Fiddlesticks. This is the third time I have tried to answer this. The computer ate the other two. Three's the charm.
The theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in The Cost of Discipleship said we should live in "the insecurity of the infinite". I think this is relevant here, in that atheism often tries to live in finite security, while theology recognises that our ground, as creative moral beings, is infinite, and that authentic response to this infinite ground of being produces an insecurity which is an essential source of creativity
The above was where I got the "ground of the infinite" language. Dissident Heart also had been claiming an open-ended search that caused him to co-create and grow in company with his God, an object of love and devotion which remained unknowable or "impossible." What I was trying to point out is that the atheists here also see their search for meaning to be an ongoing, open-ended, open-minded search for what is and they want to "claim the ground of the infinite," as well, without (if I may)
desecrating it by tracking in any untruths.
I think the problem is that we have two different definitions of God going on at once, or two different levels of commitment to an unknown truth that people feel comfortable with.
One "God" is a literal, material, objectively existing (or not existing) Primary Source for the Universe, described and concretely known in some book. Chris and Frank seem to mean this Fellow when they take issue with Him. No one in this string that I can see wants to claim they know That Guy or want others to accept him on their terms. (Correct the
heck out of me if I'm wrong).
The other is a personal internal sense of a "Higher Power" for which a person seeks and with which one co-creates personal meaning, through which one heals, a Spirit through which one is connected to All that Is and comes to terms with life on life's terms and with one's fellows, antagonists or friends. A person may find the strength and willingness to undergo that search, that creative work, that healing (and even the wounding before the healing; even a death or two in order to be reborn) by means of a leap of faith that this act I am choosing could only be possible for me and inside my life if I had Help and a Kind, Loving Source, somewhere Out There. I will act as if I trust that (faith) and my life will contribute something better to the whole than if I did not do that.
Everyone here is doing something like this second thing, even if they don't label it as spiritual or choose to personify what they value or call it God. It still takes courage and it takes faith. We're more alike than we are different. But I admit it is such a blast to argue with people, isn't it? As long as we know we don't mean to hurt each other over it. Dissident Heart and Robert Tulip, you would never threaten to kill people at a women's health clinic that performed abortions or deface Frank's property or call people names as a part of your spiritual practice would you? And Frank and Chris and Interbane, you know that, don't you? I would end by declaring, "Group hug!" but I know there's only so much West Coast touchy-feely woo-woo you're going to let me get away with....
"Where can I find a man who has forgotten the words so that I can talk with him?"
-- Chuang-Tzu (c. 200 B.C.E.)
as quoted by Robert A. Burton