Those who have read my essay "What is God," at:

http://pages.csam.montclair.edu/~kowalski/god.htm

might be interesed in God-related conceptual difficulties of some preachers, quoted at:

http://pages.csam.montclair.edu/~kowalski/god2.htm

Ludwik Kowalski (see Wikipedia).

Please share these links with those who might be interested.

Clicked on essay.

Second paragraph in:

"An atheist, on the other hand, would say that.... must be explained scientifically, because God does not exist."

Stopped reading.

Please consult definition of atheism - it is a lack of belief in God/s. Not, the belief that God does not exist.

For example, one can be an agnostic atheist. Atheism in itself does not automatically denote a belief that God does not exist.

So he should edit it to "must be explained scientifically, because of his lack of belief that God exists" ?

That's a little hypersensitive, isn't it?

The content is the same no matter how it is written. Lack of belief = nonbelief

Since theists are people who worship Ganesha (or close enough for comfort) I think we could make it even simpler and just say that atheists are people who don't accept divine elephants.

Generalizing when it is not necessary nor useful is silly. Doing so when it is completely and utterly incorrect is ignorant.

I briefly read the essays. I think it is cumbersome that the author devotes large amounts of his (relatively short) writing into specifying his own beliefs, while generalizing other beliefs and philosophies in short sentences and then proceeding to argue as if these were undoubtedly correct.

You can't and shouldn't sum up Spinoza's theology in one sentence. For example the author bases musings on Spinoza's "God is everything", and then proceeds to argue as if this was the entirety of Spinoza's theories:

He writes:
But this is at best wrong and at worst a horrible misrepresentation. Spinoza's arguments are largely based on logically proving that everything is a property of an infinite God, not logically deducing that God is to be found in nature. And even this is simplifying Spinoza down to a level that is dangerously iffy, as everyone who has read Spinoza or about Spinoza know that he is not an easy man to sum up.

I meant to say empirically deducing here.

It's obvious upon reading the essay that this man is talking about the Western God. It goes without saying that atheists don't believe in this western God, since they don't believe in any personal god.

Although I agree that it's not a useful generalization. He is using it as a rhetorical device but I don't think it adds anything to the essay. I also think it shouldn't take anything away from it, either.

I think the issue is the statement is not true, specifically because an atheist would not say that. More accurate would be something along the lines of -- "An atheist, on the other hand, would say that human motivations and feelings likely have scientific explanations." Of course, atheist could be substituted by a number of groups, including religious groups, and this would still be true, so there is nothing special about atheist here.

I also questioned if this would be a worthwhile reading after reading this sentence, and determined it was not.