What does it mean if I am grateful to "god" ?
Suppose I believe that "god" is just the workings of the entire universe collectively, not supernatural but natural, not an old mean white guy with emotions and desires, but the sum total of existence and all the things that happen in it, not active personality in the world but passive non-personality, the system on which the entire universe is "emulated."
Then I am grateful to a non-personality, but I suspect people in accidents are grateful to seat belts or airbags or whatever came between them and a hard object moving quickly at them.
And maybe it means I believe in "god," but the "god" I believe in puts me more in common with atheists than with the religious.
Having enough belief in "god" to thank it (or feel like thanking it) doesn't need to suggest the properties of the god(s) of the religious that are so valuable to reject.
Well, I used to think that I do not believe in anything supernatural that affects what happens to me, but I'm wondering if maybe I actually do alieve in it. For example, a few days ago I had a close call in traffic, and when a collision I fully expected to happen just a second prior did not transpire, I mentally thanked... whom? I definitely had a clear feeling of gratitude for escaping, and I don't normally mean it literally when I say "Thank God!". So, who or what did I feel thankful to? I've never been religious, and I got rid of most of my superstitions over the years, but apparently there is still something there, and I do not know how to react to this knowledge.
What would be the proper reaction after a close call? Shrug and say "got lucky this time, should be more cautious next time"? What about when waiting for a diagnosis, what does sort-of-praying "please, please, let everything be OK" say about one's true beliefs? I know that I am much better at not blaming the world when something bad happens to me by chance than at not thanking the world when something good happens. Should it not be symmetric? Which part of a normally non-religious person wakes up and asserts itself in a crisis situation out of their control? Should it be embraced, suppressed, worked on?