It seems like this is a problem with semantics. [...] you are applying the word "God" onto what a non-theist would call "Nature" or "The Universe". In reality, it is not a belief in God at all, but simply a label you have applied (or perhaps misapplied) to something else entirely.

What I've been asserting when I say that God exists is that the universe is ordered. Thus saying that God=the universe is more than semantics because believing that the universe is ordered does require faith. Typical theists believe that the universe is ordered by a personal God, and theists like me believe that the universe is self-ordered.

What you are calling "God" is in no way related to the Christian or Muslim concept of God.

I'm sure most organized religions would object to my description of God. Yet I am not dissuaded that at their deepest theological roots, the Christian and Muslim descriptions of God are vague enough (and complex enough) to accomodate this kind of description.

So far however, I have read very little that leads me to assume you are holding a theistic belief in "God".

I agree, and I just wanted to do some research before I formally conceded. The problem, as has been pointed out in several places, is that it doesn't matter if a small handful of theologians see the equivalence of many descriptions of God or if I think what I believe in is "God". If what is meant by "theism" is what most theists believe (and this is reasonable) then arguing for "theism" would require arguing for what they actually believe in.

I began three months ago asking myself what was most fundamental about belief in God, and I decided it was the belief in meaning, which I decided is the belief in things being ordered and patterned rather than arbitrary and random. However, I failed to check this with real people...

Over the past two weeks, I've asked as many theists as I could get ahold of if they would consider my views as a belief in God.

The results:

• 3 thought my beliefs overlapped with theirs sufficiently well to conclude we believed in the same God (my closest friends are scientists, so I suspect this view was over-represented in my survey)

• 2 could relate to my belief as a belief in God but said they believed in a personal God, and considered this an important difference

• approximately 6 asserted that I am an atheist (they didn't think my belief was sufficient and, to my surprise, they didn't necessarily believe that the universe was organized)

In conclusion, the majority of theists I questioned didn't accept my beliefs as theistic, and so I pretty much give up on arguing for theism. (Words mean what people say they mean.)

I asked some of the questions in writing, and this was the best response (from an atheist obviously):

I can't say it any better than Carl Sagan:

"The idea that God is an oversized white male with a flowing beard who sits in the sky and tallies the fall of every sparrow is ludicrous. But if by God one means the set of physical laws that govern the universe, then clearly there is such a God. This God is emotionally unsatisfying... it does not make much sense to pray to the law of gravity."

(Later edit.) Recently, I found this comment here:

The reason you guys can't conceive of religion contributing to science is that religion, a.k.a Christianity, has already contributed her major part to science, namely, holding firmly to the position that the universe is intelligible and operates by consistent natural laws that are discoverable by a reason that is somehow able to understand the true nature of that universe.

Apparently someone thinks along the same lines that I do.