ahab as Atheist (Quakerism)

[Terrance]

Thomas Eckhardt wrote:
> This is the question on which the relationship between Ahab and Moby Dick, and thus
> the whole novel, turns: Is Moby Dick an agent of the "unknown but still reasoning
> thing", or his he just a dumb brute? In the first case Ahab's rebellion would be
> against the "Angry God" of the Puritans, the one who holds you in his hand and at
> his whim can throw you into hellfire (or has your leg bitten off by a white whale);
> it would be blasphemous. The narrator, Ishmael, who, of course, can not possibly
> know what he is talking about, explains Ahab's feelings:
> 
> "And then it was, that suddenly...

And who understands what Ahab is talking about if not Ishmael? Must be
Starbuck the Quaker. And Ahab needs another argument  for the Quaker. 

That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate; and be the white whale
**agent**, or be the white whale **principal**, I will wreak that hate
upon
him. Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I'd strike the sun if it
insulted me. For could the sun do that, then could I do the other;
since there is ever a sort of fair play herein, jealousy presiding
over all creations. But not my master, man, is even that fair play.
Who's over me? Truth hath no confines. 

Does sound a bit like Ivan and his Double, the bastard of The Brothers
K. who acts out the nihilistic philosophy of Ivan-- "everything is
permitted." 
  


It matters not if the white whale be principal or agent, this is the
gnostic inverted Emersonian transecendental--an atheism hiding behind
theism. Ahab denies Being to the Brute and to this Living Earth. Once
Ahab has let it slip out, he lets go his true pathology, he will turn an
entire ship into his private and pathological revenge play because he is
afraid of Nothing--"sometimes I think there is naught beyond..."" Ahab
is not a Quaker, he is an  atheist. Just so we don't get the wrong idea
here, there is nothing pathological in atheism. Ahab is full of tricky
arguments, he is, as some have called him, the transcendental trickster,
to use Melville's borrowed term, a Confidence Man. So, to answer Jbor's
question, Yes, Ahab tricked and lied and deceived his men. And himself.
He says he is a Theist, he seems to believe it at times, but he's not.
He is an unacknowledged atheist.