Since you are improperly defining the word referent
I'm defining it the way I've seen it defined in philosophy.
Concepts refer to something. What they refer to is called a "referent". What atheists claim, as
atheists, is that theists have not made a successful case that the concept "God" has an existing referent, just as unicornists have not made a successful case that the concept "unicorn" has an existing referent, e.g., that you can ride.
You are right that corporeality isn't the point here. A referent can be
anything. Even the concept "concept" refers to concepts (including itself). However, the distinction between a concept and the set of things that it refers to should be retained, just as one should retain the distinction between a road sign in California that says "California" and California. The point here is not that concepts can't be self-referential, but that if you understand the
function of a sign, you'll make the distinction based on that context.
Let's set up a more precise language to consider your example of the anti-theist who is allegedly an atheist.
Let's consider the following entities (or alleged entities):
T for a theist
g for a god-concept
G for God, whatever that might be
H for an anti-theist
And the following relationships:
refers to
does not refer to
believes (in the existence or truth of)
does not believe (in the existence or truth of)
is angry at
has a (written as X(y), X has a y)
is (actually)
is also (equivalent to)
is not also (not equivalent to)
You had written:
If she considered God to be a concept that others believed in even though she did not, then I think she could be angry at God.
This is confusingly worded, but I take you to mean:
T has a g
T(g) refers to G
T believes G
T does not believe g is also G
(Translation: A theist has a god-concept of God and believes that God exists, though not simply as a god-concept.)
Also:
H has a g
H(g) refers to G (just like T(g))
H believes (in the existence of, not the truth of) T(g)
H does not believe G
H is angry at T(g)
(Translation: An anti-theist, using the same god-concept as theists do, does not believe in the existence of their God. However, the anti-theist hates those theistic god-concepts.)
Is H an atheist? Yes. Does H hate God? No.
H hates the
god-concepts. Hating a concept isn't the same thing as hating the referent to a concept. That's why it is so important to make that distinction.
Perhaps instead of "H is angry at T(g)" you meant "H is angry at G", but that makes little sense, since H does not believe in the existence of G. H would in reality be angry at g.
You could have meant that "H believes G", but then this wouldn't be an atheist any longer, and would in fact be a theist.
But perhaps you meant something else. What did you mean?
eudaimonia,
Mark