The problem with atheists is not that they don’t believe in God, but that they don’t believe in belief. This is not a challenge to the religious order, but to the economic order. A strict rationalism immunizes atheists not only to the wild beliefs of religion but also to the wild beliefs preached by the marketing firm and by the WEF delegate. It is this latter immunity as much as the former that defines the heresy of atheism. Atheists don’t believe in the power of God, but more importantly, they don’t believe in the power of Axe antiperspirant to get them better sex or the power of the WTO to answer the Earth-killing consumption of unregulated markets. It is this latter immunity which makes them such a threat. The former — their immunity to belief in God — is merely the pretext for their stoning.
