Thank god I'm an atheist II: Why I'm not an atheist.

Long list of "sorry"s to my friends who are atheists.  I can't define myself as an atheist.  Here's why:

(Caveat:  My arguments breakdown if you define gods as the quasi-religious political dogmas used to control the masses.  If this is God, then I am an atheist.)

The first and more simple of the two reasons is that I do not wish to define myself as anything.  I'm not an atheist, a Christian, a taoist, an existentialist, a feminist, or an anesthesiologist (I practice anesthesia).  I wish that I had a true passion about something (the devotion yoga for you Hindu enthusiasts) that would allow me to more or less pin my existence on, but I can't.  My personal identity is extraordinarily elusive as it is.  I can summarize my motives or "projects" as Sartre would have, but I can't summarize me; or at least I don't want to because summarizing sets you up for dismissal.  "Oh, he's an atheist.  I can't get through to him."  I certainly think that the standard definition of atheism carries a lot that appeals to me.  Feminism carries an enormous amount that appeals to me (standard definition is important; consider the definition of Islam or Muslim by a fundamentalist versus that of the other 99%) .  But I have to admit, as much as I like her, Simone de Beauvoir, a highly regarded existential feminist (she'd hate that I called her either), says a lot of weird shit.  Am I a feminist of the weird shit too?  I would even argue that I shouldn't say I'm not something.  I'm not a Christian but there are many non-dogmatic points that appeal to me.  (Isn't the initial concept a response to sin in Judiasm?  Wasn't the idea attributed to Jesus that we should forgive all "sin" and thus essentially eliminate the concept entirely?)  Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, Islam all have appeal to me.  (Did you know that the original texts for Islam were a response to a lack of women's rights?  They urged that women be allowed to have rights to property and inheritance.  Those wild and crazy fundamentalist muslim feminists!)

Definitions are battleground delineations.  They absolutely have their place.  I am not a feminist, but I certainly believe in a large portion of what they symbolize.  When laid out on the line, I would call myself a feminist to show what I believe I'm not and to set my limits on what I can tolerate.  (Goddamn right that my daughter will have the same opportunities that I have/had.)  But, this blog is not a battleground.  Nor is my head.  So I'm not an atheist here or when when I'm alone on the shitter.  When I'm at my Scottish super-atheist friend's house, I barely resemble an atheist; when I'm at my highly religious father-in-law's house, I'm a militant atheist.

The other reason is more difficult to explain.  Most definitions of God invoke an image of a
supreme humanoid being that warrants worship.  By those definitions I am an atheist (the theory or belief that God does not exist).  But others suggest something ill-defined: the supreme or ultimate reality; an idol to be worshipped (to treat with reverence and adoration); the source of moral authority.  Given these definitions, I can't say I don't believe in "god".

Let's pause for a minute, however.  Outside the sphere of human consciousness, I am an absolute nihilist.  There is no morality, knowledge, being, truth.  These things are all human interpretation, perception, and construct.  If there is no one to touch something, there is no substance.  But this is not where we live.  My world is a conscious world so the fake truths it defines are true for me.  I believe there is a common point to reality and morality (see Common Morality; also a blog for another day).  I believe there is an ultimate irreducibility to our world.  And, even if there is not, I believe there is an irreducibility to our capacity for understanding which therefore becomes the de facto ultimate reality.  And I worship: I worship the idol of science.  I perform rituals on a daily basis (consider the known effectiveness of all we do in the OR; we know nothing as fact, we only know probability so we have our quarks and rituals to pretend to have some control over the uncontrollable).  I treat science with a reverence deserving of a deity.