Actually, it's sloppy of you not to. Time for a little reading on the latest scholarship. The meme that Gotama is a crypto-atheist is just that: a meme, and a very ignorant one. The latest scholarship indicates that the collection of remarks in the Digha-Nikaya probably contain the earliest "snapshots" we have of Gotama's thinking. In those remarks, we have Gotama explicitly making fun of the notion that Brahma might know anything of the beginning of the cosmos while explicitly subscribing to the notion that there is such a thing as closeness to Brahma, which is attained by abstaining from violence, ill-will, etc.
The reason why the West has glibly subscribed to the meme that Gotama is an atheist boils down to two things: his reluctance to speak of things that seem supernatural and his exclusion of creation as a property of Brahma. Neither of those things are atheist in outlook, but they are very anti-Christian. Hence, the ignorant meme.
In fact, there were explicit atheists in Gotama's own day, of whom Gotama was well aware. He took pains to distinguish himself from them: they are the Lokayata or Carvaka followers, and Ajita Kesa-something-or-other was one of the more prominent, explicitly cited by Gotama in one of the Digha-Nikaya sermons.
Hmm. In other words, the teacher of "
dukkha, the origin of
dukkha, the cessation of
dukkha, and practice leadng to the cessation of
dukkha"(MN63) was an "iconoclastic theist"? The founder of a system in which 'gods' are
irrelevant was an "iconoclastic theist"? The one who taught that all 'god'-ideas are based in fear, and thus create suffering, was an "iconoclastic theist"?
You seem to feel free to use "iconoclastic theist" as a personal shorthand for "thinker you are confident you can shoehorn into your assumed conclusions".
In any case, you're still avoiding the elephant in the living room: Why is it always the ones who introduce something new and other-centered or altruistic in meta-socio ethics who also habitually introduce some new concept of deity calculated to grate on the powers that be?
Darwin was an "iconoclastic theist"?
Freud was an "iconoclastic theist"?
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was an "iconoclastic theist"?
Jeremy Bentham was an "iconoclastic theist"?
Daniel Dennett is an "iconoclastic theist"?
You are indulging in the self-gratification of special pleading. By the time you consider the raft of social reformers (the above list is not even the tip of the iceberg; at best, the sparkle on the dew on the tip of the iceberg) who were athesits (even anti-theists), your claim biols away to: "It has always been thhe 'iconcoclastic theists' who were the 'iconoclastic theists' that invented new concepts new concetps in meta-socio-ethics".
Not to mention how often it is theists themselves, "iconoclastic" and otherwise, who
oppose rationalization of morals and ethics.
Why are you not addressing that? If that phenomenon is explainable without any deity, fine. If that phenomenon is explainable with a deity, fine. But ignoring the phenomenon totally is the act of a faith-head. Address it, or get off the pot.
I have addressed it. You keep pretending that your belief trumps reality. You pretend that advances in morals and ethics "always" come form "iconoclastic theists" (dealt with), and that "iconoclastic thesits" are always the ones to advance "meta-socio-ethis" (*cough*
Luther*cough*). History, and reality, hold otherwise.
Of course, your version of "iconoclastic theist" seems conveniently flexible enough to call anyone you want to claim an "iconoclastic theist".
And none of your absolutist claim that it is "always the altruistic iconoclasts only who introduce some new-fangled variation on deity every time across the millennia" supports in any way the claim that "believing in" a "deity" ("superpowered invisible overlord") is a good idea. You might as well claim that any delusion that has social effects of which you approve must be accepted, even though it is a delusion.
