Omar Lughod wrote:

> I notice Paul, that you answer questions with
> sarcastic questions, or with unjustified assertions.
> I await such justifications ever so patiently.

Your questions were sarcastic, Omar. Or did
you not notice?

> You have yet to answer:
> 1) why an atheist cannot get religion right?
> 2) what this other side is to which you, undoubtedly,
> have access, and the atheist inevitably lacks.
>
> Omar

I answered these questions well and often, Omar,
but I'll do so again.

1. An atheist cannot get religion right because
of the *assumptions* that he brings to the debate.

1.1. The principle assumption is that *there is no
God* (and the corrollaries: if there was a God, it
would be impossible to prove; if there was a God,
it would be impossible to experience)

1.2. These are assumptions. They are not proven,
but the Atheist -- to be an Atheist -- cannot do
without them.

1.3. Another assumption of the Atheist is materialism,
and this reduces God to a psychological 'illusion.'

1.4. Like any materialist, or empiricist, the Atheist
wishes to regard Religion only *objectively*. It is
*other* people's Religion he will talk about (usually
in derogatory terms, pace Nietzsche, Marx).

1.5. The idea of a *subjective* experience of God
the Atheist presumes -- unquestionably -- is merely
an illusion (refraction of Capital, refraction of the
infant's Father, etc.)

2. The other-side of the two-sided question that
Hegel and Hegelians have access to that Atheists
do not is simply this -- God.

2.1. The Atheist (especially the materialist) tends to
regard God in dualist terms -- Either it is Idealist, Or it
is Materialist, and No Middle Term. This is one-sided
thinking (also it is a Marxist-Leninist dogma).

2.2. While non-dialectical theologians have been known
to be one-sided, the Hegelian approach to God is not
idealist, and surely not materialist. It is the MIDDLE
TERM, so to speak; the Middle Path; the Golden Mean.

There is nothing very new in any of this, Omar. It is just
that the Atheist mind is solidly closed to these age-old
truths.

Regards,
--Paul Trejo