used to describe an omnipotent being. If you choose to define god so loosely, it dilutes the worthiness of the concept as one deserving of worship. I could say “paperclip” and “god” mean the same thing, but that would certainly reduce the worth of a god, wouldn’t it? Something that is almighty should not have run-of-the-mill words describing it.
Dont you know “Kal-El” in Hebrew means “vessel of God?” Ok ok so he could just be an angel 
You give a definition then.