Atheism is not an intellectual achievement. Maybe for some people it can be, people who grew up in an environment completely drenched in god sauce, atheism and doubt never being allowed a voice. And in that void, they had to rebuild atheism from scratch, using the power of reason to give voice to and justification for rejecting everything they’d ever been told to believe about the universe.
But my cat is nigh-thoughtless and he’s an atheist, no need for any of that. He never had the power to understand the lie of religion in the first place.
President for Short-ass Rest of His Life Donlad Pumpkinhead Shitler IV possesses the atheism of a cat. He will never fear death because he is incapable of grasping the reality of it on an emotional level. It means nothing to him. Should we really expect that he has anything like a conception of life beyond his own, enough to imagine a creator that came before him, a creator that would have any opinion that matters regarding his worldly conduct?
The people who trust that he is christian are the same as the people who believe he is honest. On at least this one issue, we gotta admit, he’s one of ours. Likewise most of us in the atheist community are “culturally christian,” carrying with us the patriarchal and zealously conformist baggage that entails. Unsurprising in hindsight to see our “thought leaders” in the same sordid company as hair fuhrer.
When I say these things, on some level you know it’s just to court controversy in my scene. But also I feel a need to distinguish myself from the shitbird hypocrites of the right wing by not playing the no true scotsman game. If that sack of shit wants to say he’s an atheist – which he won’t – he has as much right to the word as DickDawk, Spam Hairish, and the rest.
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But is someone who believes himself to be a god really an atheist?
Is there a word for that?
i imagine you’d call that autotheism, but i don’t believe he believes that either. he thinks so little of everyone else in the world that he would be a god in comparison, but i don’t think it’s quite the same thing.
Then there is the problem of …
can whatever is going on in whatever is remaining of his brain be called “thinking”?
i’ve definitely danced all over the border of my ableism policy on this one. my flimsy excuse is that i’m not handing out a dx from my armchair, but maybe that ain’t enough. plenty of sweet people have cognitive decline, right? gotta exercise care not to make them feel bad by talking about his deficits like they’re the direct precursor of his evil.
I would evaluate Trump as a Christian – an unthinking, impious, amoral, heterodox Christian, but a Christian nonetheless.
I wonder what his cultists would do if he came right out and announced that he was an atheist? What sort of pretzels would they have to twist themselves into to keep believing? Would their “God’s imperfect vessel” excuse be enough? Would they still stand by him like they would if he shot someone on 5th Ave on tv?
I have to admit, he’s almost got me believing he’s the antichrist…
That does get to one of the difficulties of definitions. Is an atheist someone who:
1. Does not believe in deities?
2. Does not believe in interventionist deities?
3. Does not believe in any aspect of the supernatural?
4. Makes an informed decision to not believe in deities based on studies of religion or reality?
5. Someone who was exposed to religious doctrine but rejects all of it, informed or not (as opposed to a heathen/pagan who has not been exposed or a heretic who rejects parts of it but not all)?
6. Someone who was exposed to religious cultures (not necessarily doctrine) and rejects it.
I would submit that most people who call themselves atheists belong to most these categories, although most atheists probably do adopt some of the trappings of the religious culture they exist in (e.g. christmas) so they are not type 6 atheists. Although, I also suspect that most people who claim atheism are in category 4, while your cat is only in category 1. While your cat may be an atheist, I would be surprised if they made a claim that they were. (If your cat does make this claim, we’ll have to sponsor a debate with the Jackdaw of Rheims.) I have run across, on occasion, people who don’t believe in a diety (interventionist or not), but do believe in the supernatural. These days they tend to call themselves heathen or Pagan not atheist. But from a purely technical definition of atheism, the lack of a belief in a god or gods, they would count as atheists.
However, I would also submit that most religious people are, in fact, heretics. That is, they adopt the cultural trappings of a religion (a la point 6), and some of the teachings (but not all), and do believe in some sort of interventionist deity.
So, what is Trump, in the past and in the present? My feeling is that in the past he was unconcerned about the existence of a deity, but would acknowledge the possibility of one because of a couple factors. Trump is (was?) an adherent of Norman Vincent Peale, who promoted the idea of the power of positive thinking. While there is certainly some benefit in being confident in what you are striving to accomplish, there is a large amount of supernatural thinking involved in Peale’s doctrine. Which suggests that Trump also has a belief in the supernatural, although he may call it luck or the power of positive thinking. A belief in a non-causal event which can change random propabilities is a supernatural belief. Peale’s acolytes didn’t hope they were going to win the lottery, they knew they were going to win, and when they didn’t it was because they didn’t “know” strongly enough.
This has the been one of the underlying beliefs Trump has demonstrated for many years. It underlies every one of his “get-rich” schemes. He knew his university was going to make money. He knew his steaks were going to make money. He knew his casinos were going to make money. He didn’t have to work at any of these things, he only had to believe strongly enough.
So, Trump believes in the supernatural. Does he believe in the afterlife? That’s harder to get a read on. The fact that he is pissing on everything he can to leave his scent could imply that he doesn’t believe in an afterlife, or it could merely be a what a mongrel does in an attempt to claim ownership. My gut feeling is that he does believe in an afterlife, but is frightened by it. Which is why he wants all the trappings of power because, somehow, an improved status while alive equates to an improved status in the afterlife. But I doubt that he’s really thought seriously about it, and I’m not certain he can at this point.
Is Trump a type 4 (from the list above) atheist? Absolutely not. He is at a minimum a believer in the supernatural (i.e. not type 3) and a cultural christian (i.e. not type 6). He has not learned religious beliefs and rejected them (i.e. not type 4). He has not been exposed to religious beliefs and rejected them without study (i.e. not type 5). He could either be a type 1 or type 2 atheist, like your cat, or a heretic.
Personally, I would call him a heretic. Like most christians.
Just a variant:
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flex:
An atheist is a non-theist. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_privative
Therefore, any non-theist is an atheist.
(If an agnostic is not a theist, then they are an atheist)