Do you believe in God? Or are you an atheist?
This is the wrong question. (Well, wrong questions.)
Am I an atheist? Do I believe there is no God? Originally, my answer would have been, “yes, I am an atheist.” However, now I have come to understand the answer must be different. Do I believe in “gods”, or “God”, if you like? Of course I do. But, that is the wrong question.
I believe that “gods” in the atmosphere “throw down” lightning. I believe “gods” will bring the rain (or not) to water the crops in the field. I believe that one could view all those forces of nature previously described as a pantheon of beings as one single, all-powerful “God”. I believe that “God” might in general “love” me and provide for me — as a living creature created in the context of this Earth, relatively high on the food chain, with half a capacity to act on instincts and/or be mostly rational and reasoning in resolving wants and needs.
Because the concept of “gods” (and therefore also the derivation that there is only one “God”) only exists due to humans trying to understand their world. Peoples of not that long ago did not understand how things in the world happened, how these events and aspects of nature or of our minds worked. They applied characters and stories to them, usually in the form of anthropomorphic gods or spirits, to describe the nature and the relationships of these things, and what drives them, using metaphorical methods (whether they did so purposefully or not).
But we know better now. We know more now. We generally call those old stories and conceptions “mythologies” — except, conveniently, where still adhered to by modern day “believers” or “practitioners” — those who feel it their duty to uphold what has been — tradition. We no longer generally describe the everyday, explicable aspects of nature in anthropomorphic or metaphorical terms.
With a basic education then, one acquires a picture of pieces of history (Egyptian, Greek, and Roman mythologies; Biblical traditions; Indian and Chinese traditions, even). One can arrive at an understanding of the origin of the concept of “gods”, and therefore also “God”. Then, overlaid with our currently understood ways in which the world works, one can derive a unanimous answer to the question: “Do you believe in God?” “Yes.”
Where before Zeus or Thor threw down lightning from the sky, now we know better what causes lightning between atmosphere and earth. Do I believe in “god”? Yes, I do. I believe in charge difference building between cloud and ground, or within clouds. Electromagnetism. Where before wind or rain gods brought the rain (or not), now we model better the complex interactions between water, air, temperature, and more. Do I believe in the “god” that brings rain? Yes, I do. I believe those complex global, atmospheric interactions will bring the rain (or not). Where before the pantheon of gods may have been seen as multitudinous, they might now be understood as a single deity. Do I believe in one “God”? You bet. I can see how we might describe all things as interrelated and tied to a key, unified theory of things. Where before “God” provides for us, and assures us we will be taken care of and loved above all its other creations. Do I believe in the goodness of “God”? Yes, I do. I believe we are animals competing for energy with all the others, who have banded together to further our own species generally, and acquired capacities for reflection, reasoning, modelling, and other complex psychological characteristics, and experience of no small amount of seeming luck or arbitrary chance that, all together, provide quite nicely for us, most of the time. (So pernicious and very seemingly human of it to not always do so.)
Compared with simply saying God is everything, it takes so many unpretty words to describe the realities of our world. But if you understand those things that I am attempting to point at, however wordily or clumsily stated, then you should understand that those things are better understood now, and replace old understandings and ways of envisioning the world. Our recent, improved understandings of the forces of physics that underpin all the motions of nature, and our broader perspective on the scope of the universe and our place in it, and improved understandings through psychology, biology, cultural perspectives, et al, replace the old stories of gods and God — at least where those stories describe phenomena, and our relation to the universe and each other. But we also have better ways of assessing and assigning value and understanding purpose. I won’t go into those here.
So, do I believe in God? Of course. But I have a different, better understanding of what “God” or “gods” are and what that change in understanding says about the nature of our world. We have newer ways to discern, describe, and validate our purpose and morals now, too.
Given that, then, one should subsequently understand that someone asking the question of whether you “believe” in “God” is trying to pin you down in an invalid, contrived argument, and you should not allow yourself to fall for it nor to have the frame of the other’s agenda drive the conversation. Their agenda is to maintain control, and to feel safe that you are part of “their” society, that maintains tradition “as-given”, and that you are not someone who rocks the boat with questions and upsets the established order of what has been (according to their experience and what they have accepted as creating a safe, stable society), and that you will be someone who defends their archaeomythologically-derived conception of society. It sets up the frame of “you’re either with us or against us; and since we believe in the one and only God, obviously, you must believe in and stand for nothing and be against God!”
It is long overdue to control that conversation, and reframe it, and make the archaeomythological traditionalist do the internal work of reconciling the things they likely readily accept from our current understanding of the world with the archaeomythogically-oriented stories they adhere to in their “religion”. The adherent to archaic traditional religions must be made, by reflected implication, to defend how they are not dangerous to the continued advancement and stability of society with their unexamined, tyrannical, baggage-laden thinking.