Then you're an atheist who believes in something other than the common conception of God.
It's still God, like a cloud is a cloud even if a child of five understands the cloud as a person in the sky. I see no reason to dumb the word God down to the lowest common-denominator. That's back-assward. The word should be used to its highest level, and when the kids grow up they begin to understand that a cloud is more than just a bunny rabbit in the sky. The word has meaning to all levels of understanding.
There's nothing irrational about atheism. It's simple the absence of belief in a theistic god. It's based on evidence or lack thereof.
The context in which I say it is irrational is that it evaluates what God is on the mythic-level depiction of God, and takes it at face value and says it does not exist without considering other points of view that are not that. When it hears them, it erroneously says "Use a different word". Why? Because it confuses you? Stop using God to mean sky-parent then and use it to express the Infinite Deep. Context will tell where your mind is at in knowing that Depth. No other word is necessary.
Should adults stop using the word love because when a four year old uses it when it doesn't even begin to come remotely close to what an adult means by love? Same difference. If you are going to make God the word to change, then I'm sure there's a long list of words, like Love, you should try to change too.
Whether there is something else you want to call God is another question.
Nope, it's nothing else. It's the same thing, just understood differently. That's simple to understand, actually.
It's fine to expand and grow your thoughts. The problem is if you're going to "expand and grow" the understanding of the term "God", you're just going to create communication problems.
Why? I know what someone means by God by how they use it. Same thing applies to countless other words people use. Don't you listen to how people use word to know where they're coming from? Why pick on the word God so much? It's not something else. It is God, not a Yeti or E.T.
It would be better to just use a different term.
No. That would just create confusion. I'm talking about God, not some watered down "soft" word to ease the knee-jerking reactions of atheists. I think they need to get over it and let the word grow up. Of course, that would require their understanding of God to have meaning to them beyond the Volcano deity forms. Personally, that's what I see the aversion to be. It's not the word God, but anything that even remotely "tastes" like God. Yes, I'm pretty sure that it.
You mention "the absolute". Maybe use that instead of God, if you're not talking about an anthropomorphic theistic god. Then it leads to less confusion. What I'm doing by limiting the definition of "God" is keeping communication as clear as possible.
Actually, people who see God in anthropomorphic terms call that the Absolute too. And they're right, actually. So using that word won't help.
Have you ever experienced what people call God? I'm not talking believing conceptually that there must be some controlling force, some "being" up there. I mean an actual, first person encounter with the transcendent? If you have, what you would describe that as? If you haven't, then I can see why God is only associated with the mythic-belief systems. It's your only experience of That. In which case, it does good for those who have such experience to use the word in context of that experience. That's the only way the word will grow. Dumping it doesn't serve anyone. We're not talking about nature in a scientific sense, or something.
The more the word God is used to talk of this "God beyond God" view of God, the less God as sky-person will be an issue. So you should encourage the use of God by those who don't think in strict anthropomorphic terms, not tell them to stop and completely give control of the word over to the mythical meaning.
