--- Nicholas Ruiz III <editor at intertheory.org> wrote:
> The atheist delusion
>
[WS:] Delusion, schmelusion. Atheism is a kind of religon, and both are forms of literature. They are anything people want them to be - so talking whether religion (or literature, or atheism) is this or that is pretty pointless - like trying to determine the number of angels on the head of a pin.
Most people have the idea of "god" implanted into their brains by their childhood experiences - it is the metaphor of the parent applied to the world at large. In that sense, it is their apriori category of reasoning - fundamentally beyond any rational discourse.
Some people use the concept of "god" in the way Aristotle did - as an epistemological postulate to avoid vicious circles and regressions to infinity. It is a philosophical concept rathr than religious one.
Then there are pantheists who equate "god" with "nature" - which is a metaphorical way of saying that the world out there is more than we can eat, drink and shit. It strikes me as being more naturalistic than religious, an attititede shared by many modern environmnetalists.
An then there is religion as the legitimation myth of powers that be. Nothing spiritual about it - just despicable piece of propaganda. World would be a better placed withot it, and also people who disseminae it.
Wojtek