[MD] a-theism and atheism

[John Carl]

I believe I have peace of mind, at last.  I was thinking last night that
while I can't see the MoQ as either atheistic anti-theistic, I do think it
is and should be, non-theistic.  For one thing, as a tool, it'd be
completely useless if it couldn't ask, "what good is your god?" For another,
It's chief value and purpose to those with theistic orientations and
conceptualization, is to remind them always that their conceptualizations
are choices,  that even if  there was  such thing as an objectively real
God, outside of your conceptualization, it wouldn't matter.  You are still
and always stuck with that fact that any God that could be, or is,  is "only
in your head".

The trouble as I see with labeling the MoQ plainly atheist, is as I told
Dan, the MoQ is no more anti-theistic than it is anti-theory-of-gravity.
People come up with ideas to deal with their world.  The MoQ says they do
this as a function of Quality.  What the MoQ is against, is assigning
objectivity to subjective ideas about reality.  Or reification, in simpler
term.  And what usually goes by the name "atheist" does this just as much as
any theism you can name.  Which is why I have no peace of mind with the
therm "atheist".  It's a 'connotation"  thing.  I'm sure y'all understand.

But non-theist, I can live with, even though technically speaking "a-theist"
means exactly the same thing.  Atheists in the flesh, however, usually
aren't simply non-theists, they are usually actually strident anti-theists.
They think religion should be abolished in the name of scientific
rationality.  The MoQ sees through that silliness - "scientific rationality"
as just another thing that's only in your head.

Now I realize there are many, if not most, on this list who will strenuously
disagree with me.  And this is for the very good reason that they truly are
antitheistic, and wish to force that view upon the whole.  They don't have
any patience for varieties of religious experience, because they've got an
axe to grind, an anger to assuage or a social group to conform to.  Thus
psychological dependencies that won't withstand question or inquiry, as dmb
so helpfully projected from within his own soul.  But how can he help it?
When I'm talking about the common connotations of "atheist", I'm talking
about the academic community: chief enforcers of an anti-theistic view based
upon a long, long pattern of community - formation through enemy
scapegoating and a social mechanism that is easy to explain with an analogy.


Take a cage full of monkeys, with a room inside the cage.  Put shock collars
around all the monkeys, and a banana in the cage.  Now, every time any
monkey approaches the room and the banana, shock all the other monkeys.
Very soon, anytime any monkey approaches the cage the other monkeys beat the
shit out of him.  Obviously.  After a while replace a monkey or two with new
ones.  Ignorant of the social rules, they go for the banana and get set upon
immediately.  No shock treatment necessary.  Keep replacing monkeys, till
all the original ones are gone, all memory of shocking punishment forgotten,
but a persistent pattern of persecuting any individual that goes for the
forbidden banana.   The evolution of social patterns, the fear of ghosts.