Posted on January 13, 2013 by shantanup
I thought up the word atheotheist/atheotheism to distinguish myself from atheists because I got tired of hearing that an atheist is someone who lacks a belief in God and that besides agnosticism there is the other option of theism without positions in the middle. The simple definition of an atheist position was not credible as a real life situation that one saw no reason whatsoever to believe that a God of any form could exists as the reality is that there is a constant process of truth search in progress evaluating theology. This leads to people having uncertain positions between atheism and theism.
I decided that when one is not certain that a Personal God exists and is still searching for evidence of that, one is an atheotheist for whom science is unable yet to assess this relationship between man and God. So when a personal God is not ruled out and until that boundary of time=0 in the origins of the universe is penetrated by science I see that we have no option but to take an atheotheist position. This is the position that we live like atheists that is without reference to holy books or direct commands from a sky daddy God into our minds but do not rule out the possibility that we may yet find evidence of such a God to guide us humans.
If I ruled out the existence of a Personal God and also came to the judgement that science would find a way to go beyond the origins of this universe’s time and space and discover a source of matter that just erupts periodically and randomly into the type of existence that we know as our universe (much like volcanoes erupt at different places on this Earth) without the need for a will to make it happen I would say that I have now sufficient evidence to make me an strong atheist.
Currently, I am a strong atheist in that I have ruled out the existence of a Personal God but have not ruled out the existence of an Entity as a power source that manifested the universe as Brahman, the ultimate reality. Thus, in my understanding atheothesim fits into the scheme of theology as follows:
Theist: strong believer in Personal God and Creator God, living their lives according to holy books and personal ideas of revelations and missions suggested to their minds from a perceived higher supernatural power;
Atheotheist: non-believer in a Personal God so lives like an atheist without Holy Books and skydaddy God giving the person messages and a mission) but not ruling out that there may be a Personal God that one may yet discover in one’s life;
Weak atheist: given up all ideas that there may be a Personal God who one will discover in one’s life but who has not given up the idea that the universe was generated by a Creator God with a will who knew that humans will one day arise on Earth to sing his praises;
Deist: one who believes that the physics and cosmology show that a Creator God set off the universe as well as designed life and then disappeared from view and has never and will never reveal himself to human beings;
Strong atheist: one who has ruled out all ideas of both a Personal God and a Creator God thinking neither to be of any relevance to humanity and the existence of the universe. He does not think that the word ‘God’ should be applied to the power source of the generation of the universe which science has not been able to understand yet.
Agnostic: a does not know anything about whether there is any kind of a God or cannot make up ones mind about the issue.
An atheotheist anticipates that evidence may yet be forcoming for the existence of a Personal (and a Creator God), but pending that he/she lives like an atheist. An agnostic on the other hand does not anticipate the arrival of any evidence for the existence of a Personal (or Creator God): he just does not know.
All forms of atheists and agnostics attempt to lead their lives according to humanistic ideals rather than on the basis of a scriptural or a perceived revealed wisdom that theists do. The details of how atheists form moral judgements vary considerably with no structure: some live on the basis of designing human rights, some on ideas of equality, others on the principle of ‘do on to others as you would have them do to you’, and still others through an understanding of evolutionary biology of how we humans live optimally in Nature.
This is a synopsis of my description of the various strands of theological beliefs that one comes across in life. A new word is accordingly introduced to the debate on God: atheotheism.
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