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The Atheists' Symbol is the Atom
Do you believe in atheism? If a
person said "yes", would that really tell you whether that person has no
belief in a god? Think about that.
Atheism is not a belief, it is an
absence of belief and therefore not a religion. In itself, atheism proposes
no doctrines. Atheism is not about disbelief in gods, but is about disbelief
in anecdotal theological claims about them. Atheism may be a component of
any kind of philosophy or instructional materials simply because of the
absence of religious information within them.
To call a person an ‘atheist’ because
(s)he loves the practice of using his/her own reasoning and observational
powers to define existence, is not different from calling a person who
relies on mysticism and dreams an ‘immaterialist’, an ‘unrealist’, an ‘irrelevantist’,
or an ‘ignorantist’. It pits believers against skeptics while disavowing
that either side may have reasons that lead to their belief or disbelief,
that go far beyond the bounds of such simplistic views.
That is the usual approach taken to
this one issue, to present it to the world as though it is all that is
important to know about people. It amounts to proclaiming that philosophy
(the study of wisdom) is something negative and wrong, and that theosophy
(the study of gods) must amount to the opposition of wisdom. No believers in
gods will deny the value of wisdom. When taken to current extremes, it
appears to be very much so, and goes a long ways toward promoting the lack
of cogent understanding both sides of this issue experience when trying to
comprehend a subject they both have given the name ‘atheism’.
It can’t be understood or defined
because, on its own, it does not exist. Atheism and theism both result from
schools of thought (or, lack of thought) which lead to a condition of
belief. It is the belief, mainly in invisible presences and places, that
then led to disbelief, an emanation of unwillingness to trust people whose
vested interests are only too obvious. To attack an atheist or a theist for
only that small part of their overall system of thought is to attack an
elephant by trying to trim its toenails, or a rhinoceros by shaving the
hairs off its tail. This is the approach preferred by those on both sides
of the issue who appear to fear for the verity of their own position. It
should be made clear that any adult person with no well understood
sustaining philosophy, who is an atheist only for lack of belief, and any
adult person who is a believer for no other reason than that he/she believes
in a god, will be a person with dire emotional problems, and most likely a
troublemaker of one sort or another.
Even then, such a person will have to
work hard to equal the emotional problems and trouble induced by a person
who disbelieves and pretends to do the opposite. Both sides share the same
names for such persons, and both sides suffer from the discredit and
disparagement, and loss of direction and standing, that such persons
introduce into our world. Most people, no matter the nature of their
worldview as far as belief is concerned, recognize that. Still, on both
sides of the belief issue, such persons exist and thrive because those
around them are too busy chasing demons from amongst the trees to take good
care of crops they could raise themselves, and too busy watching after those
with whom they work at the tending of their own fields. Many times, people
guilty of this will fail to recognize it in their own selves.
How can each of us be sure we remain
innocent of something that truly amounts to being a crime against humanity
at worst, and a crime against our own selves at the least? We will use a
concept called ‘post-proofing’ to awaken us as to the nature of the methods
such persons use to go about their devious business.
Post-proofing is a term that
generally applies to the editing of already-published works, wherein
mistakes are noted and recorded for the eventuality of future revisions or
reprints of a work. It is mainly applied to web pages, which can be easily
revised after they’ve been published. Post-proofing will mostly be performed
by interested readers. That is post-proofing with innocent intent. Using
that meaning to express it, this web page will be post-proofed many times,
as time passes, and revised according to the input of doing so, from its
author and from interested others.
Post-roofing with devious intent,
however, occurs when a person begins scouring for any source of information
that seems to offer support for ideas created from ‘inspiration’ or whole
cloth, and so is a close synonym to another one of my word coins,
preverification.
Let us say, for example, we have decided that "money is evil". For such an
idea, most people will scour their bibles or other holy books front to back,
looking for verses (in or out of context seldom matters) that appear to
verify that statement. Quotes from ancient popes, priests or other persons
of note may later be added to that, and recorded to be used for support.
"Money is evil" will become a slogan for those we talk into supporting our
new idea, as they advance it into the societies in which we live. Our aim
may be future sainthood, it may be to manipulate the results of some cause
we stand for or against, or it may be that we actually do believe that
"money is evil". The point is, the idea came first, and then ‘proof’ for it
was sought.
Charlatans in any walk of life will
use this method to sway the naive to their sides in many matters, no matter
what the nature of their world-views may be, or whether they be believers or
not. Con artists will approach any or all of us on the street with
well-rehearsed dialogs contrived in just this way, to win our hearts and
then the contents of our wallets. Impostors will appear with long lists of
credentials and make us believe in whom they claim to be, although all of it
may be completely phony. Deceivers will appear before us with malevolent
intentions, their documents appearing well researched and wholesome, and
real. Dissemblers may even disguise themselves as well as the documents
they’ve forged in order to convince us to follow wherever they will lead.
Fakers, frauds and humbugs will trick us with literature we really ought to
check before allowing ourselves to get very excited over it. Pretenders all,
they stand a chance of getting caught, and we will share their guilt for our
own oafish involvement. A quack may actually believe in the value of what he
offers to the world, but it remains inaccessible to testing, his proofs only
scraps taken from the texts of larger documents, or from letters from
previous customers, that may in their whole condemn what he would sell to
you. A hypocrite may believe only a part of what he or she practices or
preaches, but would have the world believe the heart accepts it all. Any one
of these kinds of people use ‘post-proofing’ to conjure up the evidence they
look to for support.
Do you often find yourself digging
for substantiation for an idea you would like to see accepted as ‘real’?
Would you prefer to follow ideas contrived in such a way, than to study and
discover the actual, testable truths mankind has uncovered in the long human
quest for knowledge? Do you rely mainly on what others have had to say for
most of your information, even when that information may have no verifiable
support in other places? Do you rely mainly on literary support, and avoid
finding evidence in the reality we all must share to survive? If so, you are
choosing which of your five senses to rely on, and avoiding input from your
other senses which may contradict it. Think of seeing a cat you chase down
to pet and take home, while avoiding the skunk signals your nose may be
sending you, and the warnings you may be hearing from your friends.
Post-proofing may support an
atheistic view of life just as well as any view relying on acknowledged
faith. An atheist whose disbelief results from that procedure will be no
wiser nor better off than a theist using it. Atheism that does not result
from a developed, verifiable philosophy will be no more real than theism
developed the same way. A person whose theosophy results from applied study
of not only the available literature, but also of his/her natural
surroundings, will not primarily consider himself a theist, but will
proclaim to the world the realm of thought from which his theism developed.
In the same vein, an atheist whose philosophy results from applied study of
not only the available literature, but also of his/her natural surroundings,
will not primarily consider himself an atheist, but will recognize his
atheism is only a small part of a wider body of knowledge and experience he
or she has earned and from which has been derived all the beliefs, and
demands for rights and equality (s)he proclaims to the world as the realm of
thought from which his or her atheism developed.
Atheism may be a concept supported by
post-proofing, but cannot be found alive and healthy in the natural world
wherein we live. To proclaim "I am an atheist" tells the world very little
about the person, and is only the equivalent of stating, "I am a theist." To
do either answers no questions about anything than one’s belief status, and
is no more important to know about any person than whether he or she may
feel thirsty or well hydrated. It is probably the least important thing to
know about anyone.
"Do you believe in atheism?"
Last updated
01/17/2008 |
