In a recent post the question was asked, "Are you an academic? Or do you just want to argue with random religious people?" The rwas, "Not an academic. I want to continue to learn and develop my own ability to express myself." I don't believe being an academic strictly means that you are in academia, but instead it reflects your approach to gaining understanding.

I find this to be a dichotomy. I would like to posit that it be called the Passionate/Academic Dichotomy. But that makes it seem like you can't be passionate about what you are academically involved in. Feel free to make suggestions regarding the name of this dichotomy. Moving on.

In my opinion atheism should be first about reason, logic, and conclude with by establishing your ethical understanding of EVERYTHING. Passion may or may not have a place in atheism, but it surely must follow the academic pursuit of understanding the philosophy you are claiming you are using for moral and ethical decision making and judgment.

I use the word passion because it is the only thing I can conceive of at the moment that would make one interested in an idea while not being academically in pursuit of furthering their understanding of that idea.

The thing is that passion is exactly what guides theists. At no point, no matter how studied they become, will they be guided by logic first and passion second. It simply is not possible for a theist to be logical first and passionate second. It is possible with science because we understand that science is based on empiricism, it is normative, and it is value neutral.

Basically theism and atheism closely fall into the Art v. Science dichotomy, where science is guided by, as I said previously, empiricism, normative assumptions, and it is value neutral, while art is subjective, time-driven, and contextual. In the same sense agnostics may be considered an amalgamation of the two, relieving the participant of feeling as if they have fallen into one-dimensional thinking.

So, my point is that atheism should be looked at from a philosophical point of view, as it were to be a school of thought, a study of the understanding of what we know and free of being constrained by values and passion. Values should arise from ethics that arise from logical and academic pursuits of atheist understandings.

We only call it atheism because there is theism. Without theism we would just call it science and philosophy. And we come to this understanding because we are academically in pursuit of this understanding.

Please comment with any criticisms or ideas that you may have.