Theological/belief label

There are people who think of God as external to themselves, and vindictive and powerful. Probably a few who think of God as external to themselves but doddering and irrelevant. My God is something who speaks to me, a way of having cognitions and understanding things, and not external but participatory… I am not always God but God is a valid sense of self.

Ntozake Shange once had her dancers sing “I found god in myself and I love her fiercely”. Yeah, that. I have found the connections to others, and the shared plural sense of identity with others, from something that had its roots within me. And I kept asking larger questions, wanting to know, wanting to understand. One day the available connections were to everything, were to That Which Is. A Superplural sense of identity. To be part of the All. Everything interconnected. To be a process, to be a verb, a dance; to conjure with the voice that once said “Let there be light”, to stand up and be the point of initiative, to say I, to step forth and be so that it can be true that things are a certain way because somebody stood up and said “I am”, or “I got that”. Not passively waiting but making it be, being the reason that it is. Volition. But a volition merged and meshes with the interplay with other people.

So to many people, you’re an atheist. That’s why I think the question of agnosticism vs strong/weak atheism is generally a waste of time. What’s the point in trying to pin down your degree of conviction in the non-existence of something so poorly defined? Many people will tell you that they don’t believe in a Yahweh-like god, but will not categorize themselves as atheists, attaching the term “god” to a vague spiritual notion that’s unfalsifiable.

The aliens who are running the simulated universe that we probably live in must be so advanced that they are indistinguishable from gods. Does that mean I’m not an atheist?

I don’t think you are an atheist if you think there is a god by your definition of god.