There Are No Atheists

Everyone is religious, and most thought is rooted in religion as well.

I know, this claim seems pretty out there, but hear me out.

What if religions isn't just ideology, dogma, doctrine, theology, philosophy, or ritual (although they are all integral to religion)? We're used to labeling and categorizing everything, so its hard to think outside the pale. I believe religion to be entwined in the concept of boundaries (and the resulting sanctification and sacralization), both physical and invisible.

Any type of family is a boundary made by blood, and everyone inside this boundary was different from what was outside. Family, band, tribe, kinship group, clan --  each of these were enclosures. Anything that is set apart and enclosed by a boundary is sanctified. What is sanctified is made sacred, at least until the boundary and the people inside are desecrated or defiled. What is a home? Even if its a cave, or a tent, or a building, it has walls, and thereby sanctifies and sacralizes the inhabitants.

This hasn't changed -- family and home are sacred, those who are members are sanctified. This is religious in nature.

All human relationships deal with authority, and at the heart of all authority is force. The domestication of fire brought religion to all -- fire was a power that scared the crap out of ancient mankind for a very good reason: fire could destroy an entire city, village, or house. Fire could destroy forests, plains, crops and animal. However, fire could also, if placed within the boundary of a hearth, be subverted for the good of a family: it could boil water, cook food, give warmth, and provide light. But if the fire jumped the hearth... the house and very likely everyone in it would die.

Same goes for lightning... and there was no way to control lightning. However, what worked with hearth and home... Where a lightning strike occured, people built a building around the spot, a temple. They made it ornate, and to further the planned domestication of this power, this authority, they made a statue and gave it a name. You can't avoid or subvert a force, but you can people. Naming something is an old trick of control. People fear the unknown, but once you have identified and named it, then you can engage that fear.

People, even before they could explain electricity, understood intuitively the idea of "charge." How do you attract or repel wanted and unwanted power or authority? They "charged" these images with silver and gold, and special rituals and taboos in an attempt to direct the "physics" of visible and invisible authority. The ultimate "charge" was in blood -- life itself was a powerful force, and blood is its life. Ancient religion brought all this into play in an effort to either dodge uncontrolled power and authority, or to subvert them to their own ends. They attempted to channel the basic powers of nature and the universe by the boundaries they created.

We do the same thing today -- we just call it science. We are trying to either avoid or to subvert the powers-that-be -- the basic energy of nature and the Universe, alternately trying to avoid what they can do to us and harness what they can accomplish for us. The "scientific community" is a boundary, just like any other tribe or kinship group -- they have been set apart, sanctified, by temperament and training. They are sacred -- they know the rituals and the mysteries in what goes into grappling with the powers-that-be. Finally, their labs and universities are ornate and different from any home or business, they are the engines that run our culture's technology. They are the this culture's "gatekeepers," which is just another way of saying priests. Hell, they even wear vestments to mark their special place in a set apart community, although they think they're called "lab coats." They have their own sacred Scripture and dogma in The Origins of the Species, their own theology in Rationalism, and their own ideology in Darwinism.

There is little difference between science and religion -- they are both attempts to do the exact same thing and are both grounded in sanctification and the sacred. There is so much tension because they are both in competition with the other -- each believes they have the authoritative narrative that explains existence best, and is true. This is why I smile when i hear the word atheist -- because there ain't no such animal. Family, home, and science has ensured that, anyway.