Sam, You comment: "Chris Hitchins acknowledged that, ...'sure, there may be a god out there; but he doesn't care about us or intervene.'" This is the theology of deism. Check out
http://207.234.216.228/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeismYou ask: What do people mean when they talk about a "personal God?" This kind of question can only be answered by those who say they do. Mormons think of 'God' as a person. I think so do the Jehovah Witnesses.
http://www.watchtower.org/library/jt/index.htmIn my opinion, there is no separate being called God. For me, this is a form of mental idol making. Christians need to be reminded St. Augustine (354-430 CE, formerly AD) wrote of God as being "like a circle whose circumerfvence is everyswhere and whose centre is nowhere."--A kind of no thing in which things exist.
For me, this means that GØD is like the knowledge, wisdom and power originating in the human spirit, the pneuma. For me, it is the power to believe that, despite the reality of evil, it is possible to accept that there is goodness and truth--in the form of love. Similar to the way that light turns darkness into day, and the heat sun can turn the cold of winter into Spring and Summer, so love can turn despair into hope and fear into joy. I John 3:8 sums this up with the words: God is love.
BTW, keep in mind that too much light and too much heat can do much harm.
Atheists: Do you allow for any kind of spirituality? What is your concept of mind? Spirit, Soul? Ghost?
What do you believe about life following the death of the brain?
[And there are more questions.]
