David Swain, New South Wales Regional Meeting. 
It’s becoming more and more difficult to be an old-fashioned atheist. In my salad days when I was green in theology, I knew what God was, and I could decide whether I believed in him or not. Now atheists seem to be divided into those who are best described as anti-theists, and those who call themselves nontheists. Then on the Nontheist Quaker website somebody suggested that a better word might be meta-theist. I expect we can now look forward to quasi-theist, neo-theist and crypto-theist.
The theologian Don Cupitt has introduced the concept of non-realism. I think this means ‘I believe in God, but he’s not real.’ It’s all very confusing, really (or non-really).
Mathematically speaking, if you believe that monotheism is better than atheism, wouldn’t polytheism be even better? Or perhaps we could have a compromise in sesquitheism, belief in one-and-a-half gods, or perhaps not?
I believe that there is another level that for me “explains” a good deal of some of the difficulties with describing THEOlogy, Trinitarian. For me this is much like TriNitroToluene. Adding three (tri) absolutely essential ingredients in nature (Nitro) to a somewhat innocuous stuff Toluene, creates a highly explosive substance.
Adding Three “Beings” to a concept that is “everywhere” in human expression provides a very explosive climate in theology. Having survived the “Death of God” controversy a few decades ago and having read and heard some of Paul Lacey’s “Death of the Old Man with the long white beard upstairs” I perceive much of the debate today is not defining what the individual “believes” but rather trying to define what is Not believed in.
The more the “fundamentalists” of any religion, most notably the “monotheistic” ones, Judaism, Christian, and Muslim, define “their” “g_d” in definitive terms, the more the “other end” of the spectrum will try to define their “opposite” definitions.
As a side note, I believe this is essentially what happened and is happening in the Religious Society of Friends where those who try to express themselves more and more with the orthodox, trinitarian, biblical, protestant, view of “God,” the more the “opposite” end is defining itself in “opposing” terms. Liberal “nontheist”, non-biblical and universalist view of Quaker theology.
I am following the above keenly and await with anticipation further discourse.
Is it not a terrible pity that the only record we have of what ‘heretics’ (sic) believed and put forward at the Early Church Councils comes of course from their very opponents!
Were the debates accurately recorded, I do not think it is hyperbole to suggest that the ‘strait-jacketing’ of the Godhead by so many would be a rare event. And thank God/Christ/Heaven/Goodness we may *accurately* read the above without the inevitable ‘and what they say shall be anathema’ appearing in huge black print before the digital ink is dry ……
Thanks for your comments Tom and Ivan. You have treated my rather flippant remarks with more respect than they deserve.
Tom, you suggest that there may be tension within the Religious Society of Friends between the orthodox and the non-theist members. As an Attender of less than a year’s standing, I am really not in a position to comment on Quakerism. All I can say is that I have not found that in my Meeting, or in what I know of the Society in Australia.
The more assertive stand taken by non-theist Quakers in Britain and the USA suggests that they may feel less secure of their acceptance in their parts of the world. And the differences became apparent in the recent World Conference in Kenya.
May we all seek to understand and accept each other’s beliefs and non-beliefs.