Do you admit that no decently intelligent human being can be without a picture/idea/concept/philosophy of existence?
I suspect that even less intelligent human beings have a philosophy of existence, even if they remain mostly unaware of it, but essentially, yes.
Do you admit that, unlike purple galaxies, any entity defineable as God is certainly a part of such a picture? (Purple galaxies may or may not exist without great alteration to the picture of existence as such; the existence and qualities of God, on the other hand, are surely inevitably and immediately relevant to it.)
With qualification; inasmuch as any reasonably complete philosophy of existence has to include a physics as well as a metaphysics, the existence of something so very contradictory to physics as we know it should be part of such a picture, but that's quibbling, really, especially over a throwaway example. Your underlying point here I certainly admit.
Do you admit that the motivating principle behind all honest religious practice is the idea the religion has of existence?
I agree.
Do you admit that, therefore, the motivating core, the thing without which religion could not exist, is not the ritual, the practice, but the philosophy of existence?
I agree.
Do you admit that monistic materialism (to give it its philosophical name) is a perfectly valid philosophy of existence, that can be taken as credible, defended in argument, and even used as a base for action?
It is. I would, however, stipulate that not all atheism is monistic materialism.
Finally, do you understand what I mean when I say that the job of defamation carried out by early Christians against competing religions when they called them "village practices" ("paganism") is the same in kind as that carried out by atheists when they claim to oppose "atheism" to "religon"?
I believe so, yes. However, I think this conflates two different positions both of which could be described as opposition. A firm adherent to monistic materialism is, in effect, taking up a position equal and opposite to that of theism in asserting that the evidence demonstrates that his philosophy of existence, which includes no God, is correct. I would admit that that can be considered a 'religious' position, although really I think what's called for is a word that describes faith-based/unprovable positions so asserted that includes both it and theistic religions to properly describe both; given the origin and use of the word "religion", I don't think it fits the purpose very well. But in this case, I would agree that this is defamation in that sense and kind.
The other position, which is mine and I believe that of many other atheists, is that while I believe my philosophy of existence is as close to correct as I can make it, given the evidence available on which to base it, the evidence available to me is finite and non-conclusive in many areas, and thus the resulting philosophy is necessarily also incomplete and non-conclusive. This isn't the same as the agnostic position, because I have no reason to judge the question unknowable, but the current evidence also is insufficient to judge the question either way. I consider this an atheist position, because the rules of logic require me not to assume existence without evidence, but it's also, I would say, opposed to both religion, in its common sense, and to the type of atheism described above; both of them are making assertions about the concept of God that are unprovable by the evidence. I would describe that, effectively, as a middle position between the two beliefs.
Re: A few questions
I suspect that even less intelligent human beings have a philosophy of existence, even if they remain mostly unaware of it, but essentially, yes.
Do you admit that, unlike purple galaxies, any entity defineable as God is certainly a part of such a picture? (Purple galaxies may or may not exist without great alteration to the picture of existence as such; the existence and qualities of God, on the other hand, are surely inevitably and immediately relevant to it.)
With qualification; inasmuch as any reasonably complete philosophy of existence has to include a physics as well as a metaphysics, the existence of something so very contradictory to physics as we know it should be part of such a picture, but that's quibbling, really, especially over a throwaway example. Your underlying point here I certainly admit.
Do you admit that the motivating principle behind all honest religious practice is the idea the religion has of existence?
I agree.
Do you admit that, therefore, the motivating core, the thing without which religion could not exist, is not the ritual, the practice, but the philosophy of existence?
I agree.
Do you admit that monistic materialism (to give it its philosophical name) is a perfectly valid philosophy of existence, that can be taken as credible, defended in argument, and even used as a base for action?
It is. I would, however, stipulate that not all atheism is monistic materialism.
Finally, do you understand what I mean when I say that the job of defamation carried out by early Christians against competing religions when they called them "village practices" ("paganism") is the same in kind as that carried out by atheists when they claim to oppose "atheism" to "religon"?
I believe so, yes. However, I think this conflates two different positions both of which could be described as opposition. A firm adherent to monistic materialism is, in effect, taking up a position equal and opposite to that of theism in asserting that the evidence demonstrates that his philosophy of existence, which includes no God, is correct. I would admit that that can be considered a 'religious' position, although really I think what's called for is a word that describes faith-based/unprovable positions so asserted that includes both it and theistic religions to properly describe both; given the origin and use of the word "religion", I don't think it fits the purpose very well. But in this case, I would agree that this is defamation in that sense and kind.
The other position, which is mine and I believe that of many other atheists, is that while I believe my philosophy of existence is as close to correct as I can make it, given the evidence available on which to base it, the evidence available to me is finite and non-conclusive in many areas, and thus the resulting philosophy is necessarily also incomplete and non-conclusive. This isn't the same as the agnostic position, because I have no reason to judge the question unknowable, but the current evidence also is insufficient to judge the question either way. I consider this an atheist position, because the rules of logic require me not to assume existence without evidence, but it's also, I would say, opposed to both religion, in its common sense, and to the type of atheism described above; both of them are making assertions about the concept of God that are unprovable by the evidence. I would describe that, effectively, as a middle position between the two beliefs.