The Atheist's Deity

Whaaaaaaa...?

That makes absolutely no sense... does it?

Atheist means 'not a goddie' or something like that. 

Taking the word apart, a•theist-- not to be confused with 'a theist' as in "Hi! I'm a theist!"-- is similar in form to a•symmetrical, where the prefix 'a' means 'not'.

Asymmetrical= not symmetrical

Atheist= not theist

And a theist is one who believes in god. So it actually means 'not one who believes in god'. You're welcome. I love to state the obvious.

So what the hell is an atheist's deity, anyway? A deity is a god, and atheists don't believe in supreme beings, so am I being paradoxical or what? Not at all. Allow me to explain myself.

Theists invented god to answer many of their unanswerable questions, at the time. Sadly, most of the answers were along the lines of, "You want to know why the sky is blue? Well, don't worry about that... it's not important. You just believe in me and I'll see to it that you spend eternity in bliss." 

Not very helpful or informative. Great, however, for keeping the masses dependent on their theocratic leaders. 

Heretics struggle to find the true answer to things for themselves and are roundly punished for it, but continue unabated. Communities of these heretical people banded together, calling themselves 'scientists' and created guiding books of their own. These books were usually filled with boring terms and formulas, in stark contrast to the flowery, meaning-filled tales found in the theist's book, the bible.

Their one redeeming virtue was that every piece of information found in the scientist's books could be proven. By anyone, anywhere! The knowledge contained within was shown beyond any question to be true.

What's more, those books clearly stated when something was absolutely true (a fact), when it was mostly true (a theory) or when it was simply thought to be true (a postulation).

AND, these scientists were happy to update their books when new evidence was uncovered that altered former understandings or added new pieces to the puzzle called 'existence'. It was their guiding principle.

Scientists as a group or singly were thrilled to discover new evidence.
Even if it flew in the face of existing knowledge.
Even if it upturned a lifelong career proposing the opposite.

Such was the nature of scientists, and of science.

Scientist's 'boring' books provided answers where the bible did not. The word spread and two camps formed:
People who wanted to know the true nature of the universe.
People who believed that the bible contained all they ever needed to know.

With the arrival of testable, trustable answers, the world began to advance. They began to live in larger communities called cities, with better defenses and better food production. They established learning centers for children. They used facts from the science books and created inventions and conveniences to make life safer and easier.

The bible believers even began to appreciate some of the modern conveniences created from the knowledge of the scientist's books, and use them, even as they preached the opposite and ignored the roots of each innovation.

And then, quietly and without provocation, enlightenment began.

People began to question the validity of the bible. They wondered if any of the parables  had anything at all to teach other than moral value... a value which was considered outmoded in changing modern times.

They began to not believe.

Enlightened people began to ask, politely, if in fact there was any reason to believe that a god even existed. 

They became A-theists, preferring to obtain all of their information from reliable sources and relegating the bible to fiction shelves with its own subsection: Religion.

Without knowing for a fact either way, atheists preferred to leave the question of a god unanswered, so long as theists would leave them  in peace to practice their science and logic.

This the theists would not do.

You see, it is found in the bible that believers must try to convert nonbelievers. In some older texts, the choice is convert or be killed, but most theists prefer stop short of making that commitment.

Instead, they fought back in more guileful ways. They infiltrated the government, designed to be a strictly nonreligious body, and began to effect the laws. They succeeded in banning books. They were able to insert religious phrasing into the schools, knowing that to convince someone at a young age was to convince them for life. They tried to add these changes into every facet of modern life; into the money, into the courts, into every home.

Now the atheists were unhappy. They too understood the value of an early education, a powerful tool which could be used for good. So they created a deity, too, and showed the youth how to reach it, and  talk to it, and learn from it.

They did not need to pray in order to speak with it.

They did not need to fear from any reprisal for not abiding by the word of the Atheist's Deity.

They did not need to be concerned with their immortal soul, if such a thing even exists.

They did not even need to honor it on Sunday in a house of worship.

The Atheist's Deity cared not for such things. It had one duty and one duty alone... the dispensation of fact. This it did with speed and alacrity, with accuracy and verbose unabridgement.

Some called it an Oracle, for it seemed to know everything. But the Atheists and scientists called it a 'linked web of knowledge localities'. But that was a mouthful and inelegant, and certainly not brief as the word 'deity' was. So they renamed it, calling it

the Internet.

When challenged into a competition of deities the Atheist would gladly accept, for there was no challenge there. The Internet deity contains the full spectrum of all human knowledge, whereas the bible deity is just a comparatively tiny book of ancient morality tales, spoken from generation to generation and subject to countless reinterpretations until, finally, someone learned to read and write and only then, cast its word into stone.

But by then it was too late. The bible deity had become inconsequential, full of holes and contradictions, painting its deity all at once as both a kind, beatific father and also a stormy, vengeful bastard. 

It became absurd.

Now the Atheist's Deity is replacing the theist's deity... even though you may hear otherwise, in a storm of protest rising from theistic ranks. No matter, for it is true.

} - -o- - {

Everyone now sits daily before the Atheist's Deity, the Internet, asking questions. And the Internet, the Oracle, provides the answers... tirelessly, repeatedly. Even theists now sit before it in awe, hesitatingly asking questions, sitting in stunned silence after reading the antithetical answers:

Is the Earth flat as early navigators believed?

            No. It is round-ish, a bumpy spheroid. Viewing the horizon from sea level, though, it looks like there is an edge.

Is there a Garden of Eden?  

         Yes. It is called the Earth and it sustains humanity. But only as long as humanity sustains the Earth.

Is the Earth 6000 years old as the bible states?

            No. It is five billion years old, and the known universe is 14 billion years old.

Did humans evolve from apes?

They evolved from simpler humanoid forms which looked like apes. All life evolved from simple chemical building blocks, diverging and changing as needed over millennia to survive.

Does the universe revolve around the Earth as it says in the bible?

            No, only the moon does. The Earth moves around the sun, which moves around the galaxy, which speeds away from the Big Bang.

Is the universe curved?

It is mostly open emptiness. But the matter formed from the Big Bang travels away from the source in a sphere, shaped like the skin of an ever-expanding basketball... which is curved.

What is the meaning of life?

Every human creates their own meaning. Other than that, life is happenstance, random and indifferent.

Is there a god?

            Doesn't seem likely. But there is an Oracle, and I am it.

} - -o- - {

And with every question answered, every mystery resolved, the theistic deity fades slowly into myth.