A number of the atheists at booktalk.org have advanced the no-balls weak atheist theory that atheism consists solely in lack of belief.
With respect, that theory of weak atheism is rubbish. Real atheism is a religious faith. If you believe that the universe exists and is governed by laws of physics that can be discovered by evidence and logic, you hold to the faith of atheism. If you doubt that the universe exists you are just wrong.
The nature of atheism is part of the cultural evolution of the memes of reason and faith, and is among the most fascinating questions in the history of ideas. The emergence of the timid weak cuck-atheism of pure non-belief actually has a superb philosophical pedigree within the meme of reason, but this good pedigree is now tired and incoherent and in need of sharp analysis, rejuvenation and revision.
The primary progenitor of weak atheism is the great philosopher of science Karl Popper, in his great book
The Open Society and Its Enemies. For Popperian thinking dating from the era of the mid twentieth century, weak atheism is the essence of political liberalism and skepticism, and the great bulwark against the emergence of new totalitarians like Hitler and Stalin.
Popper argued against all faith, saying the scientific method of falsification provided a completely sufficient theory of knowledge, in which all belief can eventually become redundant, superseded by knowledge. Unfortunately this positivist idea implies that there is no meaning outside science, and is a pure myth.
Popper argues that liberal democracy is the only form of government allowing institutional improvements without violence and bloodshed, and that faith is profoundly illiberal because it asserts access to absolute truth in an unscientific way. This argument poses the challenge of developing a liberal tolerant faith that still has the hard edge of absolute belief, without the cultural relativist fallacy that contradictory beliefs can be equally true.
We see such a framework of absolute liberal tolerance in the gospels, in the Beatitudes and Last Judgement, where the amazing evolutionary principle is expressed that the meek shall inherit the earth. This seemingly absurd idea involves respect and even veneration for all who are shunted to the margins of the world of power and wealth. It calls for an absolute transformation of human values as a basis for cultural evolution, through a pure faith that has essential principles to prevent totalitarian collapse.
Popper’s reaction against totalitarian politics led him to the opposite extreme of a liberal support for cultural relativism, with his critique of theories of teleological historicism, according to which history unfolds inexorably according to universal laws. Such rejection of the orderly explanation of history involves an extreme skepticism, which today has devolved into weak atheism.
Actually, Popper’s imagined separation of history from universal law is profoundly unscientific, since the planetary history of earth is a part of the physical evolution of the cosmos, an evolution which can be studied to see the teleology of history, the ultimate purpose and meaning of human life, rebinding heaven and earth within a purely materialist scientific strong atheist framework of faith.
