Oh yes there is. Functional atheists are all around you. These are people who believe in God for public consumption, but function day to day as atheists, giving God not a thought or a care. They don't give a crap about God until someone gets a death sentence or there is some funeral to attend or they are forced to endure some godforsaken christening. Which is when they try to regurgitate the dopey prayers the priest is reciting during the mass and they can't remember half of it so they mutter along with a half-hearted lip sink. Functional atheists comprise 90% of all those who profess a belief in God. They actually DO think they believe in God when they are forced to think about it, which is almost never. They are afraid to renounce God, having implicitly accepted Pascal's wager. But 99.5% of the days in their life are spent utilizing reason and sense, making decisions in accordance with the reality that life and time are indeed very limited and should not be squandered.

There are only a tiny minority of people who ever bother with God on a day to day basis, and many of them display signs of acute mental illness. Which, of course, is not at all surprising.

I think you just described doubt.

Doubt and atheism are 2 different things entirely.

not saying i agree with him, but how is not considering God in your day to day life/decision making processes doubt?

Because the stronger your faith is the more likely you are to consult God on a daily basis.

His post above is a big generalization. He doesn't know what goes on in the minds of all these people. He's assuming.

A lot of religious belief is guarded by people and they don't reveal what they truly think.

i agree that he is assuming alot, but you replied to his assumptions

But his assumptions surely describe some % people who consider themselves as believers, including myself many years ago

so given his assumptions how are those people who don't consult or consider god "doubting" instead of not believing

I believe that Barack Obama is the President of the United States. However, this only rarely affects my behavior. Does that mean that I don't really believe this? Of course not. Similarly, someone can believe that god exists without that belief affecting most of their actions. Theism just doesn't often end up mattering as much as you are assuming it does.

Also, regarding "functional atheism"--what you are describing are not atheists, but rather theists who don't think about god very much. Calling them "functional atheists" seems gratuitous. For instance, most atheists don't think much about their atheism--should we therefore call them "functional theists"?

You seem pretty ignorant about both religion and theism. You are just making stuff up here.

Does this mean deists who believe in God but give little thought in day to day life when it come to him and bother vary little with him are function atheists? And if so wouldn't that make all atheists function deists?

Functional atheists do not doubt God, they simply ignore him. Except for reflexive reflection during certain familiar social functions, or when confronting mortality.

Which is a fascinating illustration of the powerful draw of wishful thinking. Atheists offer you nothing at the end of your life, except the observation that your life ends. Mystics imagine a continuation, and offer it to those who suspend thought and embrace the ultimate sin: Faith.

So who you gonna call?

Most are weak and will summon the mystics and their constructed God. The finality of death represents an overbet that few are willing to call.

Correct. Deism is basically a form of madness which, when compartmentalized to a high degree, allows its practitioners to function day to day as atheists, meaning using reason as the primary means of survival.

No. Atheists never believe in God. Nor do they ever behave as a believer in God, by imagining and postulating non-existents to be reality.

Deists dont behave in anyway towards God. Nether do i so i must be a functioning deist if they are a functioning atheist.

And someone who doesn't believe in God can imagine and postulate about one. I do it all the time when i post here.


But...you seem smart so you would be better off responding to OP's post instead mine.

It is not necessary to "believe" in the existence of our President, as Barack Obama is not an imagined entity. He is an existent in reality. It is not necessary to suspend your primary tool of survival, Reason, to postulate the reality of Barack Obama, our President. It is only necessary to observe his presence. Belief in God involves self-mutilation of your intellect. Observing existents in reality does not.

To the degree that one ignores Faith and embraces Reason, one behaves as a functional atheist. Atheists always operate in the realm of Reason. And deists who ignore their deism sufficiently can achieve functioning atheism. It is to their credit when they do so. In fact, it is to nearly everyone's credit in our society that functional atheism is so pervasive. It has allowed us to become the most advanced country in the history of our planet. We have seen what the atrocious perversion known as theocracies offer. Anyone care for a helping of Sharia Law?

Gratuitous? Calling them functional atheists is a high compliment. Atheism is a much higher and more advanced state than theism. Deists that utilize Reason in all important decisions and keep a tight lid on their theistic imagination get to enjoy the real world in much the same way as atheists. Good for them. And really, good for everyone.

No. For an atheist to be identified as a "functional theist", he would have to proclaim loyalty to Reason, but then live day to day in prayer and foggy mysticism, contemplating and imagining a non-existent afterlife, etc.

Don't lose focus now.

Ok. Atheists are not necessarily better at poker than theists. Humans can compartmentalize their irrationality to a high degree. This would allow even a Priest or Rabbi to play poker at a high level if such were his interest and motivation.

This doesn't address my argument at all. Use your primary tool of survival. My point is simple. The fact that my behavior is not significantly affected by my belief that Obama is president doesn't mean that I don't believe that Obama is president. Why is it different for the person who believes that god exists?

Atheism is the lack of belief in a god. It is not about being rational, or exalting reason or any of the other things you claim. Theism is the belief in a god. It is not about faith or theocracies or any of the other things you claim. You might as well claim that functional theism is about torturing babies and functional atheism is about helping old ladies cross the street. There is no analytical interest to your claim because it has nothing to do with theism or atheism.

WWOOOAAAHHHH! You guys trashed my thread, lol!