Atheism, Religion and Metaphysics
But none of these things — the inevitability of communism, the providence of the invisible hand, or the sanctity of social justice activism — are gods. However, each represent a search for meaning, for a universal principle that explains why the world is the way it is combined with the moral imperative to create an ideal society. . . . (It) is a question of belief in the supernatural.
Supernatural is an interesting term, given new meaning by Dawkins’ inspiried materialist atheism. First, Atheism — Theism is difficult to discuss because there is seldom a rational shared definition of God. Absent that shared understanding there is mostly people talking past each other. But even more important is what I see as a Dawkinsist tendency, shared with the logical positivist, to eschew metaphysics; that is, they tend to accept a naive view of the world instead of a metaphysical rich view of reality. With a meaningful and metaphysically grounded reality, I suspect that many atheists and believers would find much common ground. In contradistinction to materialism, supernatural could be defined to include a great deal of metaphysics, not just the occultism with which it is commonly understood.
Find a scientific man who proposes to get along without any metaphysics — not by any means every man who holds the ordinary reasonings of metaphysicians in scorn — and you have found one whose doctrines are thoroughly vitiated by the crude and uncriticized metaphysics with which they are packed.(p.4) John Sowa (2006) quoting Peirce;
