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Why the hell am I even posting this, aside from insomnia?
Well, before I begin, tell Mr. James Randi that I am ready to claim his one million dollar prize because I can predict the future. The replies to this thread will be...
1) Ad hominem attacks
2) Argumentums ad populum (well, that isn't what the Baptists believe and their God has to be yours)
3) appeals to ridicule (that is stupid and makes no sense!)
4) Strawmen (God couldn't have created the world in six days!)
Anyway, assuming someone can come up with an independent, original thought on the matter, here we go:
First, what I don't believe:
I do not believe GOD is personal (it doesn't have bad hair days)
I do not believe GOD can become personal (if it limits itself to become personal, it stops being GOD)
I do not believe GOD performs supernatural miracles.
I do not believe any religion is accurately speaking of GOD is when said religion explains GOD through Myths
I do not believe any religious Mythology is literally true.
I do not believe there is one true religion.
So what do I believe?
1) I am not making up a religion...say that ten times (why even type this? I will get the "you just made that up!" reply anyway) I am a Gnostic Christian. Belief is not as important as learned understanding (Gnosis) gained from practicing the teachings of our Myths.
2) I am a Gnostic because it works. The Mythology has good teachings and make sense when looked at metaphorically.
3) I believe in GOD in the capacity of a metaphor for our higher-conscious (an archetype for the super ego) a metaphor for reality itself and that which is experienced in life but can't be placed easily into human language if it can be expressed in words at all. GOD is all of these at the same time at the very "least" (I put "least" in quotes because that still makes GOD worth worshiping and experiencing)
5) GOD may be something supernatural, but I'm not sure. It is supernatural at "most" and metaphorical at "least." Either way, it is worth worshiping and experiencing. 6) Second time because no one seems to understand this: I don't believe GOD is a literal white guy in a toga who created the universe in six days. 7) I am a Gnostic because it works for me. If another religion works for someone, that is fine. GOD is a very vast concept and hence it us open to interpretation.
8) All religions use Myths to stand in for the real thing, which can't be easily talked about in human language. Zeus is a valid metaphor for GOD (see number 3) as is Jesus, Shiva, Shango, Rainbow Serpent, Yahweh etc. (repeat: someone who practices a pagan religion that worships Zeus is just as valid as mine. Hence saying "What about people who worship Zeus?" is a straw man because I just addressed it)
9) What religion someone practices is a personal matter and doesn't really mean anything, as all religions are equally valid (when their Myths are understood as metaphor) and invalid (when their Myths are taken literally) What religion someone has is a matter of personal preference, no right or wrong answer.
So, why do I believe this?
1) It works. One can practice a religion without taking its Myths literally or taking its GOD literally. For example: Wicca, a growing religion, has many who don't believe that God and Goddess are literal but are metaphors for parts of the human psyche. Taoism is all about non-literalism and belief in something that can't be expressed in human language (the Tao) The Tao Te Ching starts off by saying "the Tao that can be talked about is not the true Tao. The name that can be spoken is not the eternal name." Hinduism is also a religion that embraces a fluid understanding of divinity, as does Buddhism and of course Gnosticism.
2) My own Myths (the Gnostic Gospels) back this up. The Gospel of Philip says man created GOD. Jesus himself says it is all parables etc.
3) Scholars on the fields of religion and Mythology (Joseph Campbell, Alan Watts, Huston Smith etc) all confirm that this conceptualization of GOD is valid and workable, and they have spent their scholarly lives studying religion.
4) I see no reason not to believe in GOD as a metaphor.
But why use a metaphor? I will answer with an analogy.
This is NOT an atom:
The image above shows a the standard model of an atom with red protons and blue neutrons. The thing is, color does not exist on a subatomic level. The electrons orbiting it are way too close: electrons orbit far, far away from the nucleus of atoms.
So why use this image if, by virtue of being an image of something that can't be seen, it can never be accurate? Answer: To simplify for humans what they can't really see.
Just as an image of an atom is an imperfect representation of the real thing that has to be imperfect, as that is the only way humans could comprehend it, GOD is also an imperfect representation of the real thing which is imperfect so that humans can comprehend it.
All Myths, be they Jesus, Mithra, Zeus etc, are just models of GOD. And just as the image of the atom would be just as valid/invalid if the colors of the neutrons and electrons were reversed (it's just a model, who cares? If that works for you, so what?) having Zeus or Shango in place of Jesus is also just as valid/invalid as any other Myth.
Just as drawings and models of atoms are simplifications of a real thing we can't really understand, religious Myths are simplifications of GOD, which is really a principle of reality, reality itself, life itself, we as individuals, our higher thoughts (super ego) and that which can be experienced in life but not placed into words. The big difference is atoms are not as complex as GOD, hence the need for more elaborate models for GOD.
So am I an atheist? Absolutely not. And atheist is one who does not believe in GOD. I do believe that GOD exists in the capacity of a metaphor. I am univseralist more so than anything else (lowercase "u", as I am not a Unitarian)
Now for the common replies:
1) "all religions claim they are the one true religion"
Bull. Sikhism, Baha'i, Buddhism, Wicca, Gnosticism, Asatru, Hinduism, etc all make it clear that there are more than one ways to know GOD. Only the modern Abrahamic religions of some sects of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam claim that theirs is the only religion.
2)"You just made that up!"
I didn't...and even if I did, so what? Joseph Campbell said "GOD is a metaphor for that which transcends all levels of intellectual thought, it is simple as that." Countless scholars all agree with me and my own holy Mythology (Gnostic Gospels) and other Mythologies say what I am saying: That GOD is not literally personal, internal more so than anything else and is best understood as a metaphor.
3) "That doesn't work for a religion!"
So...how do Wiccans have a fast growing religion with people practicing it perfectly fine? And Gnostics, and Taoists...and since when have Atheists been the ones to be able to tell what does and does not work as a religion? That's like an asexual knowing what is and is not sexy.
4) "I'm not converting!"
Please don't. I don't care what you believe as, as I said, all religions are equally valid/invalid. I am more likely to try to convert people from dubstep to trance than I am to convert them from whatever they believe to my religion (If the existence of dubstep is not evidence for the devil being real, what is?)
5) "Only a few believe that way!"
Argumentum ap populum fallacy.
6) "The religious text/people of old took their Myths literally so that is the only way to interpret them"
Untrue. First, as I already said, the Bible doesn't take the Bible literally. The OT prophet Hosea interpreted Jacob's struggle with the angel as being a metaphor for a struggle in prayer. Jesus himself said he speaks in parables...so, the Myths weren't meant to be taken as anything but literally, when they don't take themselves literally and tell people not to take them literally. And the ancients didn't take the Myths literally either: Origen, in the 3rd century, said the Bible could only be understood as metaphor. The same thing appears in other religions: their Myths were never meant to be taken literally and only have been recently.
7) "That doesn't make rational/logical/scientific sense."
It doesn't...and? I am not a rationalist hence I am concerned with being rational about as much as Dawkin's is concerned with being literal. I use reason sometimes, of course, but I refuse to be a slave to reason. I am an existentialist (a dirty word for Dawkin's Witnesses, I know)
So, keeping in mind the above, please try to prove my conceptualization of GOD is untrue.
Why the hell am I even posting this, aside from insomnia?
Good question...
Quote:
Originally Posted by victorianpunk
So, keeping in mind the above, please try to prove my conceptualization of GOD is untrue.
I don't understand why I would want to. I am fine with God being a metaphor, a term or an idea. I don't campaign against Harry Potter, or against the archetype of a wizard in literature. If you are using god as a metaphoric description of your own sense of wonder and awe, or your own emotional experience, more power to you.
What I don't believe, what I have not seen any good reason to believe, is that any of this is actually, empirically, demonstrably true or real. It is, as you say a metaphor, a comparison between two things that are not the same for the purpose of demonstrating some commonality. I like metaphor, without it our thought and language would be very dull. I just don't conflate it with a literal statement of equation.
I was a bit curious by one statement you made. You say, "It works". How can a faith in a God you don't actually claim is real, that by definitions doesn't intervene, is not personal, so any concepts of love or relationship as we know them are off the table, how can this "work"? What does that mean to you, and why how is it any different than not believing? Does it make a tangible difference in your life? I am honestly curious why you would invest so much energy in a portion of your life that you acknowledge is like to be a figure of speech, an abstraction and nothing more...
Why the hell am I even posting this, aside from insomnia?
Well, before I begin, tell Mr. James Randi that I am ready to claim his one million dollar prize because I can predict the future. The replies to this thread will be...
1) Ad hominem attacks
2) Argumentums ad populum (well, that isn't what the Baptists believe and their God has to be yours)
3) appeals to ridicule (that is stupid and makes no sense!)
4) Strawmen (God couldn't have created the world in six days!)
Anyway, assuming someone can come up with an independent, original thought on the matter, here we go:
First, what I don't believe:
I do not believe GOD is personal (it doesn't have bad hair days)
I do not believe GOD can become personal (if it limits itself to become personal, it stops being GOD)
I do not believe GOD performs supernatural miracles.
I do not believe any religion is accurately speaking of GOD is when said religion explains GOD through Myths
I do not believe any religious Mythology is literally true.
I do not believe there is one true religion.
So what do I believe?
1) I am not making up a religion...say that ten times (why even type this? I will get the "you just made that up!" reply anyway) I am a Gnostic Christian. Belief is not as important as learned understanding (Gnosis) gained from practicing the teachings of our Myths.
2) I am a Gnostic because it works. The Mythology has good teachings and make sense when looked at metaphorically.
3) I believe in GOD in the capacity of a metaphor for our higher-conscious (an archetype for the super ego) a metaphor for reality itself and that which is experienced in life but can't be placed easily into human language if it can be expressed in words at all. GOD is all of these at the same time at the very "least" (I put "least" in quotes because that still makes GOD worth worshiping and experiencing)
5) GOD may be something supernatural, but I'm not sure. It is supernatural at "most" and metaphorical at "least." Either way, it is worth worshiping and experiencing. 6) Second time because no one seems to understand this: I don't believe GOD is a literal white guy in a toga who created the universe in six days. 7) I am a Gnostic because it works for me. If another religion works for someone, that is fine. GOD is a very vast concept and hence it us open to interpretation.
8) All religions use Myths to stand in for the real thing, which can't be easily talked about in human language. Zeus is a valid metaphor for GOD (see number 3) as is Jesus, Shiva, Shango, Rainbow Serpent, Yahweh etc. (repeat: someone who practices a pagan religion that worships Zeus is just as valid as mine. Hence saying "What about people who worship Zeus?" is a straw man because I just addressed it)
9) What religion someone practices is a personal matter and doesn't really mean anything, as all religions are equally valid (when their Myths are understood as metaphor) and invalid (when their Myths are taken literally) What religion someone has is a matter of personal preference, no right or wrong answer.
So, why do I believe this?
1) It works. One can practice a religion without taking its Myths literally or taking its GOD literally. For example: Wicca, a growing religion, has many who don't believe that God and Goddess are literal but are metaphors for parts of the human psyche. Taoism is all about non-literalism and belief in something that can't be expressed in human language (the Tao) The Tao Te Ching starts off by saying "the Tao that can be talked about is not the true Tao. The name that can be spoken is not the eternal name." Hinduism is also a religion that embraces a fluid understanding of divinity, as does Buddhism and of course Gnosticism.
2) My own Myths (the Gnostic Gospels) back this up. The Gospel of Philip says man created GOD. Jesus himself says it is all parables etc.
3) Scholars on the fields of religion and Mythology (Joseph Campbell, Alan Watts, Huston Smith etc) all confirm that this conceptualization of GOD is valid and workable, and they have spent their scholarly lives studying religion.
4) I see no reason not to believe in GOD as a metaphor.
But why use a metaphor? I will answer with an analogy.
This is NOT an atom:
The image above shows a the standard model of an atom with red protons and blue neutrons. The thing is, color does not exist on a subatomic level. The electrons orbiting it are way too close: electrons orbit far, far away from the nucleus of atoms.
So why use this image if, by virtue of being an image of something that can't be seen, it can never be accurate? Answer: To simplify for humans what they can't really see.
Just as an image of an atom is an imperfect representation of the real thing that has to be imperfect, as that is the only way humans could comprehend it, GOD is also an imperfect representation of the real thing which is imperfect so that humans can comprehend it.
All Myths, be they Jesus, Mithra, Zeus etc, are just models of GOD. And just as the image of the atom would be just as valid/invalid if the colors of the neutrons and electrons were reversed (it's just a model, who cares? If that works for you, so what?) having Zeus or Shango in place of Jesus is also just as valid/invalid as any other Myth.
Just as drawings and models of atoms are simplifications of a real thing we can't really understand, religious Myths are simplifications of GOD, which is really a principle of reality, reality itself, life itself, we as individuals, our higher thoughts (super ego) and that which can be experienced in life but not placed into words. The big difference is atoms are not as complex as GOD, hence the need for more elaborate models for GOD.
So am I an atheist? Absolutely not. And atheist is one who does not believe in GOD. I do believe that GOD exists in the capacity of a metaphor. I am univseralist more so than anything else (lowercase "u", as I am not a Unitarian)
Now for the common replies:
1) "all religions claim they are the one true religion"
Bull. Sikhism, Baha'i, Buddhism, Wicca, Gnosticism, Asatru, Hinduism, etc all make it clear that there are more than one ways to know GOD. Only the modern Abrahamic religions of some sects of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam claim that theirs is the only religion.
2)"You just made that up!"
I didn't...and even if I did, so what? Joseph Campbell said "GOD is a metaphor for that which transcends all levels of intellectual thought, it is simple as that." Countless scholars all agree with me and my own holy Mythology (Gnostic Gospels) and other Mythologies say what I am saying: That GOD is not literally personal, internal more so than anything else and is best understood as a metaphor.
3) "That doesn't work for a religion!"
So...how do Wiccans have a fast growing religion with people practicing it perfectly fine? And Gnostics, and Taoists...and since when have Atheists been the ones to be able to tell what does and does not work as a religion? That's like an asexual knowing what is and is not sexy.
4) "I'm not converting!"
Please don't. I don't care what you believe as, as I said, all religions are equally valid/invalid. I am more likely to try to convert people from dubstep to trance than I am to convert them from whatever they believe to my religion (If the existence of dubstep is not evidence for the devil being real, what is?)
5) "Only a few believe that way!"
Argumentum ap populum fallacy.
6) "The religious text/people of old took their Myths literally so that is the only way to interpret them"
Untrue. First, as I already said, the Bible doesn't take the Bible literally. The OT prophet Hosea interpreted Jacob's struggle with the angel as being a metaphor for a struggle in prayer. Jesus himself said he speaks in parables...so, the Myths weren't meant to be taken as anything but literally, when they don't take themselves literally and tell people not to take them literally. And the ancients didn't take the Myths literally either: Origen, in the 3rd century, said the Bible could only be understood as metaphor. The same thing appears in other religions: their Myths were never meant to be taken literally and only have been recently.
7) "That doesn't make rational/logical/scientific sense."
It doesn't...and? I am not a rationalist hence I am concerned with being rational about as much as Dawkin's is concerned with being literal. I use reason sometimes, of course, but I refuse to be a slave to reason. I am an existentialist (a dirty word for Dawkin's Witnesses, I know)
So, keeping in mind the above, please try to prove my conceptualization of GOD is untrue.
Good for you. It seems that you have answered all of your own questions, so why should I bother?
Why the hell am I even posting this, aside from insomnia?
Well, before I begin, tell Mr. James Randi that I am ready to claim his one million dollar prize because I can predict the future. The replies to this thread will be...
1) Ad hominem attacks
2) Argumentums ad populum (well, that isn't what the Baptists believe and their God has to be yours)
3) appeals to ridicule (that is stupid and makes no sense!)
4) Strawmen (God couldn't have created the world in six days!)
Anyway, assuming someone can come up with an independent, original thought on the matter, here we go:
First, what I don't believe:
I do not believe GOD is personal (it doesn't have bad hair days)
I do not believe GOD can become personal (if it limits itself to become personal, it stops being GOD)
I do not believe GOD performs supernatural miracles.
I do not believe any religion is accurately speaking of GOD is when said religion explains GOD through Myths
I do not believe any religious Mythology is literally true.
I do not believe there is one true religion.
So what do I believe?
1) I am not making up a religion...say that ten times (why even type this? I will get the "you just made that up!" reply anyway) I am a Gnostic Christian. Belief is not as important as learned understanding (Gnosis) gained from practicing the teachings of our Myths.
2) I am a Gnostic because it works. The Mythology has good teachings and make sense when looked at metaphorically.
3) I believe in GOD in the capacity of a metaphor for our higher-conscious (an archetype for the super ego) a metaphor for reality itself and that which is experienced in life but can't be placed easily into human language if it can be expressed in words at all. GOD is all of these at the same time at the very "least" (I put "least" in quotes because that still makes GOD worth worshiping and experiencing)
5) GOD may be something supernatural, but I'm not sure. It is supernatural at "most" and metaphorical at "least." Either way, it is worth worshiping and experiencing. 6) Second time because no one seems to understand this: I don't believe GOD is a literal white guy in a toga who created the universe in six days. 7) I am a Gnostic because it works for me. If another religion works for someone, that is fine. GOD is a very vast concept and hence it us open to interpretation.
8) All religions use Myths to stand in for the real thing, which can't be easily talked about in human language. Zeus is a valid metaphor for GOD (see number 3) as is Jesus, Shiva, Shango, Rainbow Serpent, Yahweh etc. (repeat: someone who practices a pagan religion that worships Zeus is just as valid as mine. Hence saying "What about people who worship Zeus?" is a straw man because I just addressed it)
9) What religion someone practices is a personal matter and doesn't really mean anything, as all religions are equally valid (when their Myths are understood as metaphor) and invalid (when their Myths are taken literally) What religion someone has is a matter of personal preference, no right or wrong answer.
So, why do I believe this?
1) It works. One can practice a religion without taking its Myths literally or taking its GOD literally. For example: Wicca, a growing religion, has many who don't believe that God and Goddess are literal but are metaphors for parts of the human psyche. Taoism is all about non-literalism and belief in something that can't be expressed in human language (the Tao) The Tao Te Ching starts off by saying "the Tao that can be talked about is not the true Tao. The name that can be spoken is not the eternal name." Hinduism is also a religion that embraces a fluid understanding of divinity, as does Buddhism and of course Gnosticism.
2) My own Myths (the Gnostic Gospels) back this up. The Gospel of Philip says man created GOD. Jesus himself says it is all parables etc.
3) Scholars on the fields of religion and Mythology (Joseph Campbell, Alan Watts, Huston Smith etc) all confirm that this conceptualization of GOD is valid and workable, and they have spent their scholarly lives studying religion.
4) I see no reason not to believe in GOD as a metaphor.
But why use a metaphor? I will answer with an analogy.
This is NOT an atom:
The image above shows a the standard model of an atom with red protons and blue neutrons. The thing is, color does not exist on a subatomic level. The electrons orbiting it are way too close: electrons orbit far, far away from the nucleus of atoms.
So why use this image if, by virtue of being an image of something that can't be seen, it can never be accurate? Answer: To simplify for humans what they can't really see.
Just as an image of an atom is an imperfect representation of the real thing that has to be imperfect, as that is the only way humans could comprehend it, GOD is also an imperfect representation of the real thing which is imperfect so that humans can comprehend it.
All Myths, be they Jesus, Mithra, Zeus etc, are just models of GOD. And just as the image of the atom would be just as valid/invalid if the colors of the neutrons and electrons were reversed (it's just a model, who cares? If that works for you, so what?) having Zeus or Shango in place of Jesus is also just as valid/invalid as any other Myth.
Just as drawings and models of atoms are simplifications of a real thing we can't really understand, religious Myths are simplifications of GOD, which is really a principle of reality, reality itself, life itself, we as individuals, our higher thoughts (super ego) and that which can be experienced in life but not placed into words. The big difference is atoms are not as complex as GOD, hence the need for more elaborate models for GOD.
So am I an atheist? Absolutely not. And atheist is one who does not believe in GOD. I do believe that GOD exists in the capacity of a metaphor. I am univseralist more so than anything else (lowercase "u", as I am not a Unitarian)
Now for the common replies:
1) "all religions claim they are the one true religion"
Bull. Sikhism, Baha'i, Buddhism, Wicca, Gnosticism, Asatru, Hinduism, etc all make it clear that there are more than one ways to know GOD. Only the modern Abrahamic religions of some sects of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam claim that theirs is the only religion.
2)"You just made that up!"
I didn't...and even if I did, so what? Joseph Campbell said "GOD is a metaphor for that which transcends all levels of intellectual thought, it is simple as that." Countless scholars all agree with me and my own holy Mythology (Gnostic Gospels) and other Mythologies say what I am saying: That GOD is not literally personal, internal more so than anything else and is best understood as a metaphor.
3) "That doesn't work for a religion!"
So...how do Wiccans have a fast growing religion with people practicing it perfectly fine? And Gnostics, and Taoists...and since when have Atheists been the ones to be able to tell what does and does not work as a religion? That's like an asexual knowing what is and is not sexy.
4) "I'm not converting!"
Please don't. I don't care what you believe as, as I said, all religions are equally valid/invalid. I am more likely to try to convert people from dubstep to trance than I am to convert them from whatever they believe to my religion (If the existence of dubstep is not evidence for the devil being real, what is?)
5) "Only a few believe that way!"
Argumentum ap populum fallacy.
6) "The religious text/people of old took their Myths literally so that is the only way to interpret them"
Untrue. First, as I already said, the Bible doesn't take the Bible literally. The OT prophet Hosea interpreted Jacob's struggle with the angel as being a metaphor for a struggle in prayer. Jesus himself said he speaks in parables...so, the Myths weren't meant to be taken as anything but literally, when they don't take themselves literally and tell people not to take them literally. And the ancients didn't take the Myths literally either: Origen, in the 3rd century, said the Bible could only be understood as metaphor. The same thing appears in other religions: their Myths were never meant to be taken literally and only have been recently.
7) "That doesn't make rational/logical/scientific sense."
It doesn't...and? I am not a rationalist hence I am concerned with being rational about as much as Dawkin's is concerned with being literal. I use reason sometimes, of course, but I refuse to be a slave to reason. I am an existentialist (a dirty word for Dawkin's Witnesses, I know)
So, keeping in mind the above, please try to prove my conceptualization of GOD is untrue.
You've posted quite a bit there. Is there somewhere you'd like to start to discuss it? I'm leery of spending an hour addressing it line by line and have you just shrug off my statements.
I respect a person that writes at anytime of the day about God.
So many things could have been written about....ie, the neighbor's barking dog
or the boss' unreasonable deadlines...but no, God is preoccupying the mind....
I like that...
But please people...don't all of you put that long op in a quote box, too!!!!
You've posted quite a bit there. Is there somewhere you'd like to start to discuss it? I'm leery of spending an hour addressing it line by line and have you just shrug off my statements.
To be perfectly honest, Viz, I don't think he is the least bit interested in discussing this with you. This is another "god-o-phibia" type thread aimed at atheists, in an attempt to juggle the semantics of "god" such that they can scream "hypocrite" whenever someone says they don't believe in "God". He doesn't believe your concept of god exists either, he just wants to fuss at us atheists...
I don't care to try to prove your concept of God isn't true. It may well be. The only things that matter to me when it comes to belief in God - or not - is that you don't try to persuade me to follow your beliefs (at least once I've said I'm not interested), or try to make your beliefs the law of the land or make laws based on your beliefs that fail to protect other's views and beliefs. You aren't doing that as far as I can tell, so I have no concerns and I am actually happy for you that you've found a perspective that works for you and that you have actually given it serious thought.
So, keeping in mind the above, please try to prove my conceptualization of GOD is untrue.
I actually think your god-beliefs are far more reasonable than most. I do not share the belief, but I can respect it -- until you try to start a "nyah-nyah" touche-kicking contest by challenging people to just dare to try to prove your ideas wrong. You have an unhealthy need to prove yourself right, and I'm not going to feed it.
To be perfectly honest, Viz, I don't think he is the least bit interested in discussing this with you. This is another "god-o-phibia" type thread aimed at atheists, in an attempt to juggle the semantics of "god" such that they can scream "hypocrite" whenever someone says they don't believe in "God". He doesn't believe your concept of god exists either, he just wants to fuss at us atheists...
No, I don't care about people who don't believe in/have any conceptualization of GOD but rather I am eternally angered and irritated by those who foam at the mouth that "gaaaawwd is stupid and ur dumb for being a dumb Xtian" types.
I look at at the same way I do heavy metal music: if someone just shrugs and says "it isn't for me" I have no issue...it is when people make idiotic comments that "all heavy metal is guys screaming" and "all heavy metal is just noise" that I get angered and play some Nightwish or Lacuna Coil and ask where the screaming is exactly?
If someone says "GOD isn't for me, no matter the conceptualization" I am fine...if someone says "GOD is just a dumb invisible sky daddy", than I have to stop and explain and debate.
I am an existentialist: everyone has their own path. Just don't go on using fallacies loud as hell screaming that my path is something it clearly isn't.
I don't care to try to prove your concept of God isn't true. It may well be. The only things that matter to me when it comes to belief in God - or not - is that you don't try to persuade me to follow your beliefs (at least once I've said I'm not interested), or try to make your beliefs the law of the land or make laws based on your beliefs that fail to protect other's views and beliefs. You aren't doing that as far as I can tell, so I have no concerns and I am actually happy for you that you've found a perspective that works for you and that you have actually given it serious thought.
I am not a missionary...just an entertainer. Alan Watts explains in one minute better than I ever could:
That is another gripe I have with the fundies: If GOD is so omnipotent, so powerful, why the hell (no pun intended) would it care if we make jokes about or use it for "frivolous" things like entertainment or take its name in vein? For that matter, how could it even have a true name that we could pronounce?
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And the ancients didn't take the Myths literally either: Origen, in the 3rd century, said the Bible could only be understood as metaphor. The same thing appears in other religions: their Myths were never meant to be taken literally and only have been recently. 
