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that it is possible to reduce atheism to a series of statements concerning this signifier "god" is obvious: that individuals can take up these statements from a variety of angles, enunciate them with varying types of fervor, say, would mean only that it is possible to perform that type of operation upon/with those statements. it says nothing--at all--about anything to do with a system of beliefs/non-beliefs behind the statements. to think otherwise is to confuse the flexibility (in terms of usage) of a particular sequence of statements with an analysis of a social configuration/system of beliefs/practices. which is a pretty goofy slide to allow oneself to make. so i think the premise of this thread is at the very best elaborated on superficial understanding,
the thread is then about an assertion on the part of tspike concerning the usage of particular types of statements. insofar as it goes, there is nothing remakrable, interesting or thoguht-provoking about it. that he chose to move from there to an attempt to conflate atheism with a religion is simply a mistake--that the thread then moved into a typical christian evangelical parlor game, in whcih sophomoric logic tricks are deployed in order to "demonstrate" the untenability of the belief system "atheism" shows that the thread was never really about its purported topic.
the "history" of atheism thrown about here is also wrong: it is absurd to equate darwin with atheism in a cause-effect manner--in europe, atheism as a cultural option emerged gradually from within nominalism, across the 17th and 18th century--it is a consequence of the assumption that god is radically transcendant, not accessible to human understanding at any level--one way-station that you can look at is the wager in pascal's pensees: from this position, it is but a small step to non-belief (either agnostic or athiest)....
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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