Woman on CNN tells Wolf " um i am actually a Atheist"

[JDPriestly]

171. You probably have a point. But I would call those laws God.

God is those laws as far as I'm concerned.

In my view, "God" is the word we use to represent the force in the universe that is mysterious and not knowable to our meager consciousness. Nothing more. Nothing less.

The word "God" can represent a mythological humanoid or simply an energy -- the something that holds the universe together -- perhaps just natural laws.

But then because we are human we need to tie up the loose ends and explain where the natural laws come from, so we refer to "God." Others ascribe magical powers to "God." i ascribe natural power to "God." I happen to be a Unitarian.

I haven't thought about it as thoroughly as Emerson and Thoreau, but I suppose I tend toward their philosophical line of thought:

Nature and Its Meaning
Nature is the focal point for much transcendentalist thought and writing. As a theme, it is so central to the movement that Emerson’s cornerstone essay is entitled Nature and serves as an investigation into nature and its relationship to the soul. For transcendentalists, nature and the soul were inextricably linked. In the rhythms and seasons of the natural world, transcendentalists found comfort and divinity. In the increasingly industrialized and fragmented world in which they lived, the search for meaning in nature was of great importance. Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, Hawthorne, Fuller, Melville, and others saw possibility, liberation, and beauty in nature.

Emerson writes in Nature, “Let us interrogate the great apparition, that shines so peacefully around us. Let us inquire, to what end is nature?” For Emerson, nature is a direct line to God, and its “meaning” is directly linked to God’s “meaning.” His definition of God and meaning is clearly different than that of the conservative Unitarian Church from which he split.

A follower of Emerson, Thoreau took ideas from Emerson’s work and put them into practice. He saw nature as not just an awe-inspiring force but a way of life. Thoreau offers up the following advice in Walden: “Let us spend one day as deliberately as Nature, and not be thrown off the track by every nutshell and mosquito’s wing that falls on the rails.” For Thoreau, nature is pure because it is free from commercialization and industrialization. It is both a respite and a teacher. The transcendentalists were not reactionary or opposed to the modernization of the world; they were, however, concerned that such modernization could lead to alienation. Nature provided a way to keep humans in touch with their souls and with their spiritual foundations.

http://howlandpowpak.neomin.org/powpak/cgi-bin/article_display_page.pl?id=thomas.williams/american&ar=20

I am not a scientist. I simply was not educated to understand science as well as I understand other fields.