not all atheists are theists, but all of the foregoing
is consistent with some self styled "atheists" being theists depending on how they act. and this should be obvious unless you think the reverse is true: that calling yourself an (a)theist makes you one. this simply begs the question on the essence of religious belief, that it is nothing more than a label. you could maintain that belief, but it would essentially remove all meaning from that domain, and belief in God or morality would just be totally removed from the atheist/theist distinction, which is in fact what happens to people who think it is something they say and not something they act out. this is how atheism can be more principled than theism in the mouth of a particular individual, and what it means for
Jesus to say a relationship is more than a declaration. in the end, atheism/theism is a trivial verbal distinction that tells one almost nothing about the person, which is why its so ironic people fight over it. one gets the feeling the more they suspect its trivial the more they fight over it in order to artificially generate a sense of importance and distract themselves from their lurking real ethical duties. it has become something of a political affiliation and in that sense God never really comes into it, thus its an entirely different set of categories across a different strata running over and under every possible political affiliation. which is to say belief in God is a
deeper relationship that underpins all sorts of surface manifestations, manifestations that will be looked past, as Jesus says, in making a final judgement.
some theists line up their deeper relationship with their declaration and so do
some atheists, but not all, this is why the assumption that everyone's line up is misleading, as if people always
know the status of their relationships. the truth is they don't.. this is obvious enough if you just watch certain infantile men live out their life while declaring God doesn't exist, when the truth is plain as the palm of your hand--that certain moral rules and premises have become so ingrained they can't even see them at work in themselves, and yet they rely on the community's indulgence on this point at every turn. this is the essence of corniness, its precisely what identifies them as infantile
to say the realm of "the should" does not exist, just masks a defiant belief in the fact that it does. stuff that does not exist does not trouble anyone... it has no existence. thus even a negation of what you might say is a misbegotten tradition is a continuation of that phenomenon and is real. moral talk has just been stood on its head, but it hasnt gone away.. what people do is psychologically repress this aspect of themselves, but viewed from the side it is obviously there. you can't actually get rid of that side of humanity.. to do away with ethics in such a way is absurd if you really think about it, on one hand it governs all of humanity and always has, and on the other you say it doesn't exist. what you have done is simply model the world in a way that excludes it, but such a model never touches reality in all its dimensions, it is simply a map that cut out certain strata and features, i.e.: superficial. some maps cut out different things, lest the map be no good as a tool and one should simply refer to reality itself, but this is impractical, so people choose to focus on one thing or another, this is the essence of the psychological condition. a perspective is carved out from a multiplicity of perspectives and one can leave out whatever one wishes, declare it not to exist, but this is repression not reality
people cutting out morality as a practical matter is a concession to the standpoint of a society that has structured itself in such a way that incentivizes such a move. thus it is no surprise some would say morality no longer exists in a society that views morality as an impediment to certain goals, in essence inculcating the individual with a cultural standpoint. this is a product of society itself having itself become one sided to a certain degree, and people mistaking their social environment as absolute when it is in fact relative, and will change over time. in fact one could say its ultimate success or failure depends entirely on its ability to recognize its own one sidedness in precisely this regard. thus this dynamic pervades the entire structure top to bottom. what is required is strong individuals to change things--to prevent a disaster resulting from this one sidedness. what will the future bring?