Expert: Margaret Placentra Johnston - 3/2/2011

Question
Hello,
I have had the honor of discussing the existence of God with many, many, many people in the past few years. However, I have never had a conversation with a self proclaimed "atheist" for more than a half hour or so before it is discovered that he/she is actually agnostic. Every "atheist" eventually says something like, "Well, I suppose there is .00000001% chance that God exists." This, they eventually concede, because they cannot disprove the existence of God empirically.

Is it possible that atheists do not really exist? Does atheism have a prayer at the 21st century lectern?  

Thanks,
Ben

Answer
The definition of an atheist really depends a lot on the definition of God that is in question. I think there are millions who deny belief in the anthropomorphic God of most traditional religions - and rightly so, in my opinion.

However, there are people who use the word God metaphorically, referring to the Ultimate Reality, whatever that is, or the Ground of all Being.  Now, it is almost impossible to refute that some sort of ultimate reality exists, although that entity need not be a separate being, and need not be supernatural at all. On those grounds you would be hard pressed to find an atheist who would categorically deny a metaphorical God.

Failure to define the terms when using hot button phrases like the existence of God leads to a lot of heartache, hate and suspicion in our society. This is most unfortunate because in my opinion, the God each traditional religion insists upon refers to a small part of the Ultimate Reality, a small part of the overall Ground of our Being that Mystics from all religious traditions agree applies to all of the universe, not any one particular religion. That there is some sort of Ultimate Reality that applies to all the universe should be something atheists, agnostics and mystics can all agree upon, even if the literal religionists (who tend to insist only THEIR God is right) cannot see it that way.