[MD] a-theism and atheism

[Ian Glendinning]

No coincidence I label myself non-theistic John, if pushed for a label.

A-theistic / atheism is, like scientism, as dogmatic as any theism.
Agnostic is too disinterested to be any use to me, I need as you
suggest, need to know where questions and answers about god fit - MoQ
provides that. Agnosticism can only ever be an incomplete or temporary
state.

Ian

On Sat, Nov 13, 2010 at 9:36 PM, John Carl <ridgecoyote at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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.
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