 Scheler’s claim that the human being is a God seeker allows for the beliefs of atheists and agnostics, but it leads him to a much stronger claim: “Every finite spirit believes either in a God or in an idol” (GW V, 261). An idol is a finite object that is treated as if it were infinite, as if it were God (GW V, 263). The atheist is not really, according to Scheler, a non-believer. Rather, the atheist believes in a no-God, that there is no absolute value or meaning. This is still a religious act and a religious belief. Scheler’s point is that there is always an intending of the absolute, a seeking of a God. What is in question is necessarily the object intended as absolute. In the act of idolatry, this God is a finite object or a good such as wealth, fame or power. The risk of idolatry is ever present, a risk entailed in the radical openness of the human being to absolute value. Whether God exists or not is irrelevant here. What the investigation of the religious act and religious experience demonstrates is that being human is an opening; a human being is open to the absolute and the divine.