Do you ever say you don't believe\believe in God

No.

I'm not afraid of being mocked or engaging in a discussion. 


I believe in all the Gods.  I'm not a selective atheist. 

I am an agnostic atheist, I live in the US, in the buckle of the Bible Belt, and for several reasons, I have to be careful how I answer that.

1.  I once wrote an editorial that was published in the local newspaper, which by their policy had to include my name, and since I was disagreeing with a local politician who was openly Evangelical, I got death threats over the phone for several weeks, people telling me I was going to burn in hell, etc.  I didn't even use the word 'atheist', but it started a sh!tstorm.

2.  My aged mother is Southern Baptist, as are all her friends.  I was raised in that church, but haven't attended except for my father's funeral, in decades.  But I can't say the 'a' word around any of them.

3.  I never answer the door, period, just to avoid the Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons.

4.  If I am in the awkward position of being confronted about what I believe, I generally just say that I am a student of comparative religion, and go of on some tangent that throws off the confronter.  I tried saying I was a Secular Humanist, but apparently that is code for 'satan-worshipper'.  Sometimes I just say that I was raised Southern Baptist, but became a Lutheran in college, omitting the part about rejecting all of it as fantasy and wishful thinking later in life.

It's a dicey subject here in the US, and there are only a few like-minded friends around whom I can be honest.  They are also careful in public. 

which god?


there have been so many.

No, I'm honest about my beliefs.

I'm also from the UK and I agree - the over-whelming majority of the people here really don't care one way or the other and will live and let live.

Two points I will add to that though:

1. We do get people coming to our door trying to tell us about God. We live relatively close to a Jehovah's Witness Church and a LDS Church so every so often we'll get people wandering the streets knocking on doors trying to convert the locals and I always tell them I'm an atheist and they always try to persuade me I'm wrong. I do debate with them. I won't say argue cos that makes it sound much more hostile than it actually is. Anyway - it's better me than when the wife answers cos she just tells them to f__k off.

2. Many of our political leaders are openly atheist which would never happen in America. I remember Tony Blair saying he played down his religious beliefs whilst he was in office because he was concerned it would be unpopular with voters and he only admitted them once he left office. That sort of thing. Very much the opposite way round to the other side of the pond.