Atheism, Agnosticism, Theism

In one sense this looks like a continuum, but actually it is not. The continuum is simply atheism to theism. Within the two, one can make further distinctions. Interestingly enough, they are almost mirrors of each other in the behavior of their adherents. But it will help to do some taxonomy first.

From my perspective, which includes thirty years, earlier as an atheist and later an agnostic, atheism has roughly three main types, militant, quiet, and indifferent. Militant atheists, also referred to as Capital “A” Atheists, are very obvious. They are busy filing suits to rid society of any public mention of God whether governmentally stated or privately stated. They are evangelists for No-God. Often they defend the Theory of Evolution as fact. The most well-known of these was Madeline Maury who started her career of militant, politically active atheism forty or fifty years ago. Though it is a topic for another essay, they most frequently associate politically with the modern liberal factions. They put as much energy and passion into their atheism as Fundamentalists put into their Christianity or Islam. From my knowledge of a few of them, it is my supposition that their atheism is emotionally inspired to begin with and is not subject to any kind of reason as to its reasons for action.

Quiet atheists are often much more thoughtful about their atheism, and as a consequence also more tolerant of theists. Many, like I was, arrived there from a process of questioning the religion they were brought up in, especially when it ran counter to what they were learning in school. They made a choice between what was known intellectually and a belief in God, as He was presented to them, seeing the two as incompatible. They may or may not join cause with the militants on particular issues, but being more tolerant, most likely don’t see it as important unless it violates one of their principles. Their politics will be across the spectrum and based on principle, just as their religious beliefs or lack thereof are.

Indifferent atheists generally have never been exposed to religion, and don’t know and don’t care if there is or is not a God. It’s a “Nah, I don’t think so” approach. This is not the same as agnosticism which will be discussed next. Generally speaking they simply live life by the moment, focusing on what is useful or workable to them and with little concern for all the furor over religious issues in public. I suspect this constitutes the largest part of the people that don’t believe in God. But they probably blend belief-wise into the corresponding theist group.

This is a good place to mention Agnosticism because I don’t place it as the middle ground between atheism and theism. That is because what I consider proper agnosticism requires some thought to realize that there is no proof of the existence or non-existence of God, and a conscious decision to live with the unknown. It takes quite a bit of mental energy to maintain a position with a known unresolved issue. Human nature generally wants to decide one way or another because is makes the remaining decisions easier. The biggest distinction between an indifferent atheist and an agnostic is the answer to the question, “Do you believe there is God?” The former says, “Naw, or some equivalent in casualness,” and the latter, “I don’t know.” In effect, I consider agnosticism off to the side of the continuum.

Progressing along the continuum, we reach the indifferent theists. Typically these are people that have gone to church out of habit all their lives or have been exposed to religion enough to believe in God, but don’t let it have any impact in the way they live their lives. If asked if they believe there is a God, they will say, "Yes, I guess so," but if asked how it effects the way they live their lives will probably have no effective answer. My experience says this is a large proportion of the people who claim to believe in God. Statistics indicate that up to 80% of the country says they believe in God, but the attendance at churches is falling. To me this indicates the belief has no real importance, hence the label indifferent theists.

There is a transition group between the indifferent and quiet theists. This has sprung up in the past several years with the growth of the mega-churches. Mega-churches are characterized by a simple message that makes people feel good. There is strong emotional involvement at the time of worship, and there may be donations, often large, to the church, but the actual impact on the day-to-day lives of many of the attendees is minimal. It is transactionally oriented—be baptized, go to church, donate money, and all is good. Somehow, miraculously, your behavior will be OK and you are automatically saved. The emphasis is not on law and behavior but on the salvation part, with little emphasis on changing behavior. There are testimonials on the good works done under religious motivation, but it has the same spectator feel as attending a movie, play, or lecture.

The quiet theists are probably the largest proportion of the theists that attend church. They belong to all denominations of all the monotheistic religions. They worship fairly regularly, and actually strive to follow the teachings of their religion. They are reluctant to evangelize and only talk about religion amongst themselves. But they live their religion in their lives, doing good, volunteering, donating to all sorts of causes. (This is not to say that others don’t, it is just to point it out as a defining characteristic of the group.) Going to church for them is not a command but a desire, and they take pleasure in the company of their fellow church-goers.

At the extreme of the continuum are the militant theists. The most extreme form are the Islamic jihadists that believe killing non-believers is a holy thing to do. They have their equivalents in Fundamentalist Christians that have killed abortion clinic workers, bombed abortion clinics, and carried out other violent acts in the name of their religious beliefs. Somewhat less extreme and more common on the Christian side of things in this country are the very vocal evangelists for banning abortion, banning sexually oriented media, or making the religious definition of union the legal definition. [Marriage is originally a religious term, and embedding its definition in law is the equivalent to attempts to implement Shari’ia in secular law.] They are also the same general group that wanted to elevate Intelligent Design to the status of scientific theory. Only in their case it was not to be considered theory but fact. The characteristic here is that there is a self-righteousness that says that I believe it is wrong for religious reasons therefore everyone has to obey, even if by force.

Because of their outspokenness, the two extremes are often used to characterize the entire group, militant atheists being the avatar for all atheists and the same for militant theists. Either out of ignorance, failure to think for themselves, or group cohesion, the rest of the group often goes along. It is the actions of the extremes that have put us in the position of having a holy war between religion and secularism in this country. The truth is that this is either a minor or a non-issue to most of the populace, but they are too busy living their lives to take the time to defuse it. With the exception of the militants, there is far more in common among all believers and non-believers than there is difference, and there is tolerance of other opinion. We need to strive to make this more operative.