It leads to arguments and endless, distractive discussion about something that, in reality and without the introduction of needless decorative devices, is only about people who do not believe in gods. Period.

What more could be said? Could it be said that there are various levels of absentness?—that more is there than presence or absence of belief?—that an agnostic is less empty of belief than the most studied and hardened atheist?—that a not-completely-convinced theist can have partial belief and therefore find his way a little bit into Heaven?— that a hypocritical theist lacks belief in any real measure that's somehow different from the hardiest bearer of atheistic banners?

Do you suppose that Satan, as presented in the Xian Bible, is portrayed as someone holding no beliefs in God? No, Satan is represented as a believer. If being a wholehearted believer assures you that you're "in", then what are the implications of that? Is that what makes the lot of you religionists so testy about your beliefs?

Dictionaries define words and, like the theists (and unlike the colligious) we look to them for authoritative support and not to those actually involved with whatever a word is about. That puts atheists in the same boat as theists about their own visions about their world, and guess whose definitions we atheists are using to define ourselves! I have never seen any kind of advertisement, promotion, nor any reviews about a dictionary of strictly secular origins, save for my own constantly updated glossary. How can one arrive at an accurate description that covers the various shades of atheism?— or decide if it is or is not, after all, a strictly black and white issue?

EXAMPLES: The best way to understand this is to look at absence in other places, where how to perceive it becomes more obvious. Let's start with something simple and familiar, like trees: We have two trees whose leaves have dropped away. One tree has prepared itself for the annual winter barren branch look, the other has died and has no control over how or why its leaves dropped. Both trees are now absent of leaves: Is one of them more absent than the other?

How about two buckets once filled with rainwater? One has sprung a leak while the other has simply let its water slowly evaporate. Is one any emptier of water than the other, if one emptied of its own accord and the other did so passively? If so, can you explain your reasoning to the rest of the world?

Rule of threes: Two men have died. One committed suicide and the other died from age-related conditions. Is either of their bodies more absent of life than the other? Maybe your religion provides an answer for that, but we won't wait for your demonstration, we want it right now if your answer is 'yes'.

The introduction of such decoy, red herring, or strawman terms as "weak" versus "strong", "active" versus "passive", or whatever, into the atheist community has done far more harm to atheism than anything done by the enemies of our freedom to think. It introduces elements that, if one will bother with the atheist community, one will observe to be criticism as used by these who consider themselves "real" atheists to question the status or sincerity of those with whom they have found reasons to disagree, or a subject about which to argue instead of dealing with some real issues.

I am not writing this as one of those accused of being "weak" in atheism. A visitor to much of the material on this website will not develop that opinion, I assure you, unless (s)he intends to cherry pick for evidence with that purpose in mind.

I am writing this to take my stand against divisiveness among secular people introduced by inconsequential matters.

"Weak" and "strong" are more rightly used to describe the state of a person's advancement into atheism, than about his or her absence of belief. Absence of belief is about belief that is not present no matter how strongly one feels about it, or how much or little consideration one gives the subject, or even claims to know about it. Someone who needs to ask, "What is a god?" is as much an atheist as a person like myself who actively seeks and presents information about the subject. From that, you can see it's obvious, it is mainly a matter of innocence and interest.

To foray into a war against so-called "weak" atheists is not different at all (but for the subject matter) than to go into rages against those who do not know everything there is to know about the cars they drive, the telephones they use, or about the dwelling places they occupy. Can you imagine someone saying to another, "You are a weak homeowner"?— "You are a weak telephonist"?— "You are a weak automobilist"?— just because someone does not know everything there is to know about it, and is not really all that interested in anything but self-defense against such onslaughts?

I find the terms "passive" and "active" to more correctly portray an individual's stance and attitude. I have also observed that people grow from passive to active as their knowledge increases, and as they become aware of the harmful nature of religion in our world, in all the ways that is true, and the threat that poses against themselves. A passive atheist may maintain that state of mind for a lifetime, especially if often prodded by atheistic bullies whose pressuring he resists. Haranguing by theists, however, will as often as not spur him or her into studying information counter to theirs, and prompt an eventual activism when awareness dawns about the true nature of their intentions. Theists inspire more atheists into activism than any other potential influence, more Muslims into jihad, more passive people to take up political action….

Ridiculous to ridicule! Let's let such people grow at their own pace, and be as honest as we can about answering whatever questions they pose.

And then, there is the matter of a supposed "atheist philosophy". Let's pose the question: "What could a philosophy about an absence of belief have to say about anything?" Is there an atheist philosophy behind the writing of my car's ownership manual? How about the booklet that came with my computer? It has no gods in it. There's nothing in it about praying or flagellation for when the computer refuses to work: Does that make it innocently atheistic?

No. That only makes it a secular document, instructions about the nature of the beast and how to deal with it at that level. Such literature is atheistic only in the sense that they do not portray supernaturalism in their instruction sets, but they do not represent a "philosophy of atheism"— a "philosophy about the Nature of Nothing, No One, No Place".

Atheology is not only about absence of belief in gods, it is about being absent of emanations of all theological edicts. Since we have no one to teach us how to accomplish that, we end up with uncertainty about a lot of social conditions, and uncertain about our own opinions, and so we take religionlike stances on many issues that go beyond our ken. This gets translated into hypotheses about why each of us is "different" from the rest, and emanates into an absence of cohesiveness within our ranks. That is not colligious!

We ought to feel concerned about that, enough to be actively looking for ways to correct it instead of making up excuses about it. Those polarly opposite from us on the belief meter overwhelm us at every turn because, however crazy we deem them to be, however inept they appear at understanding reality, however dangerous and malicious they appear, they have developed and maintain a kind of cohesiveness within their little smidgeon of theistical ranks that we cannot get beyond laughing about when thinking we ought to try for something like that.

 "Yeah, right!"

Cohesiveness works for religion. Cohesiveness would work for us, if we could only get past our ignorance about how to be atheists. We would get past that, if we could get serious about our concerns about all the injustices we complain about, and make it an aim to figure out something more than our piecemeal efforts to deal with that.

It becomes unhealthy when we start acting like theists about unproven and unverifiable principles, and refusing to consider how the other person's views might be an improvement on our own, and telling ourselves in our secret minds how it might cause us to lose face if we have to admit some lowlife scum actually had something new to teach us. If we continue acting like that, we would be better off going to a church, hypocrites or not! We are bad atheists, everyone of us, however and whenever that is true.

A good atheist understands that much of life requires speculation to get through it, and aims to learn what he can from doing so, and will confess that to others who may inform him about similar situations. He or she will look to nature as the provider of knowledge, and know that speculative ventures must be considered and treated as experiments from which to learn; but that testing, verification, demonstration and repeatability are the provenders of truth.

He knows that a true understanding enables accurate predictions to be made; and that a wrong prediction provides its own information from which learning can be had. She knows that perfect knowledge has been ordained to only God, but that she has seen no reason to believe anything about that, and so only someone refusing to learn will claim infallibility. He knows he must have faith in his ability to learn from his mistakes, not faith that he will never make them. She will gain self confidence from her awareness that she can try, try again until the job is right, and that it was too easy whenever something worked on her first attempt.

A good atheist fully understands how such things as those are what makes the difference between a scientific worldview and one that is wholly religious: Science works to be self-correcting; religion works to be self-endorsing, and the religious will make an ungodly effort to inspire a distrust of science wherever they can. A good atheist is aware they won't necessarily promote that in any honest fashion. A good atheist knows atheism is not a religion or philosophy, and works to develop an understanding of why, and knows not to allow theists to derail his thought processes.

Principles of Atheology

The Origination of Atheism

The Scientific Method

I Saw the Light

God on Trial

FAQ about Atheism