A weedy florilegium

Of Atheism:
1 An atheist can only reject a deity or deities presented (as a definition of the deity) to her knowledge. This is what we call “strong atheism”, “explicit atheism”, or “philosophical atheism.”

2 By definition of “belief,” no person can believe, or have faith, in a deity which has not been presented to their knowledge. Their direction of faith would have no target (deity). This is what we call “weak atheism”, “implicit atheism”, or “default atheism.” Can an uncivilized, remote island dweller have faith in the Christian God? This Islamic conception of the deity? The many manifestations of Brahma? Clearly this is not possible, for understanding of Scripture, Holy Writs, and of history and teaching are requirements to sufficiently execute worship proper. However, some wish to argue their deity as a “general spiritual force” or an everywhere present “spiritual energy.” This will be discussed later.

2.1 Atheism is the default stance of all persons existing in a world in which at least one theistic doctrine is held by at least one person. When all doctrines are ceased in so far as being held by persons capable of disseminating them, atheism thus becomes a meaningless stance. It is a stance only with respect to definitions of the deity. If no images of the deity are present, the atheist has nothing to reject or critique. In a possible world such as this, weak atheism then permeates throughout all persons.

3 We cannot define a deity as a “general spiritual force” because this predicate is a necessary condition for the status of any possible conception of a deity as deity (or a divine entity). “General spiritual force” is not a signifier of any specific deity, but of all potential or actual conceptions of the deity. It is tautologous and possibly nihilistic—this will be discussed later.

4 It is ethnocentric to assume that any single definition of the deity controls the spiritual feeling we all share as a species of sentient beings, but ethnocentricity occurs only if one grants that definitions of the deity cannot be severed from the culture in which it was contrived. A deity of a specific culture is as unique and as intellectually significant as the method of agriculture of that culture or the propensity of its constituents to grow to a certain average height. That is, the deity must have discernible qualities which define it and make it a target of faith. I could worship my human faculty to run a plow and garden, but all persons share this faculty with me as physical and sentient beings. No one will argue that our faculties as human beings come from our religious affiliations. The force by which we all thrive (as thinking, acting, desiring beings) as a species cannot be appropriated by any religious group. If it is argued, we are back at ethnocentrism and racism. This sort of mentality produced Nazism.

5 If the deity is exactly a “general spiritual force,” then by this definition (often haplessly used to save the deity as a moral force), all tradition and culture centered on the worship of the deity becomes meaningless and irrelevant. No arbitrary contrivance of human wit, history or culture can be appended to the notion of the deity; in truth, the deity being a “general spiritual force” destroys all human intellectual and creative connection to the deity. In truth, again, this argument destroys all purpose and meaning in human endeavors (a form of nihilism).

It’s an untrue assumption that “absolute truth” is equivalent to a religious person’s God. This is self-evident by virtue of their being so many religious sects within denominations and religious groups. The question assumes that the atheist does not believe in objective moral standards or absolutes which can be true, false, or uncertain. You can be an atheist and believe in absolutes: Atheism is the rejection and-or lack of a belief in a deity or deities. This is why atheists can be accused of having dogmatic beliefs. Further, it is wrong to assume that belief in a deity is a necessary requirement to have moral views and that the deity itself is in fact the substratum for morality. This is obvious by virtue of the epistemological dilemma of knowing the deity’s true nature. You can only assume the deity is moral in the way that you are moral or that religious groups are moral. Simply because a book says the deity is moral, it doesn’t follow that the deity must be moral.

When atheists say “whatever makes me feel good,” this is the same argument that the religious makes. It’s a common sense one—it is such because all atheists and theists are agnostics. Indeed, it is necessary for a theist to be an agnostic for them to have religious belief. Belief and Knowledge are disparate domains. When we call a religious person a dogmatist, we do not mean: You have dogmatic and absolute views on what you Know. We mean: You have dogmatic and absolute views on what you Believe.

Religious people believe they know their deity’s nature, but they do not know it. That being the case, they only believe their moral views are true, and this can be contested. Therefore, there is no reason to use the religious worldview as the default by which all questions of morality should be asked. There is no reason to assume their worldview true. Most people do this anyway, in their inquiries, because the popularity of religion and social coercion inclines them to do this.

To love any other way than with dissent is to feign to the world that you do engage it.

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.
—Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)

Though it shimmers and turns about itself in the depths of our intellects, we let the world often tell us what surface pleasures are worth our attention.

It is curious how even to this day we allow present ignorance to govern our State and past ignorance to govern our Souls. And we are aware of it, or so we say. We find small battles to engage in while other spheres of the world’s lives receive a shrug of the shoulder, yet even those are drenched in blood, treachery, flaw, enmity. I wonder at the nature of my fellows, and at myself—oh, how we can so arbitrarily choose certain goals in which to strive that would attain true “justice.” There is a basis of faith which we are all chained up against.

When will it be that ignorance is not the true deity of this world? It is almost as if we must costume ourselves as rebels, as malcontents, for an empty sake—without rational justification; that is, cease to demand the hopelessness that evidence and reason fictitiously procure for your forward movement—so to have any desperate hope of attaining freedom. The most free and, consequently, the most wise, it seems, are those who live in the most feral states of nature.

Some Literature to Digest
1. Why I Am Not A Christian by Bertrand Russell
2. Nietzsche, Spinoza, and the Ethological Conception of Ethics by Paolo Bolaños

Meet Giordano Bruno (1548–1600), martyr of the Roman Inquisition for his heretical intuitions as to the infinite nature of the homogeneous Universe and his blasphemous concord with heliocentricism. Indeed, he was slayed for his dreams.

“I cleave the heavens, and soar to the infinite. What others see from afar, I leave far behind me.”
— Giordano Bruno

“He is one martyr whose name should lead all the rest. He was not a mere religious sectarian who was caught up in the psychology of some mob hysteria. He was a sensitive, imaginative poet, fired with the enthusiasm of a larger vision of a larger universe … and he fell into the error of heretical belief.”
— John J. Kessler, Ph.D., Ch.E. (The Forgotten Philosopher)

Wikipedia; 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica Entry