wants it is that atheists lack of belief in gods or are without belief
or are absent of such belief.
AFAIK if you get baptized to be a Christian then it is done in the name
of Jesus Christ. You become a follower of a particular god as God
and Lord and that God has authority over you.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_and_ ... _Testament
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authority
In the Bible Jesus is addressed in Matthew as Emmanuel
meaning God is with us. But also referred to as Christ the anointed one
and Jesus
"you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins"
Authoritythe Greek Kyrios came to represent his lordship over the world
To be legal contracts are usually signed by the name of those involved.In religion, there is a tendency to act in the belief that what will result will be different than what would have happened had a subservient act (e.g. prayer, meditation, service to others, etc.) not been performed; this is the essence of exercised authority.
What one does in expectation of meeting with the approval of the divine is derived from some means of obtained faith.
The faith comes by being affected by the authoritative direction of the divine.
Authoritative sources in religion communicate their direction through commandments and/or expressed approval of behaviour deemed to be acceptable or beneficial, with the expectation that the subject of this didactic process will use wisdom and understanding in their actions of service.
So when atheists asks:
Do you believe in god? They seems to me to ask a very general question.
they don't name which God or what kind of authority that one gives that god.
To the atheist the question seems to be about the formal existence of
something that is independent of the believers personal experience of
being in relation to a particular religious tradition. Most likely a philosophic
question that is not related to any tradition?
What I try to hint at is that atheism is very different from
what I think religion is about?
As I get religion you relate to a named God. Not to a general
un-named any kind of god or gods of philosophy.
In religion that God is your Lord and have authority over you.
You follow that particular God. Do things in the name of that God.
In atheism you answer a question about very general gods.
Atheists very seldom asks. Are Jesus your Lord?
What I want to discuss is that atheism seems to be about something else
than what a religious believer is about.
But there are persons that maybe fit into believers in the unnamed gods
and those are the Non-affiliated believers that don't approve of the known
religious traditions. These are a bit like the very general kind of believers
that atheists name theists.
I've talked to hundreds of believers and none of them saw themselves
as theists. They did not follow any gods they only followed a particular God.
It can be my lack of logic that miss some nuance here and there.
But I find it likely that atheism seems to address a very narrow part of
what it is like to be a follower of a religious tradition.
AFAIK many atheists are very much into: "Does your god exist or not? "
Now I am not a self identified atheist while I may be it formally due to their definition
but I am not believer or follower either due to the demand to have a Lord over me
but I know that I feel very religious and that seems to be totally ignored by atheists
and followers.
So am I a third category?
Edit. For the sake of the friendly discussion.
I am not an Agnostic about God or gods.
Agnosticism is something else. We have to talk
about agnosticism in some other thread. sorry