The person that you were responding to was speaking about meeting God after he died. That's why I mentioned that.

That's part of that whole "proof of existence" thing that's important to many atheists. Obviously if they were dead, and meeting God personally, that would certainly be proof of His existence.

Would atheists recognize a god (any god, not just the Christian God) without what they think is adequate proof of existence? Most likely not. It's pretty difficult to believe something is true if it makes no sense to you, and there is no evidence it exists.

I do find it odd, though, that you give the impression that you believe atheists know deep down that God is real, but they just want to be contrary and not believe it (or pretend to not believe, if they really believe deep down, I suppose).

If that's not what you're intending to convey, then I apologize.

It's just that this is the attitude I see often from many people. They seem to think that atheists are somehow forcing themselves to not believe in god/gods.

That's why I say I find what you're saying is odd, if you were at one point an atheist, or "had an atheist mindset". But every atheist is different, and there's no guidebook detailing what atheists do and do not believe. So I suppose it's possible that there are people that are somehow convincing themselves god/gods doesn't exist and that they're an atheist. 🤷‍♀️

But please realize that just because you had a "small closed mindset" does not mean that atheists in general have that same mindset. It's simply projection, and that's not a solid basis for an argument.

Edited to add: I want to make it clear that when I talk about arguments here, I'm not talking about people having an angry or heated discussion.

I don't know why, but so many people here seem to think that's the only way to use that word.

When I'm talking about arguments I'm talking about this:

a reason or set of reasons given with the aim of persuading others that an action or idea is right or wrong

The person that you were responding to was speaking about meeting God after he died. That's why I mentioned that.

That's part of that whole "proof of existence" thing that's important to many atheists. Obviously if they were dead, and meeting God personally, that would certainly be proof of His existence.

Would atheists recognize a god (any god, not just the Christian God) without what they think is adequate proof of existence? Most likely not. It's pretty difficult to believe something is true if it makes no sense to you, and there is no evidence it exists.

I do find it odd, though, that you give the impression that you believe atheists know deep down that God is real, but they just want to be contrary and not believe it (or pretend to not believe, if they really believe deep down, I suppose).

If that's not what you're intending to convey, then I apologize.

It's just that this is the attitude I see often from many people. They seem to think that atheists are somehow forcing themselves to not believe in god/gods.

That's why I say I find what you're saying is odd, if you were at one point an atheist, or "had an atheist mindset". But every atheist is different, and there's no guidebook detailing what atheists do and do not believe. So I suppose it's possible that there are people that are somehow convincing themselves god/gods doesn't exist and that they're an atheist. 🤷‍♀️

But please realize that just because you had a "small closed mindset" does not mean that atheists in general have that same mindset. It's simply projection, and that's not a solid basis for an argument.