"Steve,

ok - so you don't like the word "believe" because you don't want to say what you do or don't believe in. However, your view of the world does not include God.

This is an unsuccesful attempt to seperate what you think from what you believe.

It implies that you could hold a view of the Universe into which god does not exist, yet believe in Gods existence - and that is clearly not possible as it boils back down to "I don't want to say whether or not I think God exists, but I think he doesn't exist.

And there is nothing absurd about saying that you believe Bertrand Russels Magic Teapot doesn't exist.

I don't believe that Bertrands Magic Teapot exists.

There - I said it ... am I still sane?

Well I'm no worse ...

I think your point is a bit of overcomplicted jiggery pokery."

I don't do jiggery pokery (and I'm a very simple soul, actually). This is not about what I want or don't want to say. I've made it abundantly clear in other posts, in other contexts, that, to me, the chances of God's existence, according to my calculations (and evidence), are vanishingly small. As such, a challenge to me from a believer expressed as "do you believe in God?" is illegitimate. It is not the right question and it certainly is no challenge, any more than challenging me on whether I believe in that celestial teapot. If you ask me a question that I consider to be not the right question to ask, and I demur, it isn't for you to extrapolate as to what my answer might be. I don't answer those questions as I don't willingly go about making an ass of myself. It's a vain attempt to get me to start the discussion on religious territory, which is entirely illegitimate as far as I'm concerned. If there's anything unsuccessful in what I'm trying to convey here, I assure you that it is entirely down to my deficiencies in language and certainly not down to any confusion in my own mind. Confusion is the territory of believers.