Back to index

11:16

(In »Syntheism as a radicalisation of atheism – and its dialectical dissolution«)

This question brings us to the dramatic difference between classical atheism and syntheism. We repeat time after time in our work the dialectical necessity – personally as well as socially and historically – of removing oneself from traditional religion via the atheist baptism of fire in order to only then be able to arrive at the syntheist position. Syntheism is thus not a reaction against atheism, but instead its logical conclusion, its historical and intellectual deepening (the philosophical concept of atheism.html">radical atheism as it is used by the philosopher Martin Hägglund among others is synonymous with syntheism). Syntheism is eternally grateful to atheism for a cultural act of cleansing that was as grandiose as it was necessary. But classical atheism has an obvious weakness, and it is not particularly surprising that it is from this very vulnerability that the syntheist impulse arises. Atheism is of course reactive in nature and a pure negation; it has no content in itself, and at the full extent of its creativity it can only represent one of the four basic concepts within syntheology, namely Atheos. But that is all there is.