Expert: Jeffrey Eldred - 3/16/2010

Question
The first mention of Atheism, is by the Greeks in the term atheos, which is in reference to Greek Platonism as refers to the Nous (will/mind/citta/spirit/soul) as found in passage: (Phil 26e-30d) and not to a supernatural persona, i.e. God. The immanent-only materialistic pantheism of metaphysical Atheism is an aphilosophical position holding that everything which exists is no more extensive than its physical compounded materiality; that is, that there are no kinds of things other than physical things. This anti-divinity of Atheism is the true and shadow-worshiping profanity that is the hallmark of Atheism, not its correct position that, as Plato and the Neoplatonists argued for as well, that there was no Supreme-Being as creator of the cosmos.  


As such, are you a mere atheist, or a METAPHYSICAL ATHEIST? Or, do you have the mental capacity to philosophically differentiate the two?

Answer
I have to say that I do not have the training in philosophy to fully appreciate your references to ancient Greek philosophy, so I hope you will forgive me for restating the question in terms that are more familiar to me. I did have the consideration to read the passage you referenced, Plato Philebus 26e-30d[1]. If after you read my response you feel I have missed something pertinent to your original question, I will try again at a follow-up question or you may simply characterize me as not having "the mental capacity to philosophically differentiate the two".

In your discussion of related definitions of atheism I actually see two questions:
1) Am I the sort of atheist who believes that there is no such thing as divinity or am I the sort of atheist who believes that divinity and nature are the same thing, i.e. pantheism[2] or Spinoza-ism[3].
2) Do I believe the universe has no cause, an uncaused natural cause, an unending sequence of natural causes, or a divine cause?

If I have represented your concerns correctly, than I answer both questions with the philosophy of Pragmatism[4] (I would endorse the work of David Hume as an authority to describe the relation between ancient Greek thought and the modern pragmatic thought characteristic of the New Atheist movement). My detailed and lengthy response to the second question, about my thoughts of the cause of the universe, are also given in a previous AllExperts post of mine[5].

When I say that Pragmatism answers the first question, what I mean is that it is not clear it would matter. When I say that I believe everything that exists is physical/material, I define the physical/material as that which can be detected or inferred from that which can be detected: direct sensory experience and scientific explanations. If the divine is nonphysical and non-material, than it could not be detected and therefore it cannot possibly make a difference whether it is there or not. Under this definition of the physical/material and the divine, the universe in which there is no divinity is indistinguishable from the universe in which everything is divine. Attempting to answer such a question that does no one any good is silly, not profound, and claiming to be able to know the answer without detecting it in some fashion is foolish and clearly wrong.

When people talk about the divine, however, they often have other qualities in mind than an entity which does not matter and I would have you believe I reject those things. The Philebus passage seems to spend a lot of time discussion the mind, emotions, and the soul (and by extension, consciousness). I gave a detailed and lengthy AllExperts response on the scientific outlook on the difference between the living and non-living and how it relates to consciousness[6]. Things like minds and emotions are patterns in physical objects - the prominent feature is not any one object but how they relate together by a host of physical mechanisms. Other people discussing divinity refer to morality, significance, or purpose and I get into that at the end of the other AllExperts post I previously referenced[5].

What really unites the modern atheists, in contrast to more superstitious individuals, is a reliance on empirical and scientific processes to explain what we know, the use of such processes to understanding what is on the edge of our knowledge, and a sense of reserve, agnosticism, and skepticism with respect to that which we don't know or will never know. I hope that answers your question.

Links:
[1]http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0174%3Atex...
[2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantheism
[3]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinoza#Philosophy
[4]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pragmatism
[5]http://en.allexperts.com/q/Atheism-2724/2009/9/x-17.htm
[6]http://en.allexperts.com/q/Atheism-2724/2009/10/living-things-non-living-1.htm