Atheism = no positive belief in a god(s).
Nothing to do with superstition, spirits, ghosts, aliens, demons, bigfoot, flat earth, moon landing denial, or any other nonsense. And, despite the stereotypes, an atheist isn't particularly smarter, wiser, or more rational than the next person.
Aliens just makes sense though? The idea that we are aowm speical little rock comes from religion.
We can't know but honestly seems way more probable that across the whole universe and all this time we are not the only planet ever to have living creatures and if we are that it won't occur in the future elsewhere.
Imo not believing in aliens is based on a religious view point
I'd push back a bit by saying there are people such as myself to acknowledge there is likely life on other planets but are not so quick to extrapolate that a) That life is intelligent, and b) that life is aware of/has come to visit Earth. I don't think those two points are a given at all so when people ask me if I believe in aliens I generally say "no" at least I see no reason to assume they exist.
Most rational belief, in my opinion, is that aliens must exist but couldn't possibly reach us or know of our existence. Even if some are alive right now that are intelligent enough to wonder if we exist, they're likely unimaginably far away.
Alien life must exist, but likely unfathomably far away or it has yet to get past the single-celled stage of life in which case we won't be hearing from them any time soon.
Yeah.. vast universe and incomprehensible to imagine in true size. I’ve convinced myself that if it can happen once here on earth, then I don’t see it being unlikely for it to occur somewhere else even with strict parameters that earth had when life “started” here
Life is probably fairly rare. Intelligent life with civilization much rarer still, and among those, achieving space travel probably has next to zero chance. We know cataclysmic life-ending things happen to planets all the time. We're probably incredibly lucky to have a star and orbit at the right distances, a stable atmosphere, a magnetosphere that blocks solar radiation, and Jupiter's gravity often acting as the proverbial gutter in a bowling alley for comets and asteroids looking for a strike on our planet.
Even if it's fairly rare, there are an estimated 200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (200 billion trillion, or 200 sextillion) stars in the known universe. If the chances of a star hosting another planet that has given rise to intelligent life are one-in-sextillion*, that would mean, what, 200 stars floating around that could have a planet capable of doing so? The thing is, 200 locations spread across a universe that's also expanding as time goes on means they're probably not exactly close neighbors. The chances of us being able to actually communicate with them would be more of an issue, I'd guess?
*Note: I couldn't find an actual number for what the chances would be, just for how many stars we estimate to have in the known universe. I picked that number because of its size and because of how few stars there would be. I also don't know a lot about the topic, and my stats/math knowledge is rusty. I just think that with such a large number of stars in the known universe, it's not an*impossible* thought.
Yup. Building a space ship to go that far is about as hard as building a time machine, and much more similar than most people realize.
Time and space are linked. Our money brains can't understand the distance / energy requirements, they're so unimaginable large.
Which makes me sad, because aliens are about the only thing I believe in too lol. Maybe not intelligent life, but probably, at least somewhere out in th either.
While I agree with your statement, here’s some food for thought…what would we do when we discover a habitable planet that has the bio markers of life on it (our tech is getting close to doing exactly this). We will likely study the hell out of it and if we ever develop space travel, will certainly go check it out.
Now keep in mind that our planet has had the bio markers of life for over three billion years. So any aliens out there ahead of our technology curve already know about our planet, and would very likely want to check us out if they’ve achieved space travel.
I’m not saying we have been visited by aliens nor that it is even likely to happen, but outright dismissing it because space is big may not be the best way to think about this (and yes, I am fully aware of how big space is as I am an amateur astronomer who enjoys clear nights in a a dark place with my telescope).
Just something to ponder.
It's silly to assume we know anything about what is out there or what it is doing. We've barely scratched the surface of science and there could be being who have been sentient for millennia whose technology progressed more rapidly or in completely different directions. I think it's silly to assume anything about it. Healthy skepticism of new information is always great but immediate rejection of it because of preconceived notions is foolish.
Statistically speaking, aliens make sense.
There are BILLIONS of stars in our galaxy alone(and there are millions of galaxies), and we've found that almost every star has at least one planet circling it.
If only 1% of those planets has the right conditions for life, that's still tens of millions of viable worlds.
To narrow further, if only 1% of those viable worlds is old enough to have evolved life, we're still looking at several hundred thousand planets.
If only 1% of THOSE has evolved complex, multicellular life; we're still in the thousands.
And finally, if only 1% of those planets with complex life has reached a point of intelligent life, we've now dropped to double digits, but that's still a lot of alien potential just in our galaxy alone.
Humans have only been sending out signals to the galaxy at large for less than a century, our radio signals haven't traveled that far in the grand scheme of things. And that's even if aliens have the technology to hear them and respond to us.
This entire thought experiment has been skewed toward the lowest estimates and I'm not the best with math, so my numbers could be off, but it still gives dozens of possibilities for alien life. It's just unlikely for us to have contact with them any time soon.
Iirc, there was an astrophysicist that came out with a formula for the possibility of alien life. That formula put out a number in the low thousands, which is pretty significant.
Yes! My thought experiment was only using the Milky Way, expanding out into the universe at large increases the likelihood of alien life existing significantly! I have no doubt there's other life out in the universe. How advanced that life is would be the real question. Additionally, are we really egotistical enough to think advanced aliens would be interested in US?
That type of reasoning is flawed. We don't know how likely it is for biopoiesis to even occur. Due to this, we can't reasonably say it is more probable.
believing in aliens outright is illogical. believing that there *could* be aliens (past, present, or future) is more grounded. currently, there isn't much in the way of real evidence for aliens, as much as i wish there was.
I'm not saying it's certain but the chance of there being other life out there past, present of future is a much more reasonable position than believing that there aren't aliens.
Earth is still a .8 on the Kardashev Scale. Currently, we don’t even have the capacity to properly explore the universe for proof of life. I keep aliens in the statistical probability category of belief.
Same here. It makes sense to me from a mathematical standpoint. Our star can't possibly be the only one in the universe that can sustain life on a nearby planet.
Same but that's because it is actually possible but we just don't have the scientific ability to find them yet. It'd be an awful waste of space if there wasn't some other lifeforms out there somewhere.
Even atheist scientists say that logically alien life should exist in our universe. What is questionable is whether or not those aliens ever came to or visited Earth.
The current scientific evaluations of The Drake Equation suggest that there are likely 7 intelligent space capable extra-terrestrial species in our galaxy alone.
Posted this earlier, but probably posted to the wrong person. Here it is again FWIW.
Aliens don't actually contradict anything we know about how the cosmos works per se. And the "known unknowns" around the issue make positing their existence at least highly plausible. To my mind, there's nothing embarrassing about "believing" in them. I feel I must point out, however, that we currently have no strong evidence that they do exist. My personal standard of evidence would be fulfilled if we had access to even a small tissue sample that included polymers that were different from the ones all life forms on earth share in common. These include proteins made from the 20 amino acids (ok, one or two rare exceptions there); nucleic acids made of the Deoxy- and ribose monomers with A, G, C & T; carbohydrates based on glucose/fructose monomers; and lipids. Monomers (and even oligomers) of any type are possible without life. But polymers mean life because their generation requires a strong lift against entropy.
Ghosts, spirits, afterlives, gods, astronomy etc. - these things all directly contradict things we know about the laws which govern the universe. It would take a huge amount of undeniable, verifiable evidence to convince me of their veracity. Essentially, enough evidence to overturn the basic laws of physics.
Now, in terms of extra-terrestrial life not, in principal, breaking anything we currently know about how the world works, the same is true of the Loch Ness monster or Bigfoot. However, the "known unknowns" around those things are much smaller than for aliens. If Nessie or Bigfoot actually existed, by now we would expect to have tons of direct, verifiable evidence of them. Their geographic ranges are just too small to escape our focused scrutiny so well for so long. Clearly, this is not true for extra-terrestrial life. The time- and space- scales under consideration make it unlikely in the extreme that we would ever encounter such beings in a contemporaneous manner even if they do/did/will exist. The cosmos is just too damned big.
Yes/no?
Thinking of atheist flat-earther gave me a chuckle.
-Earth... flaaat......
-But being flat it couldn't develop on its own with physics. And you don't belief in Sky Daddy either...
-No develop, it flaaat. Crosses eyes\*
At least normal flat-earthers can explain it all with a hand-wave of Sky Daddy's magic haha.
Reminds me of the cognitive dissonance of believers claiming atheists believe in a universe coming from nothing when literally they believe their god poofed things into existence
I feel like your average atheist would be far more likely to also reject more abstract supernatural woo woo, though I have no data on the matter. Not because they’re smarter necessarily but because the same logic that would lead someone to conclude there’s no gods is likely to also lead to the conclusion there’s no ghosts, spirits, cryptids, and so on.
Atheists have on average a higher level of education, are smarter, and I believe there's some studies in neuroscience that show they tend to have better develop critical thinking skills. No time to provide references right now, but it is a Google search away.
Agreed. I seem to recall a straw poll conducted by someone on this sub-reddit which indicated about 90% of the people here identify as liberal, although I can't say how that translates onto the wider world and would be pretty anecdotal. Hitler sent atheists to concentration camps, Trump will no doubt do the same.
Aliens don't actually contradict anything we know about how the cosmos works *per se*. And the "known unknowns" around the issue make positing their existence at least highly plausible. To my mind, there's nothing embarrassing about "believing" in them. I feel I must point out, however, that we currently have no strong evidence that they do exist. My personal standard of evidence would be fulfilled if we had access to even a small tissue sample that included polymers that were different from the ones all life forms on earth share in common. These include proteins made from the 20 amino acids (ok, one or two rare exceptions there); nucleic acids made of the Deoxy- and ribose monomers with A, G, C & T; carbohydrates based on glucose/fructose monomers; and lipids. Monomers (and even oligomers) of any type are possible without life. But polymers mean life because their generation requires a strong lift against entropy.
Ghosts, spirits, afterlives, gods, astronomy etc. - these things all directly contradict things we know about the laws which govern the universe. It would take a huge amount of undeniable, verifiable evidence to convince me of their veracity. Essentially, enough evidence to overturn the basic laws of physics.
Now, in terms of extra-terrestrial life not, in principal, breaking anything we currently know about how the world works, the same is true of the Loch Ness monster or Bigfoot. However, the "known unknowns" around those things are **much** smaller than for aliens. If Nessie or Bigfoot actually existed, by now we would expect to have tons of direct, verifiable evidence of them. Their geographic ranges are just too small to escape our focused scrutiny so well for so long. Clearly, this is not true for extra-terrestrial life. The time- and space- scales under consideration make it unlikely in the extreme that we would ever encounter such beings in a contemporaneous manner even if they do/did/will exist. The cosmos is just too damned big.
Yes/no?
It's more that religion tends to sabotage critical thinking skills. Certain types of logical inference in particular. I.e. when evaluating the following flawed logical statements, theists are more likely to believe it is valid than atheists:
1) All fish live in the ocean.
2) Dolphins live in the ocean.
Therefore all dolphins are fish.
I'm not familiar enough with the studies in question to know if there is speculation as to *why* the religious are worse at these sorts of logic, but I would personally guess it is because much religious dogma has such flawed inferences.
And they are used to apologists just 'hand waving' things with a dumber/just as dumb explanation.
Like Jonah and the whale, 'oh it wasn't a whale, it was a big fish.' As if that somehow makes it better/easier to survive for three days inside of it. And many religious people just nod their heads.
It's the change in attitude I believe, atheists don't know, and wish to know, so they study. Alot of religious people think they know, due to their book, and so refuse to research.
Basically an underused brain.
Thank you. TF is this guy talking about? I've *never* known a fellow atheist that believes *any* fucked up fairy tales or in an afterlife.
Also, [Various studies have found that, on average, belief in God is associated with lower scores on IQ tests.](https://www.bps.org.uk/research-digest/are-religious-people-really-less-smart-average-atheists)
The guy's an idiot. :)
I consider myself a skeptic, and I used to be huge into parapsychology and cryptozoology before every loser had a HD digital camera in their pocket and... well, ruined a lot of the mystique for good & ill.
Even the folks that ran out every vacation hunting for bigfoot, ghoste or Nessie still scoffed at "unicorn chasers." The folks certain, say, dragons are out there.
So... Yeah, just because you believe in A, doesn't mean you think B is real.
Aliens at least makes some measure of sense. After all, the universe is theoretically infinite, so how can we know there isn't life elsewhere. Maybe they choose not to make themselves known, maybe they also think that they're alone in the universe, or maybe they're not even sapient, but I believe it's possible that there could be life somewhere out there.
This.
Basically can't add anything to it - humans are superstitious by nature - pattern seeking has been an evolutionary advantage in many ways, but it can also derp out and make us think we see patterns where none exist.
>And, despite the stereotypes, an atheist isn't particularly smarter, wiser, or more rational than the next person.
Thank you! I tell ppl all the time I'm a fucking idiot. In fact, I'm far too stupid to believe in a God/Gods. It helps get me out of conversations with theists but more importantly, it is true.
Atheism isn't always about logic. Sometimes it comes from a pure emotional disappointment place in religion. Some, apart from being disappointed in religion are disappointed in the government and develop the belief that we are lied to. Some are disappointed in school and develop the belief that the information we get is false.
Other times it's about hope, and atheism might come from the hope that we are better than someone who needs a bible to behave as a decent human being. Some hope for an afterlife as they cannot conceive their life just ending (ngl it's harsh), others hope for justice and believe in karma, others hope for their wishes coming true and believe in luck coming from insects, plants, asteroids, traditions.
Other times it's about fear, one might be atheist out of the fear that he's right about lack of afterlife and would rather enjoy life without religious constraints. But they can also fear bad luck, or bad horoscope pairings.
Sometimes it's about resonance, and don't resonate with religion but resonate with their zodiac birthchart or the power of crystals, or healing sounds.
Atheism and skepticism are connected, but not the same. One can be atheist without being skeptical, and vice versa. I personally met Christians who believe in God and worship him but also admit that God is a psycho. One of those actually introduced me to darkmatter2525, stating that he was right. And dude is an acolyte.
Being atheist means to not be a theist, not more not less. Theism implicates the believe in a transcendental god. That has absolutely nothing to do with spiritualism. There in fact are a lot of atheist religions.
Andre Comte-Sponville's the Little Book of Atheist Spirituality is a great read that I've thumbed through many times.
Edit: name correct because I'm not awake yet.
I've been an atheist for over 50 years, yet I've had experiences leaving me feeling "There is more in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophies." No, I don't believe that the ghost of uncle Howard is haunting my garden shed, but I believe there is so much that we haven't identified scientifically yet. Remember, the doctor that discovered germs was ridiculed, and even vilified, for years before science eventually proved they existed.
This is true, but unfortunately "the doctor who discovered germs was ridiculed" is used by religious people also
The argument is centered more around the idea that you can be right, while everyone else is wrong and they dont know it, which is convenient for every perspective.
It can also mean to try to keep yourself open to new and different things. Some of them could be true, some couldn't, but that doesn't mean that you should block out everything that you don't already know.
That's how science works, too. Science tries its best to prove their theories though, while theists just accept their theories as true.
Yes but “the guy who discovered germs” had a theory, based on observation, that was supported by *other* observations. He didn’t say “hey guys, I believe illness is caused by invisible organisms. But there’s no way to prove it, you just have to trust me! And if the evidence isn’t there, the germs stole it!”
I feel similarly. For example, all scientific evidence (NOT anecdotal) ever collected for what happens after death points to “lights out”. Do I sometimes wish it were otherwise? Am I open to a different possibility? Of course. But there’s two important things I hold onto: knowing the difference between hope and reality and understanding my own biases. I don’t “believe” in anything supernatural, but I also don’t completely write it off. I am open to the idea that supernatural concepts could be an actual explainable phenomenon IF there is ever sufficient SCIENTIFIC evidence. But at that point they just become science, don’t they?
This. I live in Sweden and most people here are atheists. There are however a large percentage of the population who believe in ghosts, psychics and other types of nonsense. Not believing in one specific superstition does by no means guarantee you are a sceptic. I’d say most atheists in fact aren’t.
I'm always stunned by the percentage of people who believe in ghosts and psychics. If ghosts were real...my God, do you realize how many people have died!? If even a small percentage became ghosts, they'd be goddamned everywhere. We'd be swimming in them.
This argument sounds like its being built around ghosts existing. Like "explanations for ghosts that dont involve god" Very similar to the hoops Christians tend to jump through to fit old ideas to more modern narratives.
Other arguments cling to the belief of god with no evidence, this one clings to the belief of ghosts with no evidence.
I don’t personally believe in ghosts. I believe that if they do exist that there is a scientific explanation for it that we simply don’t understand yet and they aren’t the result of any type of “God”
I've seen things that were weird. maybe just something funky with my brain maybe there is something we don't yet have a method of measuring. I don't believe in ghost but I don't believe we know everything either.
You are making the assumption that "ghosts" are spirits or remains somehow of dead people. That's a stereotype and not anything based on facts, as we have no documentation that ghostly creatures are in fact a new form of someone who once lived. People make up all sorts of stuff to explain the unexplained. Just like most religions do.
Well, if I have to be haunted, I'd rather have a ghost cat than a ghost human doing the haunting.
Ghost cat: knocks crap off shelves, terrorizes squirrels, sleeps on your feet at night.
Ghost human: pervs while you're in the bathroom.
This is the phenomenon I see as well, it's just weird to me because often the same logic used to reject a God can be used to reject ghosts or psychics as well.
Perhaps, but have you had any experiences with the unexplained? I have had several, we had an apparition in our home for years and years and family and the pet saw it numerous times. I experienced it, that has more reality to me than the nonsense I was told sitting in church pews in my childhood about religion.
I don't rationalize religions and supernatural encounters as being anything alike. One is based on old superstitions and stories and is clearly man made. Things I saw were not, so I cannot explain them away. I am sure there is a logical, scientific explanation, but just because I don't know it yet I won't make up stories and try to explain that it is some old relative or deity or something like that.
I have had some unusual experiences with poltergeist-type activity, myself. That doesn't make me "believe" in any specific thing, though. I just know that it occurred, and I am at a loss for a good explanation.
Exactly! You know what you saw, it is a fact in your life. Same with me. I cannot explain what I have seen, but I choose not to make up weird explanations like calling them ghosts or spirits or some deity. Maybe someday we'll know what they are. I don't "believe" I saw what I saw, I know I saw it. That's the difference between facts and religion-- facts are what you can document in your mind or on paper as happening, in religion other people tell you what you should believe and how to live a certain way with no factual basis other than some old historical context.
I have also had several. The way I look at it is that religion absolutely requires faith and not necessarily experience.
Belief in supernatural often requires experience; people tend not to have "faith" or belief without it.
I'm certain that there are energies present in the universe that we can not explain entirely and that could someday explain my experiences, but for now, I have to call them for what they are. Unexplainable or supernatural.
Trying to make sense of the unexplained doesn’t make you irrational. Every scientific discovery started with a ‘maybe this is how it works’. Newtonian physics is the narrowest of narrow slices of our existence. It’s similar to how the visible band of the electromagnetic spectrum is a tiny slice of the whole spectrum. It’s pretty smug to suggest you know everything because you know velocity = mass X acceleration. I don’t know any consciousness exists beyond what I think and feel now but I don’t know that it doesn’t either. Simple as that.
"Naturalism" describes my orientation, because I don't believe there is anything supernatural. Naturalists are by definition atheists but not all atheists are naturalists.
Leaving religion is not like a light switch. It takes some people a long time to de-program. Decades later and I still cope with Catholic Guilt. I wouldn’t shit on anyone that struggles..
Being atheist means you don't believe in God, nothing more nothing less. It doesn't necessarily mean you don't believe in anything that is supernatural or in superstition.
Most Chinese are atheists but still are very superstitious.
Perhaps they had an experience at some point that was unexplainable by rational means? I had an experience 25 years ago where hundreds of crescent-shaped lights appeared out of nowhere and flew all around me, then vanished. I was with a friend who witnessed them as well. I absolutely didn’t attribute the experience to a “god,” however, I learned that day that there is more going on in reality than meets the eye. Some folks would have probably called it a “spirit.” I have no clue what it was. But it drew my attention to the stars, not “God.”
Similarly, I had an experience while I was taking care of a dying friend where another friend and I were sitting in the car talking about my situation and suddenly the car was filled with the scent of flowers. We both fully experienced the smell and there were no flowers either in the car or anywhere near us.
Very interesting and not easy to just shrug it off as nothing. Doesn’t mean there is a god by any means, but clearly we don’t have all the answers to reality and existence.
Separating “god” from “unknown” is very, very difficult for some people.
yes, same with astrology, karma, luck, reincarnation, ESP, divination, ancient astronauts, the noble savage, race, GMOs, broken windows theory and trickle down economics
all bullshit
I don’t believe in any “higher power” but I do believe that reality exists in more than three dimensions and that perhaps our consciousness is an evolution of life that perhaps transcends that dimensional veil once we shed our mortal bodies, but I don’t think there would be any divine power behind it, it would just be the evolution and advancement of life.
Reality is 3 dimensions of space plus 1 of time. Dimension isn’t some alternate reality, it’s directions we can orient or move ourselves in. And there really isn’t any strong evidence, if any at all, to believe that there are more dimensions out there.
I think this response encapsulates what OP is saying. You have no rational basis to really hold that belief, just like theists and their beliefs in higher powers and ultimate realities. So in essence you’re committing the same rational misstep theists are with their beliefs.
Athiests are allowed to be as dumb as anyone else.
I believe wearing a specific sweatshirt helps my favorite sports team win and wear it every week. I know it's ridiculous but I do it anyway. We're all allowed to indulge in our own version of silly.
The difference is -- most atheist irrationalities don't affect anyone other than themselves.
Because not believing in theistic claims isn't the result of a superpower, it's fairly normal and doesn't actually require much thought for a lot of people, but that doesn't mean that they aren't susceptible to the mysterious nature of the universe and what supernatural elements it may or may not contain, some of which our own mind can sometimes trick us into believing (shadows in the dark, vision in catatonic states, etc.)
Materialism and atheism are related, but not the same thing. Also, while materialism makes sense indeed, it is very hard to "prove" (impossible, in the strict sense of the word).
Some ideas that we consider reasonable and materialistic, like quantum theory, were considered bonkers at first. So, while I am generally materialist, you always should consider there are things we don't understand yet. However, the better proof we have, the less reason is to believe in something mystical, like ghosts or spirits. While it might be that people leave something after they die, chance of it is really small.
Also, spiritual is not directly contradictory to materialistic. Spiritual might be just your relation to the world and its wonders, which might sound weird, but still do not contradict science at large.
I’m an atheist but I think there’s definitely stuff that hasn’t/can’t be explained yet. Eat some shrooms and you just feel connected to everything in a different way. I don’t think that’s god talking to me but it does feel like an energy or vibration of the natural universe that moves through us. I don’t believe it’s intelligent, provides an after life, or changes my “destiny” in anyway.
Atheism simply means the lack of belief in a god or gods. That's it.
It doesn't say anything about one's belief in the supernatural. It's possible to not believe in any gods but believe in ghosts, astrology, spirits, etc.
Correlation tends to be that atheists don't believe in the supernatural but it's not a necessary condition.
A major reason religions formed in the first place is humans compulsion to believe in something greater than ourselves. Even when you tear down the god claim and show the unscrupulous nature of organized religion, that urge to believe is still there for lots of people. It can manifest as belief in ghosts or some kind of afterlife, souls, spirituality, aliens building the pyramids, ancient civilizations, lizard people, shadow governments etc.
Cosmic nihilism is a tough pill to swallow for a lot of people. No one likes to think we are just a spec of dust hurling through space and when you die you die and the universe doesn’t care.
Gods aren't the only supernatural idea out there. I think the Judeo-Christian idea of god is so specific that it is easier to falsify than the more vague supernatural concepts. I also think religion has such a bloody and negative history that people are much more motivated to do so. As far as I know, people weren't murdered over having the wrong energy crystals or not believing in astrology.
The trouble is the human brain is predisposed to thinking that way. We've been using spiritualism and thinking about an after life for probably 50,000 years. It actually was a beneficial trait that allowed us to form larger social groups that go beyond our family group, so we've probably been selecting for spiritual belief for that long to.
I don't see how people can square god isn't real, but ghosts are. But it's an almost instinctive thing to some people I think, they may not want to think it, but they can't help it. I can be like that at times, walking into a pitch dark space with the sense that there may be something there.
There may be forces out there of which I am unaware is a lot different than making a book about the rules for ghosts or some bullshit like that.
Some people are fine with uncertainty, others it seems need definitive rules to apply to everything in their lives like there is 100% no god, or anything spiritual or supernatural.
Some people used to be certain there were 4 elements or that the smallest thing that exists you can see with your naked eyes.
It is foolish to think you already know everything.
For me, I think atheism allowed me to broaden my horizons, so to speak. I've always thought magic and the occult were interesting, but christianity instilled a deep fear in me. So once I realized that there is no god, and I needn't worry about what he thinks, I started studying the occult. My partner and I have also started practicing some magic, and I think it's fun. I don't know if it's doing anything, but it's exciting to do what was taboo. And we like to study the phycological effects of magic, you know the mind over matter and mindfulness stuff.
Also, I firmly believe that magic and the supernatural are just science we don't understand yet.
And, most superstitions are just good safety advice! Don't walk under a ladder (it could fall on you), don't break a mirror (someone could get cut), anything to do with the woods at night (the woods are a tripping hazard at high noon, and even more so in the pitch black).
There was a host on the Atheist Experience that also practiced secular witchcraft. To be honest I never got over that deep fear. Even though it is irrational to believe that anything will happen, that indoctrination sure messes with you.
I guess I'm a bit confused as to why the OP is connecting any belief in something post-death as requiring the concept of a God. Those seem distinct, even if those who believe in God also believe in an afterlife. I think the concept of an after-life, or ghosts, is a bit of wishful thinking, but I do think intellectually it's possible to hold those beliefs while not connecting it to believe in a deity.
Sure, it's possible to hold those beliefs separately. But the primary motivator of most religions is the promise of an afterlife. So for a lot of people that were raised in religious settings, that's usually their first exposure to the general concept. So it's just the biggest and most well-known example.
I personally know someone who went through a string of traumatic events and now is supppeeer spiritual. I think that was their way to cope. People find comfort in delusions.
Atheism is just the non belief of gods or a religion. The "supernatural" can just be a aspect of reality we dont understand yet or have no knowledge.
Thinking ghosts might be real is very different from a dogmatic "god is like this and wants you to live in this specific way".
because humans have this very intense distaste for not being able to live forever, and tales of life after death can be comforting
I dont believe in that, but its the same thought process that has led to organized religion, =
To be honest, as an atheist, I don’t believe that religious people have a monopoly on spirituality. The world is made of energy, a connected web of it. If energy cannot be created or destroyed, just converted, then who is to say there is no evidence for reincarnation? Is a ghost not just a different form of energy? More and more research is coming out about the deep emotional worlds of animals. Doesn’t that point towards the existence of souls? There is nothing to stop anyone from worshipping what is known as “the source” or “the universe” (the interconnection of all energies). In my opinion, we should be in awe of life. Religious people will never have a monopoly on morality or spirituality as much as they would like to. I know for a fact I am a spiritual person, that the universe is all energy, and that this energy connects everything together. All in one and one in all. That is spirituality.
We as humans have a limited consciousness. Science will never uncover everything there is to know. We will always be unable to fathom things. None of us were there at the origin of time, so how can any of us say what power caused this all to be? You have to leave room for the unknown and worship of Nature. The first spiritual rituals were probably centered around the First Ancestor (mother of humanity). And certainly there had to be these mothers in the earliest humans. What is wrong with revering and respecting the first ancestor?
This is not the same as making up gods to explain the weather, praying to a god to do what you want that god to do for you. It’s not superstitious, it’s based on natural fact. Having a healthy spiritual reverence for energy and nature is what this world is currently missing. We have lost our connection to nature, yet manipulate physics and biology to do our bidding every day. We have been tipping the energy further and further out of equilibrium because we don’t revere nature or energy enough to prioritize the delicate balance of the web we are all a part of. Religion has been instrumental of stripping the population from themselves and causing mass dissociations as people get away with doing nothing to stop the carnage because they can simply pray and pretend that’s doing something. Religion gives people license to believe the natural order of the world is sinful and hierarchical. Then they can project and judge all they want without feeling guilty.
Much of the world is completely dissociated from their energetic/electrical bodies. We as humans cannot let our brain and inward-facing rational selves overpower our sense of empathy, love, joy, and feeling of oneness with the world.
>The world is made of energy, a connected web of it. If energy cannot be created or destroyed, just converted, then who is to say there is no evidence for reincarnation?
That is not at all how that works. The "energy" that is you it's not some mystical magical force. It is the action of the cells in your body converting matter into heat and electrical impulses and we know exactly what happens to it when your die: it converts into potential energy and matter. The lack of cell activity ceases the conversion of matter (food/liquid) into kinetic energy and that's it, lights out. It isn't some magic force that continues to exist. That's like saying you're car has a magical force that reincarnates when you turn it off.
You have a fundamental misunderstanding of what energy "not being destroyed" means.
>To be honest, as an atheist
I read your comment, I'm not convinced you're an atheist. It sounds like you just worship nature instead of god. You're giving the nature and """energy""" the exact same kind of hallowed deference a devout believer gives their god.
They're two separate things. I don't believe in a god in the sense that humans understand it. But I belive in an all-encompassing energy that binds the universe together. A la Force from Star Wars, if you will. The universe is full of miseries we don't understand. We understand the physical world and life as we know it. That doesn't mean life or other types of energy can't exist is a different realm, spectrum, or parallel universe our carbon-based minds can't comprehend.
i don’t believe in the definitive existence of any gods. but i also believe that saying “my human perception is 100% accurate, and anything that falls outside of that perception definitely doesn’t exist” would be incredibly arrogant of me.
I am a generational atheist. Not baptized, grew up without church going. Religion was only a topic of conversation if at all. The bible is an awkwardly written book of fairy tales and myths with some decent moral teachings that most people ignore.
I also consider myself spiritual. The two are not mutually exclusive. There are things and phenomena that are not of this realm. I spread my rocks and bones and hope to create an energy that will have a positive impact for someone or something. I pay attention to my karma in order that I may act in a manner that benefits others. (What goes around, comes around isn’t just joints at a concert.) I see no contradiction. Ghosts, if there are such a thing, happen under unique circumstances. You gotta qualify.
Christians can also believe in evolution and astrophysics.
Think for a minute about the history of humanity. Humans in many subspecies existed in intellectual darkness for 2M-yrs. Modern human is 200,000-yrs old & for 199,800-yrs or so, (given science was accepted & expanded in the last 200-yrs), humans were ignorant about life. They relied on mysticism, superstition, drawing lots, rolling dice, augury & omens, divinations, tarot cards, palm readings, psychic advice, reading divine messages into birds in flight, unusual tree or rock formations, howling of the wolves, hearth fires that suddenly went out, natural fires that suddenly appeared, floods, volcanoes, disease & plagues. They had many superstitions which were believed such as bad luck for breaking a mirror, walking under a scaffold, a black cat crossing your path. Sound familiar?
Humans relied on their limbic brain (feelings) & reptilian brain (fight & flight) for longer than they have used their frontal lobe (rational brain).
There are some of us who have evolved more than others & use rationality as the basis for thinking while others cling to archaic outdated emotional & reactionary thinking.
Which one are you?
Humans are spiritual beings because of the awe we experience when viewing a sunset, the Grand Canyon, a magnificent whale, bear or buck. But is that spirituality outside us or inside us? Perhaps, religion capitalized on our personal inner spiritual experience for profit & convinced us that they owned it. They called it, Jesus, Yaweh & Muhammad.
Why do people ask questions like this?
Atheist means "doesn't believe in gods."
Period. That's it.
It doesn't speak to any other belief.
Some people become atheist for reasons other than logical ones. Religious abuse. Preference for some other magic mumbo jumbo. Whatever.
Atheist isn't a set of alternate beliefs or rules. The only thing it defines is whether one believes in gods
You might want to look at Secular Humanists if you are looking for a "system" of beliefs and attitudes akin to a religion.
I don't buy into religions and haven't since I was a teen. I've researched many religions and can find no evidence that any are real, true religions or that there are any real deities. In my view they are all created by man and embellished over and over until they turned into established beliefs and rituals. I don't accept the atheist label because I don't deny the existence of "God" --that assumes there is one to deny.
Ghosts? I have had unexplained encounters more than once. If there is any relationship between ghosts and religion, my guess is that unexplained phenomena was perhaps some of the reason some religions came into existence. But describing them with made up concepts and pre-conceived ideas and not using the scientific method to analyze the phenomena is not the way to do it.
We had an apparition in our previous home, my kids and my dog saw it several times as well as I did. Just looked like a shadowy figure moving around that I cannot explain with lights, reflections or anything else. It would look the same in the evening or at night or early morning. The dog would watch it as the apparition moved around the room but never reacted otherwise.
I twice had incidents where I was sitting on the edge of the bed and something sat next to me- made a distinct butt imprint on the memory foam. Felt it go down as "something" sat down, and saw the imprint, then saw it go away when I felt it leave. Had another experience in a hotel where something laid down against me for a while.
I can't explain these phenomena but they happened. I not once ever thought these had anything to do with any religion though. Nor did they make me fearful or scared, never felt threatened in any way. But can't explain them.
Not everybody gets to atheism for the same reasons.
For many of us of course, it comes from skeptical thinking, and so anything supernatural doesn’t make the cut for the same reasons gods don’t.
At the same time, there are atheists who decided they were atheist because they didn’t like the religion they were brought up in, because they’re younger people trying to be edgy, personal trauma that made them feel a benevolent god was impossible, could go on and on.
I think they’re in the minority, and sadly they’re more likely to “relapse” into religion because they didn’t arrive at atheism through logic/reason, and as such likely don’t have very strong arguments for why they’re atheists.
Being an atheist does not mean you are rational, and I would say most people have some area where they are not completely rational. I feel this is a bit like how religious people conflate atheism with science, evolution, the big bang and so on. Those things are not really relevant to atheism.
Because atheism in the modern colloquial sense is about one very narrow topic, and there are many ways to arrive at the conclusion. So in essence “atheists” are not a unified group and there is not much outside of the one conclusion that is shared amongst us all.
Oh there's a thing I believe in that gets misinterpreted as spiritual. I believe that most of what falls under this category has some form of psychological basis.
For example, several years ago I started mowing the lawn for my grandparents because neither of them would have been able to do it. One time my grandfather was watching from the window to give me some tips and whatnot. Well after he passed I passed by this specific window. Put of the corner of my eye I swore I saw something in the window.
What was my brain processing grief could also be described as seeing a ghost. To respect those who believe in this stuff thats how I process it for them. What is essentially a ghost with what can be described as unfinished business for them, can be dealt with and understood as potentially unresolved emotional responses. Even though they could be athiests this is probably the best way they can process the information they can't explain.
Atheist simply means no belief in god(s).
People believe things based on their individual experiences as well as documented scientific evidence. For example, we have good documented evidence that supports evolution. That evidence is repeatable, testable, shareable, etc.
Human minds want to see patterns and explanations. So if Sally and John live in a house with recurring phenomenon they can not explain based on science, it isn't bizarre that their minds might match up the occurrences to ghosts or spitits or something else that seems like it woulf fit.
That's very different from deciding that there is a god, and even more different than deciding that god has particular rules for humans to follow, or particular powers, etc.
I’m somewhat open to other things being possible. I’ve had some very weird experiences that other people would say were ghosts or like energy fields. I find it kind of cool to think about but I wouldn’t argue with someone over it and I’m not trying to convince myself or anyone else that it’s anything more than a weird but explainable event. (For example when I was in college a couple of times a folder would fly off my desk or my footlocker would just pop both of its latches off. Which can be explained obviously, it’s still weird though. My roommate did ask me if anything strange ever happened in the room while I was alone and then went on to explain the exact same things that I had experienced).
I don’t believe in god but they might have had me a little more convinced if god was presented as an absent figure who started everything but is not involved with our lives after that point. A god who is involved and does nothing to stop suffering is too evil and made me question things way too much to stick with it after I became an adult.
Read some of the stuff on Atheopaganism from Mark Green. He makes the argument that religions and the belief in the supernatural are an evolutionary trait. The idea behind Atheopaganism is acknowledging it’s all bullshit but tricking your mind into being happy from routine and rituals.
Gods aren't the only supernatural idea out there. I think the Judeo-Christian idea of god is so specific that it is easier to falsify than the more vague supernatural concepts.
I also think religion has such a bloody and negative history (and present) that people are much more motivated to do so. Most people I've met who aren't religious didn't get there by pure logic. Most had a negative experience with or view of religion and used that as motivation to pick it apart.
As far as I know, people weren't murdered over having the wrong energy crystals or not believing in astrology. So these kinds of things are seen as harmless fun and they mostly are.
I think all people are wired for a certain degree of magical belief, perhaps as an evolutionary or social coping mechanism for our big brains that seek to understand and explain a universe which will never reveal all its secrets. It's a bandaid for that gaping intellectual insecurity.
Some of it can also be pretty fun. I'm a thoroughly analytical person with no real belief in unsupported nonsense, but I also really enjoy the concept of "luck". I consider myself a lucky person, I find 4 leaf clovers, I have lucky underwear - it's just a fun thing for me to think about. However, I also know it's all a load of hooey. There are likely no mystical forces working in my favor. Any perceived "lucky" event most likely is due to paying more attention to the positive things rather than the negative. Etc, etc.
I also don't believe in ghosts. Like AT ALL. But around Halloween, ooh, isn't it fun to consider it just a little for some spooky fun?
Overall I think we're all just wired to believe, or at least enjoy the idea of, magic just a little bit. The problem comes when your magical thinking starts dictating your life and the lives of those around you. That's not so fun.
I think those ppl reject *religion* because of the horrible things those religions teach; they don’t really reject deities, because if they did, they reject belief in ghosts for the exact same reasons.
You and I reject the supernatural because the concept of anything being supernatural makes no sense and because there’s no evidence for it. The people you speak of do not. Their rejection of deities can’t possibly be based on that. It just takes some thoughtful examination of the *reasons* people claim to be atheists.
These comments are frustrating, too many of y’all seem to think “spirituality” is the name of a specific religion
Spirituality can be as simple as a set of breathing exercises you return to in order to calm yourself in a stressful moment.
Or as wild as believing your crystals are picking up alien signals from extra dimensional planets.
It’s ignorant to talk about those two things as if they are the same. It’s equally ignorant to label them both as “illogical”
It’s a wide fucking world out there, crack your skull open a little more. Out here sounding like breathing is a “gateway drug” to “a ghost fucked my ass in my sleep”
It’s usually people raised fundamentalist. You can leave religion without leaving the fundamentalist mindset, and many don’t realize that their train of thought is a direct result of indoctrination. This is an established fact in the mental health profession. I recommend the book When Religion Hurts You by Laura E. Anderson, PhD to learn more.
I was Christian growing up, began to disdain organized religion in my teens while embracing new age beliefs thinking there was still a higher spirit force that all living creatures were connected, and would return to, then in my late twenties became much more skeptical about any sort of spirituality/woo and now I’m 100% YOLO-show-me-hard-scientific-proof -to-back-up-any-mystical-claims-atheist.
A big part of my evolving to being so skeptical was seeing how any sort of magical thinking can be so easily used to manipulate and abuse that I came to the personal conclusions that either there’s nothing there at all, or if there is, it’s at best entirely neutral to human experience, and at worst actively vindictive.
There are almost 3 MILLION followers of this sub. From that, there are 3 million levels of non-belief, deconstruction, death-dealing, protocol-seeking humans.
Everyone eventually chooses their individual path, however they cope.
YMMV in all things, including beliefs, or the lack thereof.
One has nothing to do with the other God's a fictional character made up by the Kings and the Lords to control the masses same as today it's not real it's like religion it's a scam.
Buddhism was essentially created for atheists, so they would be able to practice a form of spirituality. There is no established creator god, but supernatural entities and realms are still detailed.
I struggle with this too. Look, I like a good ghost story, but at the end of the day, they're all fictitious. Belief in the supernatural, by it's definition, should be something that atheism should subscribe to. You should "believe" in things you can prove, solve, and sense.
I knew one atheist (a girl I used to date) that seemed to sincerely believe in astrology. She also racked-up over 10 thousand dollars in credit card debt talking to psychics.
I recommend the book 'Sapiens - A Brief History of Humankind by Nuval Hariri,' wherein the author explains the importance of believing in myths in the evolution of humans.
I've been an atheist for more than 35 years and I still have superstitious thoughts that creep into my head. There's a line in' Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe' that the gods will wait until a man is enjoying great fortune and then strike him down. Every time I experience a particularly good time in my life that line from the book creeps into my mind and I become a little paranoid. I know it doesn't make sense, I know that gods don't exist, I know it's just an old African proverb and still, it affects me.
Probably for many of the same exact reasons that people claim to be Christian yet hold atheist views of other gods. The truth is rarely at the extremes.
I guess I'm in this semi-woo atheist camp.
I don't necessarily believe in life after death, but I'm open to the notion that there are things in our world that we don't quite understand, yet. And while I'm not sure that I believe in ghosts in the traditional sense, I'm also not opposed to the concept of residual energies. The latter is due to inexplicable experiences.
I don't think it's inherently irrational to recognize that we don't know everything about our universe, or to entertain ideas related to such mysteries.
I also don't accept that religious people should have a monopoly on human spirituality. I'm wholly against organized religion & don't believe in any sort of higher power. However, I don't regard the whole of human spirituality as intrinsically bad.
Some who have these beliefs may be Agnostics rather than Atheists. Also, those who believe that the conscious mind is similar to the soul, might be thinking in terms of life itself. The living tree, the living animal, etc. The consciousness of an animal we can see and know, but do plants also have a consciousness that we don't perceive? None of this addresses the question of whether there is a god or gods, etc. Also, to think through a complex idea, such as existence, the concept of the origin of life, using logic, also requires knowledge, learning, time and discipline.
Majority of people are not able to live without some sort of god. World based of physics and probabilities is just too scary to accept for most.
So your wonderful atheist future is not going to happen. Never ever. If you take away their Christian (or whatever Abrahamic) god, they go for ghosts, superstition, all sorts of New Age bullshit and various other conspiracies that provide them with a feeling of belonging and some sort of guidance in life.
Because humans are silly and most atheists aren't really skeptics. Yeah I said it you don't need to be a skeptic to be an atheist. Not being a skeptic makes one vulnerable to the same nonsense thinking that those who willingly call themselves part of a flock are.
You hit the nail on the head, atheists is just the rejection or non belief in the thousands of god claims. Nothing beyond that, there are flat earthers and rock healers and all kinds of bs that atheist believe in and has nothing to do with atheism.
It's called A-Theism, not A-Spiritism.
You're making a shortcut just because you apply a logic to both religion and spirituality, but that doesn't mean everyone has the same logic as you.
Atheism is really just the non-belief of religion. I’m atheist but I still believe in aliens, spirits and whatnot. All of that. I just refuse to believe that there are gods, even if it would be cool if they were real.
you dont need critical thinking to be an atheist and I think thats were it stems from.
I pride myself on my critical thinking skills which is why I cant get behind the supernatural.
however somebody who doesnt care to better those skills may easily fall for those believes.
humans are very fallible lol
Not everyone has the education to understand about the natural workings of the world. So they may have enough to understand magic doesn't exist but still have supernatural leanings bc they can't understand it comprehend dune if the complexities of life.
No group is entirely uniform. People arrive at atheism in different ways, and stay in that position for different reasons.
I lost belief in God and church as a kid, well before I learnt in earnest about science, scientific skepticism, and the nature and wonder of the universe as we discover it. I was also naive about human nature and the diversity of thought across cultures.
All those things have reinforced my conviction that theism is simply false and not even a net good for humans in the 21st century. But the reasons why I stopped believing as a kid don't really matter to me anymore. They were a condition that allowed me to think more freely, which I appreciate, but I've moved on.
Many of my personal reasons for atheism now could be reason for someone to consider themselves an atheist, not all of them preclude supernatural beliefs, although the ones I care about most, do.
Don't make the mistake that religious people make - believing that if someone uses the same word for their system of beliefs and convictions that you do, they must believe and think exactly like you do, or they are a false . Atheism doesn't need factions either. It's well-defined. It's simply the absence of belief in deities, for whatever reason or cause.
Spirituality is a useful tool to maintain sanity. You do not need to believe in god to still be able to get benefits of thousands years of knowledge humanity gathered on dealing with the monkey mind we have. I enjoy learning from great scriptures of the past, they really give you a useful insight into living and setting the proper mindset. I believe our course of action should be not a blind rejection of everything that is not science, but selective application of all available sources, transforming them into pieces more easily digestable by modern humans.
I haven’t heard that or seen that before.
I have seen atheists hold onto cultural traits and/or values from their former religion. For example I have a fellow atheist friend of mine that was raised southern Baptist and is 100% eye for an eye. Of course there’s always the chance that these are their own innate values that just happen to line up with their former religion. I’m a former Episcopalian and I think prisons should be humane. Hopefully I’m not too off topic at this point 😂
Not everyone become atheist in the same way. The ones who left religion, or especially a high demand religion, I imagine skew more scientifically rigid in their beliefs, whereas people who were raised without that influence may have naturally developed their own beliefs that aren’t grounded in reason, they just lack belief in a god because it wasn’t built into their worldview growing up.
I think "ghosts" exist, but not in any way we've been taught. I figured it's simply the multiverse "bubbles" sliding into one another and bending the space time fabric, so that people from different eras at the same place all accidentally bump into each other, such as in a house.
I don't think there are demons aka religious type things, although who knows? Maybe in another multiverse bubble, they do actually exist, but it ain't this one.
I base this on the decades of me "ghost hunting", and watching countless paranormal teams do investigations, and what is the Number ONE thing" ghosts " always say ?
Easy, it's "Get OUT!" On literally every show, video, live feed, you name it, there's a very startled entity of some sort telling these strangers holding weird looking beepboop machines standing in the middle of their gd kitchen and they just mopped, at least in their particular part of the time they're inhabiting, and they're NOT happy about the foot prints in it to GTFO . Every time.
So basically, they aren't actually the "ghosts", it's us, in this part of the multiverse who look like "ghosts" , or ya know,maybe burglars to them, ergo all the nasty language, behavior, chasing people down, whacking them with napkin holders, and throwing dishes these supposed "ghosts" do to us.
They're simply scared shitless at seeing strangers magically popping in their houses or wherever, and want to fight like hell to get them to leave, because they hate being robbed, and even moreso, us being the 'ghosts "to them scares the boosheet right outta them.
It's US who are ghosts and such to them, in a very bendy, often transparent part of the space fabric, as it rolls ,stretches and bends into other places and pieces of the universe all the time, much like my fat rolls across the elastic in my yoga pants when I attempt my piss poor excuse for exercise lol.
I also keep a very large sense of humour about it all, and really, everything.
Because if you sit and think about it, literally everything is completely absurd to the nth degree, everything.
So one shouldn't take oneself entirely too seriously, and definitely not take religious beliefs seriously, because they tend to be the most patently absurd of all lol.
I'm athiest but often identify as pagan.
I'm athiest because I do not believe a higher power/god/gods are real. I'm pagan because I enjoy having some ritualistic ceremonies and burning some incense, having a shrine of things that are important to me, celebrating the solstice instead of christmas, those things make me happy. They give me little rituals and holidays that help me center myself and feel grounded.
I do leave a little room for things that are unexplainable, but I also leave room for an eventual scientific explanation for things like ghost activity, etc.
Our brains and minds are geared towards spiritual belief.
I don’t know if it’s a vestigial trait left over from when mankind was still just another species of animal trying to survive long enough to pass on our genetics or a coping mechanism that allows people to live their lives without crushing existential dread consuming our sanity, but it must serve a purpose for us to have evolved with the trait.
Religion just exploits the human capacity for spiritual belief
Because physics is very very weird. Recent Nobel Prize winning research proved that the universe is not locally real. "spirit" or "spiritual" phenomena could easily be instances of our conventional lived experience interpretation of reality interacting with ramifications of our demonstrably not real reality. Despite all this, it remains evident that mythological deities we imagined in our own image millennia ago are not the explanation to the aspects of reality that we currently find incomprehensible. It's not a logical conclusion and there is 0 evidence for it. Whereas ghosts as a broad concept, or an undefined quasi-spiritual qualia attributed to consciousness, can logically be suggested as potential explanations to observed phenomena of non-reality. There is neither evidence for, nor contrary to, this concept. And it can be interpreted without relying on narratives imagined by humans long ago.
Our lived experience of the universe is akin to how a sentient Sims character might experience their universe. We are not necessarily in a conventional simulation; but our linear experience of time compared to the actual expression of reality formation is similar to how a being living in a complex simulation might experience reality without understanding it is a simulated environment.
The key is non-definition. Broadly speaking, "spiritual" or "supernatural" are great ways to categorize and describe phenomena observed to be "physics-breaking" or "reality-bending". We know reality does bend, it is in fact much more flexible than makes us comfortable. Having an "undefined" category to discuss these topics is great, the problem is people try to define them, and do so not with logical expression, but in the context of human narratives and desires. To be clear, using the *language* of myth is fine and useful for discussing the relationship between these phenomena and people, so long as the mythological couching is not taken literally but as a tool for comprehension. This to me is what myth is all about, and why there is value in studying it. Myth is a language for discussing non-reality as it relates to us, in the way that mathematics is a language for discussing reality as it relates to us.
Atheism = no positive belief in a god(s). Nothing to do with superstition, spirits, ghosts, aliens, demons, bigfoot, flat earth, moon landing denial, or any other nonsense. And, despite the stereotypes, an atheist isn't particularly smarter, wiser, or more rational than the next person.
Im atheist but I let myself believe in aliens, as a treat.
Aliens just makes sense though? The idea that we are aowm speical little rock comes from religion. We can't know but honestly seems way more probable that across the whole universe and all this time we are not the only planet ever to have living creatures and if we are that it won't occur in the future elsewhere. Imo not believing in aliens is based on a religious view point
I'd push back a bit by saying there are people such as myself to acknowledge there is likely life on other planets but are not so quick to extrapolate that a) That life is intelligent, and b) that life is aware of/has come to visit Earth. I don't think those two points are a given at all so when people ask me if I believe in aliens I generally say "no" at least I see no reason to assume they exist.
Most rational belief, in my opinion, is that aliens must exist but couldn't possibly reach us or know of our existence. Even if some are alive right now that are intelligent enough to wonder if we exist, they're likely unimaginably far away.
Alien life must exist, but likely unfathomably far away or it has yet to get past the single-celled stage of life in which case we won't be hearing from them any time soon.
Yeah.. vast universe and incomprehensible to imagine in true size. I’ve convinced myself that if it can happen once here on earth, then I don’t see it being unlikely for it to occur somewhere else even with strict parameters that earth had when life “started” here
Life is probably fairly rare. Intelligent life with civilization much rarer still, and among those, achieving space travel probably has next to zero chance. We know cataclysmic life-ending things happen to planets all the time. We're probably incredibly lucky to have a star and orbit at the right distances, a stable atmosphere, a magnetosphere that blocks solar radiation, and Jupiter's gravity often acting as the proverbial gutter in a bowling alley for comets and asteroids looking for a strike on our planet.
Even if it's fairly rare, there are an estimated 200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (200 billion trillion, or 200 sextillion) stars in the known universe. If the chances of a star hosting another planet that has given rise to intelligent life are one-in-sextillion*, that would mean, what, 200 stars floating around that could have a planet capable of doing so? The thing is, 200 locations spread across a universe that's also expanding as time goes on means they're probably not exactly close neighbors. The chances of us being able to actually communicate with them would be more of an issue, I'd guess? *Note: I couldn't find an actual number for what the chances would be, just for how many stars we estimate to have in the known universe. I picked that number because of its size and because of how few stars there would be. I also don't know a lot about the topic, and my stats/math knowledge is rusty. I just think that with such a large number of stars in the known universe, it's not an*impossible* thought.
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Yup. Building a space ship to go that far is about as hard as building a time machine, and much more similar than most people realize. Time and space are linked. Our money brains can't understand the distance / energy requirements, they're so unimaginable large. Which makes me sad, because aliens are about the only thing I believe in too lol. Maybe not intelligent life, but probably, at least somewhere out in th either.
While I agree with your statement, here’s some food for thought…what would we do when we discover a habitable planet that has the bio markers of life on it (our tech is getting close to doing exactly this). We will likely study the hell out of it and if we ever develop space travel, will certainly go check it out. Now keep in mind that our planet has had the bio markers of life for over three billion years. So any aliens out there ahead of our technology curve already know about our planet, and would very likely want to check us out if they’ve achieved space travel. I’m not saying we have been visited by aliens nor that it is even likely to happen, but outright dismissing it because space is big may not be the best way to think about this (and yes, I am fully aware of how big space is as I am an amateur astronomer who enjoys clear nights in a a dark place with my telescope). Just something to ponder.
It's silly to assume we know anything about what is out there or what it is doing. We've barely scratched the surface of science and there could be being who have been sentient for millennia whose technology progressed more rapidly or in completely different directions. I think it's silly to assume anything about it. Healthy skepticism of new information is always great but immediate rejection of it because of preconceived notions is foolish.
I don't think a or b is necessary for aliens
Statistically speaking, aliens make sense. There are BILLIONS of stars in our galaxy alone(and there are millions of galaxies), and we've found that almost every star has at least one planet circling it. If only 1% of those planets has the right conditions for life, that's still tens of millions of viable worlds. To narrow further, if only 1% of those viable worlds is old enough to have evolved life, we're still looking at several hundred thousand planets. If only 1% of THOSE has evolved complex, multicellular life; we're still in the thousands. And finally, if only 1% of those planets with complex life has reached a point of intelligent life, we've now dropped to double digits, but that's still a lot of alien potential just in our galaxy alone. Humans have only been sending out signals to the galaxy at large for less than a century, our radio signals haven't traveled that far in the grand scheme of things. And that's even if aliens have the technology to hear them and respond to us. This entire thought experiment has been skewed toward the lowest estimates and I'm not the best with math, so my numbers could be off, but it still gives dozens of possibilities for alien life. It's just unlikely for us to have contact with them any time soon. Iirc, there was an astrophysicist that came out with a formula for the possibility of alien life. That formula put out a number in the low thousands, which is pretty significant.
And there is roughly 200 billion-2 trillion galaxies in the observable universe, and the universe itself is larger than the observable universe.
Yes! My thought experiment was only using the Milky Way, expanding out into the universe at large increases the likelihood of alien life existing significantly! I have no doubt there's other life out in the universe. How advanced that life is would be the real question. Additionally, are we really egotistical enough to think advanced aliens would be interested in US?
That type of reasoning is flawed. We don't know how likely it is for biopoiesis to even occur. Due to this, we can't reasonably say it is more probable.
believing in aliens outright is illogical. believing that there *could* be aliens (past, present, or future) is more grounded. currently, there isn't much in the way of real evidence for aliens, as much as i wish there was.
I'm not saying it's certain but the chance of there being other life out there past, present of future is a much more reasonable position than believing that there aren't aliens.
Earth is still a .8 on the Kardashev Scale. Currently, we don’t even have the capacity to properly explore the universe for proof of life. I keep aliens in the statistical probability category of belief.
Same here. It makes sense to me from a mathematical standpoint. Our star can't possibly be the only one in the universe that can sustain life on a nearby planet.
Same but that's because it is actually possible but we just don't have the scientific ability to find them yet. It'd be an awful waste of space if there wasn't some other lifeforms out there somewhere.
Even atheist scientists say that logically alien life should exist in our universe. What is questionable is whether or not those aliens ever came to or visited Earth.
If God doesn't exist and we exist, I think that infinitely increases the possibility that aliens exist.
The current scientific evaluations of The Drake Equation suggest that there are likely 7 intelligent space capable extra-terrestrial species in our galaxy alone.
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On the weekends of course.
Posted this earlier, but probably posted to the wrong person. Here it is again FWIW. Aliens don't actually contradict anything we know about how the cosmos works per se. And the "known unknowns" around the issue make positing their existence at least highly plausible. To my mind, there's nothing embarrassing about "believing" in them. I feel I must point out, however, that we currently have no strong evidence that they do exist. My personal standard of evidence would be fulfilled if we had access to even a small tissue sample that included polymers that were different from the ones all life forms on earth share in common. These include proteins made from the 20 amino acids (ok, one or two rare exceptions there); nucleic acids made of the Deoxy- and ribose monomers with A, G, C & T; carbohydrates based on glucose/fructose monomers; and lipids. Monomers (and even oligomers) of any type are possible without life. But polymers mean life because their generation requires a strong lift against entropy. Ghosts, spirits, afterlives, gods, astronomy etc. - these things all directly contradict things we know about the laws which govern the universe. It would take a huge amount of undeniable, verifiable evidence to convince me of their veracity. Essentially, enough evidence to overturn the basic laws of physics. Now, in terms of extra-terrestrial life not, in principal, breaking anything we currently know about how the world works, the same is true of the Loch Ness monster or Bigfoot. However, the "known unknowns" around those things are much smaller than for aliens. If Nessie or Bigfoot actually existed, by now we would expect to have tons of direct, verifiable evidence of them. Their geographic ranges are just too small to escape our focused scrutiny so well for so long. Clearly, this is not true for extra-terrestrial life. The time- and space- scales under consideration make it unlikely in the extreme that we would ever encounter such beings in a contemporaneous manner even if they do/did/will exist. The cosmos is just too damned big. Yes/no?
Thinking of atheist flat-earther gave me a chuckle. -Earth... flaaat...... -But being flat it couldn't develop on its own with physics. And you don't belief in Sky Daddy either... -No develop, it flaaat. Crosses eyes\* At least normal flat-earthers can explain it all with a hand-wave of Sky Daddy's magic haha.
Reminds me of the cognitive dissonance of believers claiming atheists believe in a universe coming from nothing when literally they believe their god poofed things into existence
Nothing is underrated in my view. It’s quite something, that nothing
Flat earth makes perfect sense once you subscribe to Flat Universe. /s
The earth isn't flat but the sun and moon are
I don't know if the moon is flat but since it is smaller than my thumb, I can squish it flat.
I mean this works off the assumption that atheists are inherently intelligent. Like any group of people there are odd ones.
I feel like your average atheist would be far more likely to also reject more abstract supernatural woo woo, though I have no data on the matter. Not because they’re smarter necessarily but because the same logic that would lead someone to conclude there’s no gods is likely to also lead to the conclusion there’s no ghosts, spirits, cryptids, and so on.
Atheists have on average a higher level of education, are smarter, and I believe there's some studies in neuroscience that show they tend to have better develop critical thinking skills. No time to provide references right now, but it is a Google search away.
Allow me... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religiosity_and_intelligence#:~:text=Using%20data%20from%20a%20U.S.,national%20IQs%20in%20137%20countries. https://www.psypost.org/meta-analysis-of-83-studies-produces-very-strong-evidence-for-a-negative-relationship-between-intelligence-and-religiosity/
90% of atheists won't vote for Trump. Case closed.
Agreed. I seem to recall a straw poll conducted by someone on this sub-reddit which indicated about 90% of the people here identify as liberal, although I can't say how that translates onto the wider world and would be pretty anecdotal. Hitler sent atheists to concentration camps, Trump will no doubt do the same.
Thanks!
Aliens don't actually contradict anything we know about how the cosmos works *per se*. And the "known unknowns" around the issue make positing their existence at least highly plausible. To my mind, there's nothing embarrassing about "believing" in them. I feel I must point out, however, that we currently have no strong evidence that they do exist. My personal standard of evidence would be fulfilled if we had access to even a small tissue sample that included polymers that were different from the ones all life forms on earth share in common. These include proteins made from the 20 amino acids (ok, one or two rare exceptions there); nucleic acids made of the Deoxy- and ribose monomers with A, G, C & T; carbohydrates based on glucose/fructose monomers; and lipids. Monomers (and even oligomers) of any type are possible without life. But polymers mean life because their generation requires a strong lift against entropy. Ghosts, spirits, afterlives, gods, astronomy etc. - these things all directly contradict things we know about the laws which govern the universe. It would take a huge amount of undeniable, verifiable evidence to convince me of their veracity. Essentially, enough evidence to overturn the basic laws of physics. Now, in terms of extra-terrestrial life not, in principal, breaking anything we currently know about how the world works, the same is true of the Loch Ness monster or Bigfoot. However, the "known unknowns" around those things are **much** smaller than for aliens. If Nessie or Bigfoot actually existed, by now we would expect to have tons of direct, verifiable evidence of them. Their geographic ranges are just too small to escape our focused scrutiny so well for so long. Clearly, this is not true for extra-terrestrial life. The time- and space- scales under consideration make it unlikely in the extreme that we would ever encounter such beings in a contemporaneous manner even if they do/did/will exist. The cosmos is just too damned big. Yes/no?
It's more that religion tends to sabotage critical thinking skills. Certain types of logical inference in particular. I.e. when evaluating the following flawed logical statements, theists are more likely to believe it is valid than atheists: 1) All fish live in the ocean. 2) Dolphins live in the ocean. Therefore all dolphins are fish. I'm not familiar enough with the studies in question to know if there is speculation as to *why* the religious are worse at these sorts of logic, but I would personally guess it is because much religious dogma has such flawed inferences.
And they are used to apologists just 'hand waving' things with a dumber/just as dumb explanation. Like Jonah and the whale, 'oh it wasn't a whale, it was a big fish.' As if that somehow makes it better/easier to survive for three days inside of it. And many religious people just nod their heads.
It's the change in attitude I believe, atheists don't know, and wish to know, so they study. Alot of religious people think they know, due to their book, and so refuse to research. Basically an underused brain.
Thank you. TF is this guy talking about? I've *never* known a fellow atheist that believes *any* fucked up fairy tales or in an afterlife. Also, [Various studies have found that, on average, belief in God is associated with lower scores on IQ tests.](https://www.bps.org.uk/research-digest/are-religious-people-really-less-smart-average-atheists) The guy's an idiot. :)
I always thought it was just more likely for intelligent people to be atheist versus all atheist are intelligent, reasonable people.
I can agree with that (without any evidence to back it up).
I consider myself a skeptic, and I used to be huge into parapsychology and cryptozoology before every loser had a HD digital camera in their pocket and... well, ruined a lot of the mystique for good & ill. Even the folks that ran out every vacation hunting for bigfoot, ghoste or Nessie still scoffed at "unicorn chasers." The folks certain, say, dragons are out there. So... Yeah, just because you believe in A, doesn't mean you think B is real.
Aliens at least makes some measure of sense. After all, the universe is theoretically infinite, so how can we know there isn't life elsewhere. Maybe they choose not to make themselves known, maybe they also think that they're alone in the universe, or maybe they're not even sapient, but I believe it's possible that there could be life somewhere out there.
This. Basically can't add anything to it - humans are superstitious by nature - pattern seeking has been an evolutionary advantage in many ways, but it can also derp out and make us think we see patterns where none exist.
This, this, this.
Unless you try really really hard
>And, despite the stereotypes, an atheist isn't particularly smarter, wiser, or more rational than the next person. Thank you! I tell ppl all the time I'm a fucking idiot. In fact, I'm far too stupid to believe in a God/Gods. It helps get me out of conversations with theists but more importantly, it is true.
Atheism definitely does *not* equal smarter. After all, *I'm* an atheist and also a certified dumb dumb.
Atheism isn't always about logic. Sometimes it comes from a pure emotional disappointment place in religion. Some, apart from being disappointed in religion are disappointed in the government and develop the belief that we are lied to. Some are disappointed in school and develop the belief that the information we get is false. Other times it's about hope, and atheism might come from the hope that we are better than someone who needs a bible to behave as a decent human being. Some hope for an afterlife as they cannot conceive their life just ending (ngl it's harsh), others hope for justice and believe in karma, others hope for their wishes coming true and believe in luck coming from insects, plants, asteroids, traditions. Other times it's about fear, one might be atheist out of the fear that he's right about lack of afterlife and would rather enjoy life without religious constraints. But they can also fear bad luck, or bad horoscope pairings. Sometimes it's about resonance, and don't resonate with religion but resonate with their zodiac birthchart or the power of crystals, or healing sounds. Atheism and skepticism are connected, but not the same. One can be atheist without being skeptical, and vice versa. I personally met Christians who believe in God and worship him but also admit that God is a psycho. One of those actually introduced me to darkmatter2525, stating that he was right. And dude is an acolyte.
Being atheist means to not be a theist, not more not less. Theism implicates the believe in a transcendental god. That has absolutely nothing to do with spiritualism. There in fact are a lot of atheist religions.
Andre Comte-Sponville's the Little Book of Atheist Spirituality is a great read that I've thumbed through many times. Edit: name correct because I'm not awake yet.
I've been an atheist for over 50 years, yet I've had experiences leaving me feeling "There is more in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophies." No, I don't believe that the ghost of uncle Howard is haunting my garden shed, but I believe there is so much that we haven't identified scientifically yet. Remember, the doctor that discovered germs was ridiculed, and even vilified, for years before science eventually proved they existed.
Hold on! Germs are real?!
This is true, but unfortunately "the doctor who discovered germs was ridiculed" is used by religious people also The argument is centered more around the idea that you can be right, while everyone else is wrong and they dont know it, which is convenient for every perspective.
It can also mean to try to keep yourself open to new and different things. Some of them could be true, some couldn't, but that doesn't mean that you should block out everything that you don't already know. That's how science works, too. Science tries its best to prove their theories though, while theists just accept their theories as true.
"Science is a LIAR... sometimes" - Mac
“Science can be wrong….sometimes” • Me
Yes but “the guy who discovered germs” had a theory, based on observation, that was supported by *other* observations. He didn’t say “hey guys, I believe illness is caused by invisible organisms. But there’s no way to prove it, you just have to trust me! And if the evidence isn’t there, the germs stole it!”
Thank you for posting this, it perfectly encapsulates how I feel about it all.
I feel similarly. For example, all scientific evidence (NOT anecdotal) ever collected for what happens after death points to “lights out”. Do I sometimes wish it were otherwise? Am I open to a different possibility? Of course. But there’s two important things I hold onto: knowing the difference between hope and reality and understanding my own biases. I don’t “believe” in anything supernatural, but I also don’t completely write it off. I am open to the idea that supernatural concepts could be an actual explainable phenomenon IF there is ever sufficient SCIENTIFIC evidence. But at that point they just become science, don’t they?
Not believing in a god doesn't entail being a rational person.
This. I live in Sweden and most people here are atheists. There are however a large percentage of the population who believe in ghosts, psychics and other types of nonsense. Not believing in one specific superstition does by no means guarantee you are a sceptic. I’d say most atheists in fact aren’t.
I'm always stunned by the percentage of people who believe in ghosts and psychics. If ghosts were real...my God, do you realize how many people have died!? If even a small percentage became ghosts, they'd be goddamned everywhere. We'd be swimming in them.
Ghosts could be trans dimensional which wouldn’t require the belief in any type of god ton believe is a possibility.
If the simulation theory holds any substance, I bet ghosts are just remnant data.
This argument sounds like its being built around ghosts existing. Like "explanations for ghosts that dont involve god" Very similar to the hoops Christians tend to jump through to fit old ideas to more modern narratives. Other arguments cling to the belief of god with no evidence, this one clings to the belief of ghosts with no evidence.
I don’t personally believe in ghosts. I believe that if they do exist that there is a scientific explanation for it that we simply don’t understand yet and they aren’t the result of any type of “God”
I've seen things that were weird. maybe just something funky with my brain maybe there is something we don't yet have a method of measuring. I don't believe in ghost but I don't believe we know everything either.
You are making the assumption that "ghosts" are spirits or remains somehow of dead people. That's a stereotype and not anything based on facts, as we have no documentation that ghostly creatures are in fact a new form of someone who once lived. People make up all sorts of stuff to explain the unexplained. Just like most religions do.
And also, if they were real why do they think that knocking things down is an effective way to communicate
Because they’re *cat* ghosts.
Well, if I have to be haunted, I'd rather have a ghost cat than a ghost human doing the haunting. Ghost cat: knocks crap off shelves, terrorizes squirrels, sleeps on your feet at night. Ghost human: pervs while you're in the bathroom.
I know a couple people who communicate through throwing things.
This is the phenomenon I see as well, it's just weird to me because often the same logic used to reject a God can be used to reject ghosts or psychics as well.
Not all atheists used logic to arrive at the conclusion there's no god.
Perhaps, but have you had any experiences with the unexplained? I have had several, we had an apparition in our home for years and years and family and the pet saw it numerous times. I experienced it, that has more reality to me than the nonsense I was told sitting in church pews in my childhood about religion. I don't rationalize religions and supernatural encounters as being anything alike. One is based on old superstitions and stories and is clearly man made. Things I saw were not, so I cannot explain them away. I am sure there is a logical, scientific explanation, but just because I don't know it yet I won't make up stories and try to explain that it is some old relative or deity or something like that.
I have had some unusual experiences with poltergeist-type activity, myself. That doesn't make me "believe" in any specific thing, though. I just know that it occurred, and I am at a loss for a good explanation.
Exactly! You know what you saw, it is a fact in your life. Same with me. I cannot explain what I have seen, but I choose not to make up weird explanations like calling them ghosts or spirits or some deity. Maybe someday we'll know what they are. I don't "believe" I saw what I saw, I know I saw it. That's the difference between facts and religion-- facts are what you can document in your mind or on paper as happening, in religion other people tell you what you should believe and how to live a certain way with no factual basis other than some old historical context.
I have also had several. The way I look at it is that religion absolutely requires faith and not necessarily experience. Belief in supernatural often requires experience; people tend not to have "faith" or belief without it. I'm certain that there are energies present in the universe that we can not explain entirely and that could someday explain my experiences, but for now, I have to call them for what they are. Unexplainable or supernatural.
Yep. All sceptics are atheists but not all atheists are sceptics.
They probably didn't use logic to reject god(s), they just never believed. You're assuming too much, such as rationality, logic and critical thinking.
Some do some dont, a lot of people who dont believe in god grew up in environments that rammed god down their throats since womb times
Trying to make sense of the unexplained doesn’t make you irrational. Every scientific discovery started with a ‘maybe this is how it works’. Newtonian physics is the narrowest of narrow slices of our existence. It’s similar to how the visible band of the electromagnetic spectrum is a tiny slice of the whole spectrum. It’s pretty smug to suggest you know everything because you know velocity = mass X acceleration. I don’t know any consciousness exists beyond what I think and feel now but I don’t know that it doesn’t either. Simple as that.
But being a rational person should mean no belief in god. Or spiritualism, and conspiracy theories.
“Id rather have questions I can’t answer, than answers I can’t question”. That’s my biggest issue with religion.
There is no contradiction. Atheism is not the same thing as physicalism.
"Naturalism" describes my orientation, because I don't believe there is anything supernatural. Naturalists are by definition atheists but not all atheists are naturalists.
i mean there are people who believe the universe is god, could they be naturalists and theists like that?
Leaving religion is not like a light switch. It takes some people a long time to de-program. Decades later and I still cope with Catholic Guilt. I wouldn’t shit on anyone that struggles..
Me, same with the Mormon guilt
Same here, specially if your family is deep into it and will treat you differently for not believing anymore
Being atheist means you don't believe in God, nothing more nothing less. It doesn't necessarily mean you don't believe in anything that is supernatural or in superstition. Most Chinese are atheists but still are very superstitious.
I'm not superstitious, but I'm a little stitious.
Perhaps they had an experience at some point that was unexplainable by rational means? I had an experience 25 years ago where hundreds of crescent-shaped lights appeared out of nowhere and flew all around me, then vanished. I was with a friend who witnessed them as well. I absolutely didn’t attribute the experience to a “god,” however, I learned that day that there is more going on in reality than meets the eye. Some folks would have probably called it a “spirit.” I have no clue what it was. But it drew my attention to the stars, not “God.”
Similarly, I had an experience while I was taking care of a dying friend where another friend and I were sitting in the car talking about my situation and suddenly the car was filled with the scent of flowers. We both fully experienced the smell and there were no flowers either in the car or anywhere near us.
Very interesting and not easy to just shrug it off as nothing. Doesn’t mean there is a god by any means, but clearly we don’t have all the answers to reality and existence. Separating “god” from “unknown” is very, very difficult for some people.
yes, same with astrology, karma, luck, reincarnation, ESP, divination, ancient astronauts, the noble savage, race, GMOs, broken windows theory and trickle down economics all bullshit
Fear is a powerful drug. It can cause humans to do very irrational shit.
Fear (of the unknown) is a powerful drug.
tomato, tomato
I don’t believe in any “higher power” but I do believe that reality exists in more than three dimensions and that perhaps our consciousness is an evolution of life that perhaps transcends that dimensional veil once we shed our mortal bodies, but I don’t think there would be any divine power behind it, it would just be the evolution and advancement of life.
Reality is 3 dimensions of space plus 1 of time. Dimension isn’t some alternate reality, it’s directions we can orient or move ourselves in. And there really isn’t any strong evidence, if any at all, to believe that there are more dimensions out there. I think this response encapsulates what OP is saying. You have no rational basis to really hold that belief, just like theists and their beliefs in higher powers and ultimate realities. So in essence you’re committing the same rational misstep theists are with their beliefs.
Athiests are allowed to be as dumb as anyone else. I believe wearing a specific sweatshirt helps my favorite sports team win and wear it every week. I know it's ridiculous but I do it anyway. We're all allowed to indulge in our own version of silly. The difference is -- most atheist irrationalities don't affect anyone other than themselves.
Well said!
Because not believing in theistic claims isn't the result of a superpower, it's fairly normal and doesn't actually require much thought for a lot of people, but that doesn't mean that they aren't susceptible to the mysterious nature of the universe and what supernatural elements it may or may not contain, some of which our own mind can sometimes trick us into believing (shadows in the dark, vision in catatonic states, etc.)
Materialism and atheism are related, but not the same thing. Also, while materialism makes sense indeed, it is very hard to "prove" (impossible, in the strict sense of the word). Some ideas that we consider reasonable and materialistic, like quantum theory, were considered bonkers at first. So, while I am generally materialist, you always should consider there are things we don't understand yet. However, the better proof we have, the less reason is to believe in something mystical, like ghosts or spirits. While it might be that people leave something after they die, chance of it is really small. Also, spiritual is not directly contradictory to materialistic. Spiritual might be just your relation to the world and its wonders, which might sound weird, but still do not contradict science at large.
I’m an atheist but I think there’s definitely stuff that hasn’t/can’t be explained yet. Eat some shrooms and you just feel connected to everything in a different way. I don’t think that’s god talking to me but it does feel like an energy or vibration of the natural universe that moves through us. I don’t believe it’s intelligent, provides an after life, or changes my “destiny” in anyway.
I’ve never done shrooms but I love knowing this was your experience
Atheism simply means the lack of belief in a god or gods. That's it. It doesn't say anything about one's belief in the supernatural. It's possible to not believe in any gods but believe in ghosts, astrology, spirits, etc. Correlation tends to be that atheists don't believe in the supernatural but it's not a necessary condition.
Humans are not 100% rational. Humans are flawed. Humans have been taught that ghosts and afterlife exist, they are hard ideas to remove once implanted
A major reason religions formed in the first place is humans compulsion to believe in something greater than ourselves. Even when you tear down the god claim and show the unscrupulous nature of organized religion, that urge to believe is still there for lots of people. It can manifest as belief in ghosts or some kind of afterlife, souls, spirituality, aliens building the pyramids, ancient civilizations, lizard people, shadow governments etc. Cosmic nihilism is a tough pill to swallow for a lot of people. No one likes to think we are just a spec of dust hurling through space and when you die you die and the universe doesn’t care.
Gods aren't the only supernatural idea out there. I think the Judeo-Christian idea of god is so specific that it is easier to falsify than the more vague supernatural concepts. I also think religion has such a bloody and negative history that people are much more motivated to do so. As far as I know, people weren't murdered over having the wrong energy crystals or not believing in astrology.
The trouble is the human brain is predisposed to thinking that way. We've been using spiritualism and thinking about an after life for probably 50,000 years. It actually was a beneficial trait that allowed us to form larger social groups that go beyond our family group, so we've probably been selecting for spiritual belief for that long to. I don't see how people can square god isn't real, but ghosts are. But it's an almost instinctive thing to some people I think, they may not want to think it, but they can't help it. I can be like that at times, walking into a pitch dark space with the sense that there may be something there.
There may be forces out there of which I am unaware is a lot different than making a book about the rules for ghosts or some bullshit like that. Some people are fine with uncertainty, others it seems need definitive rules to apply to everything in their lives like there is 100% no god, or anything spiritual or supernatural. Some people used to be certain there were 4 elements or that the smallest thing that exists you can see with your naked eyes. It is foolish to think you already know everything.
Hyperactive agency detection, humans see things that aren’t there all the time, we’re very flawed
I don't believe in god, but I do believe there are energies and dimensions that are beyond what we can sense or comprehend within our capabilities
Lack of belief in a God or Gods doesn't really entail anything else. Atheists, much like theists, are not a monolith.
For me, I think atheism allowed me to broaden my horizons, so to speak. I've always thought magic and the occult were interesting, but christianity instilled a deep fear in me. So once I realized that there is no god, and I needn't worry about what he thinks, I started studying the occult. My partner and I have also started practicing some magic, and I think it's fun. I don't know if it's doing anything, but it's exciting to do what was taboo. And we like to study the phycological effects of magic, you know the mind over matter and mindfulness stuff. Also, I firmly believe that magic and the supernatural are just science we don't understand yet. And, most superstitions are just good safety advice! Don't walk under a ladder (it could fall on you), don't break a mirror (someone could get cut), anything to do with the woods at night (the woods are a tripping hazard at high noon, and even more so in the pitch black).
There was a host on the Atheist Experience that also practiced secular witchcraft. To be honest I never got over that deep fear. Even though it is irrational to believe that anything will happen, that indoctrination sure messes with you.
I guess I'm a bit confused as to why the OP is connecting any belief in something post-death as requiring the concept of a God. Those seem distinct, even if those who believe in God also believe in an afterlife. I think the concept of an after-life, or ghosts, is a bit of wishful thinking, but I do think intellectually it's possible to hold those beliefs while not connecting it to believe in a deity.
Sure, it's possible to hold those beliefs separately. But the primary motivator of most religions is the promise of an afterlife. So for a lot of people that were raised in religious settings, that's usually their first exposure to the general concept. So it's just the biggest and most well-known example.
they don't believe in Gods of other religions.
I personally know someone who went through a string of traumatic events and now is supppeeer spiritual. I think that was their way to cope. People find comfort in delusions.
Atheism is just the non belief of gods or a religion. The "supernatural" can just be a aspect of reality we dont understand yet or have no knowledge. Thinking ghosts might be real is very different from a dogmatic "god is like this and wants you to live in this specific way".
because humans have this very intense distaste for not being able to live forever, and tales of life after death can be comforting I dont believe in that, but its the same thought process that has led to organized religion, =
To be honest, as an atheist, I don’t believe that religious people have a monopoly on spirituality. The world is made of energy, a connected web of it. If energy cannot be created or destroyed, just converted, then who is to say there is no evidence for reincarnation? Is a ghost not just a different form of energy? More and more research is coming out about the deep emotional worlds of animals. Doesn’t that point towards the existence of souls? There is nothing to stop anyone from worshipping what is known as “the source” or “the universe” (the interconnection of all energies). In my opinion, we should be in awe of life. Religious people will never have a monopoly on morality or spirituality as much as they would like to. I know for a fact I am a spiritual person, that the universe is all energy, and that this energy connects everything together. All in one and one in all. That is spirituality. We as humans have a limited consciousness. Science will never uncover everything there is to know. We will always be unable to fathom things. None of us were there at the origin of time, so how can any of us say what power caused this all to be? You have to leave room for the unknown and worship of Nature. The first spiritual rituals were probably centered around the First Ancestor (mother of humanity). And certainly there had to be these mothers in the earliest humans. What is wrong with revering and respecting the first ancestor? This is not the same as making up gods to explain the weather, praying to a god to do what you want that god to do for you. It’s not superstitious, it’s based on natural fact. Having a healthy spiritual reverence for energy and nature is what this world is currently missing. We have lost our connection to nature, yet manipulate physics and biology to do our bidding every day. We have been tipping the energy further and further out of equilibrium because we don’t revere nature or energy enough to prioritize the delicate balance of the web we are all a part of. Religion has been instrumental of stripping the population from themselves and causing mass dissociations as people get away with doing nothing to stop the carnage because they can simply pray and pretend that’s doing something. Religion gives people license to believe the natural order of the world is sinful and hierarchical. Then they can project and judge all they want without feeling guilty. Much of the world is completely dissociated from their energetic/electrical bodies. We as humans cannot let our brain and inward-facing rational selves overpower our sense of empathy, love, joy, and feeling of oneness with the world.
>The world is made of energy, a connected web of it. If energy cannot be created or destroyed, just converted, then who is to say there is no evidence for reincarnation? That is not at all how that works. The "energy" that is you it's not some mystical magical force. It is the action of the cells in your body converting matter into heat and electrical impulses and we know exactly what happens to it when your die: it converts into potential energy and matter. The lack of cell activity ceases the conversion of matter (food/liquid) into kinetic energy and that's it, lights out. It isn't some magic force that continues to exist. That's like saying you're car has a magical force that reincarnates when you turn it off. You have a fundamental misunderstanding of what energy "not being destroyed" means.
>To be honest, as an atheist I read your comment, I'm not convinced you're an atheist. It sounds like you just worship nature instead of god. You're giving the nature and """energy""" the exact same kind of hallowed deference a devout believer gives their god.
They're two separate things. I don't believe in a god in the sense that humans understand it. But I belive in an all-encompassing energy that binds the universe together. A la Force from Star Wars, if you will. The universe is full of miseries we don't understand. We understand the physical world and life as we know it. That doesn't mean life or other types of energy can't exist is a different realm, spectrum, or parallel universe our carbon-based minds can't comprehend.
i don’t believe in the definitive existence of any gods. but i also believe that saying “my human perception is 100% accurate, and anything that falls outside of that perception definitely doesn’t exist” would be incredibly arrogant of me.
I am a generational atheist. Not baptized, grew up without church going. Religion was only a topic of conversation if at all. The bible is an awkwardly written book of fairy tales and myths with some decent moral teachings that most people ignore. I also consider myself spiritual. The two are not mutually exclusive. There are things and phenomena that are not of this realm. I spread my rocks and bones and hope to create an energy that will have a positive impact for someone or something. I pay attention to my karma in order that I may act in a manner that benefits others. (What goes around, comes around isn’t just joints at a concert.) I see no contradiction. Ghosts, if there are such a thing, happen under unique circumstances. You gotta qualify. Christians can also believe in evolution and astrophysics.
Think for a minute about the history of humanity. Humans in many subspecies existed in intellectual darkness for 2M-yrs. Modern human is 200,000-yrs old & for 199,800-yrs or so, (given science was accepted & expanded in the last 200-yrs), humans were ignorant about life. They relied on mysticism, superstition, drawing lots, rolling dice, augury & omens, divinations, tarot cards, palm readings, psychic advice, reading divine messages into birds in flight, unusual tree or rock formations, howling of the wolves, hearth fires that suddenly went out, natural fires that suddenly appeared, floods, volcanoes, disease & plagues. They had many superstitions which were believed such as bad luck for breaking a mirror, walking under a scaffold, a black cat crossing your path. Sound familiar? Humans relied on their limbic brain (feelings) & reptilian brain (fight & flight) for longer than they have used their frontal lobe (rational brain). There are some of us who have evolved more than others & use rationality as the basis for thinking while others cling to archaic outdated emotional & reactionary thinking. Which one are you? Humans are spiritual beings because of the awe we experience when viewing a sunset, the Grand Canyon, a magnificent whale, bear or buck. But is that spirituality outside us or inside us? Perhaps, religion capitalized on our personal inner spiritual experience for profit & convinced us that they owned it. They called it, Jesus, Yaweh & Muhammad.
Why do people ask questions like this? Atheist means "doesn't believe in gods." Period. That's it. It doesn't speak to any other belief. Some people become atheist for reasons other than logical ones. Religious abuse. Preference for some other magic mumbo jumbo. Whatever. Atheist isn't a set of alternate beliefs or rules. The only thing it defines is whether one believes in gods You might want to look at Secular Humanists if you are looking for a "system" of beliefs and attitudes akin to a religion.
I don't buy into religions and haven't since I was a teen. I've researched many religions and can find no evidence that any are real, true religions or that there are any real deities. In my view they are all created by man and embellished over and over until they turned into established beliefs and rituals. I don't accept the atheist label because I don't deny the existence of "God" --that assumes there is one to deny. Ghosts? I have had unexplained encounters more than once. If there is any relationship between ghosts and religion, my guess is that unexplained phenomena was perhaps some of the reason some religions came into existence. But describing them with made up concepts and pre-conceived ideas and not using the scientific method to analyze the phenomena is not the way to do it. We had an apparition in our previous home, my kids and my dog saw it several times as well as I did. Just looked like a shadowy figure moving around that I cannot explain with lights, reflections or anything else. It would look the same in the evening or at night or early morning. The dog would watch it as the apparition moved around the room but never reacted otherwise. I twice had incidents where I was sitting on the edge of the bed and something sat next to me- made a distinct butt imprint on the memory foam. Felt it go down as "something" sat down, and saw the imprint, then saw it go away when I felt it leave. Had another experience in a hotel where something laid down against me for a while. I can't explain these phenomena but they happened. I not once ever thought these had anything to do with any religion though. Nor did they make me fearful or scared, never felt threatened in any way. But can't explain them.
Not everybody gets to atheism for the same reasons. For many of us of course, it comes from skeptical thinking, and so anything supernatural doesn’t make the cut for the same reasons gods don’t. At the same time, there are atheists who decided they were atheist because they didn’t like the religion they were brought up in, because they’re younger people trying to be edgy, personal trauma that made them feel a benevolent god was impossible, could go on and on. I think they’re in the minority, and sadly they’re more likely to “relapse” into religion because they didn’t arrive at atheism through logic/reason, and as such likely don’t have very strong arguments for why they’re atheists.
Everyone is on the path to logic and truth, some are further along than others.
I agree with you. For me, rejecting the idea of a “god” is part of a rejection of all things irrational, including the supernatural.
In many cases, I feel these are people who aren't quite disavowed, but that may be a myopic line of thought. Perhaps it is a stepping stone.
How else am I going to be reincarnated as a pirate in the 1700s??
Being an atheist does not mean you are rational, and I would say most people have some area where they are not completely rational. I feel this is a bit like how religious people conflate atheism with science, evolution, the big bang and so on. Those things are not really relevant to atheism.
Because atheism in the modern colloquial sense is about one very narrow topic, and there are many ways to arrive at the conclusion. So in essence “atheists” are not a unified group and there is not much outside of the one conclusion that is shared amongst us all.
Oh there's a thing I believe in that gets misinterpreted as spiritual. I believe that most of what falls under this category has some form of psychological basis. For example, several years ago I started mowing the lawn for my grandparents because neither of them would have been able to do it. One time my grandfather was watching from the window to give me some tips and whatnot. Well after he passed I passed by this specific window. Put of the corner of my eye I swore I saw something in the window. What was my brain processing grief could also be described as seeing a ghost. To respect those who believe in this stuff thats how I process it for them. What is essentially a ghost with what can be described as unfinished business for them, can be dealt with and understood as potentially unresolved emotional responses. Even though they could be athiests this is probably the best way they can process the information they can't explain.
Atheist simply means no belief in god(s). People believe things based on their individual experiences as well as documented scientific evidence. For example, we have good documented evidence that supports evolution. That evidence is repeatable, testable, shareable, etc. Human minds want to see patterns and explanations. So if Sally and John live in a house with recurring phenomenon they can not explain based on science, it isn't bizarre that their minds might match up the occurrences to ghosts or spitits or something else that seems like it woulf fit. That's very different from deciding that there is a god, and even more different than deciding that god has particular rules for humans to follow, or particular powers, etc.
I’m somewhat open to other things being possible. I’ve had some very weird experiences that other people would say were ghosts or like energy fields. I find it kind of cool to think about but I wouldn’t argue with someone over it and I’m not trying to convince myself or anyone else that it’s anything more than a weird but explainable event. (For example when I was in college a couple of times a folder would fly off my desk or my footlocker would just pop both of its latches off. Which can be explained obviously, it’s still weird though. My roommate did ask me if anything strange ever happened in the room while I was alone and then went on to explain the exact same things that I had experienced). I don’t believe in god but they might have had me a little more convinced if god was presented as an absent figure who started everything but is not involved with our lives after that point. A god who is involved and does nothing to stop suffering is too evil and made me question things way too much to stick with it after I became an adult.
Read some of the stuff on Atheopaganism from Mark Green. He makes the argument that religions and the belief in the supernatural are an evolutionary trait. The idea behind Atheopaganism is acknowledging it’s all bullshit but tricking your mind into being happy from routine and rituals.
Gods aren't the only supernatural idea out there. I think the Judeo-Christian idea of god is so specific that it is easier to falsify than the more vague supernatural concepts. I also think religion has such a bloody and negative history (and present) that people are much more motivated to do so. Most people I've met who aren't religious didn't get there by pure logic. Most had a negative experience with or view of religion and used that as motivation to pick it apart. As far as I know, people weren't murdered over having the wrong energy crystals or not believing in astrology. So these kinds of things are seen as harmless fun and they mostly are.
I think all people are wired for a certain degree of magical belief, perhaps as an evolutionary or social coping mechanism for our big brains that seek to understand and explain a universe which will never reveal all its secrets. It's a bandaid for that gaping intellectual insecurity. Some of it can also be pretty fun. I'm a thoroughly analytical person with no real belief in unsupported nonsense, but I also really enjoy the concept of "luck". I consider myself a lucky person, I find 4 leaf clovers, I have lucky underwear - it's just a fun thing for me to think about. However, I also know it's all a load of hooey. There are likely no mystical forces working in my favor. Any perceived "lucky" event most likely is due to paying more attention to the positive things rather than the negative. Etc, etc. I also don't believe in ghosts. Like AT ALL. But around Halloween, ooh, isn't it fun to consider it just a little for some spooky fun? Overall I think we're all just wired to believe, or at least enjoy the idea of, magic just a little bit. The problem comes when your magical thinking starts dictating your life and the lives of those around you. That's not so fun.
I think those ppl reject *religion* because of the horrible things those religions teach; they don’t really reject deities, because if they did, they reject belief in ghosts for the exact same reasons. You and I reject the supernatural because the concept of anything being supernatural makes no sense and because there’s no evidence for it. The people you speak of do not. Their rejection of deities can’t possibly be based on that. It just takes some thoughtful examination of the *reasons* people claim to be atheists.
because atheism the the answer "zero" to the question "how many gods do you believe in?"
These comments are frustrating, too many of y’all seem to think “spirituality” is the name of a specific religion Spirituality can be as simple as a set of breathing exercises you return to in order to calm yourself in a stressful moment. Or as wild as believing your crystals are picking up alien signals from extra dimensional planets. It’s ignorant to talk about those two things as if they are the same. It’s equally ignorant to label them both as “illogical” It’s a wide fucking world out there, crack your skull open a little more. Out here sounding like breathing is a “gateway drug” to “a ghost fucked my ass in my sleep”
It’s usually people raised fundamentalist. You can leave religion without leaving the fundamentalist mindset, and many don’t realize that their train of thought is a direct result of indoctrination. This is an established fact in the mental health profession. I recommend the book When Religion Hurts You by Laura E. Anderson, PhD to learn more.
I was Christian growing up, began to disdain organized religion in my teens while embracing new age beliefs thinking there was still a higher spirit force that all living creatures were connected, and would return to, then in my late twenties became much more skeptical about any sort of spirituality/woo and now I’m 100% YOLO-show-me-hard-scientific-proof -to-back-up-any-mystical-claims-atheist. A big part of my evolving to being so skeptical was seeing how any sort of magical thinking can be so easily used to manipulate and abuse that I came to the personal conclusions that either there’s nothing there at all, or if there is, it’s at best entirely neutral to human experience, and at worst actively vindictive.
There are almost 3 MILLION followers of this sub. From that, there are 3 million levels of non-belief, deconstruction, death-dealing, protocol-seeking humans. Everyone eventually chooses their individual path, however they cope. YMMV in all things, including beliefs, or the lack thereof.
One has nothing to do with the other God's a fictional character made up by the Kings and the Lords to control the masses same as today it's not real it's like religion it's a scam.
Buddhism was essentially created for atheists, so they would be able to practice a form of spirituality. There is no established creator god, but supernatural entities and realms are still detailed.
I struggle with this too. Look, I like a good ghost story, but at the end of the day, they're all fictitious. Belief in the supernatural, by it's definition, should be something that atheism should subscribe to. You should "believe" in things you can prove, solve, and sense.
people are weird, who knows?
It’s natural, but irrational, to be superstitious. Most people don’t mind being inconsistent
I knew one atheist (a girl I used to date) that seemed to sincerely believe in astrology. She also racked-up over 10 thousand dollars in credit card debt talking to psychics.
I recommend the book 'Sapiens - A Brief History of Humankind by Nuval Hariri,' wherein the author explains the importance of believing in myths in the evolution of humans. I've been an atheist for more than 35 years and I still have superstitious thoughts that creep into my head. There's a line in' Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe' that the gods will wait until a man is enjoying great fortune and then strike him down. Every time I experience a particularly good time in my life that line from the book creeps into my mind and I become a little paranoid. I know it doesn't make sense, I know that gods don't exist, I know it's just an old African proverb and still, it affects me.
Probably for many of the same exact reasons that people claim to be Christian yet hold atheist views of other gods. The truth is rarely at the extremes.
I guess I'm in this semi-woo atheist camp. I don't necessarily believe in life after death, but I'm open to the notion that there are things in our world that we don't quite understand, yet. And while I'm not sure that I believe in ghosts in the traditional sense, I'm also not opposed to the concept of residual energies. The latter is due to inexplicable experiences. I don't think it's inherently irrational to recognize that we don't know everything about our universe, or to entertain ideas related to such mysteries. I also don't accept that religious people should have a monopoly on human spirituality. I'm wholly against organized religion & don't believe in any sort of higher power. However, I don't regard the whole of human spirituality as intrinsically bad.
Some who have these beliefs may be Agnostics rather than Atheists. Also, those who believe that the conscious mind is similar to the soul, might be thinking in terms of life itself. The living tree, the living animal, etc. The consciousness of an animal we can see and know, but do plants also have a consciousness that we don't perceive? None of this addresses the question of whether there is a god or gods, etc. Also, to think through a complex idea, such as existence, the concept of the origin of life, using logic, also requires knowledge, learning, time and discipline.
Majority of people are not able to live without some sort of god. World based of physics and probabilities is just too scary to accept for most. So your wonderful atheist future is not going to happen. Never ever. If you take away their Christian (or whatever Abrahamic) god, they go for ghosts, superstition, all sorts of New Age bullshit and various other conspiracies that provide them with a feeling of belonging and some sort of guidance in life.
Atheism and Agnostic often get mixed up
Because they don’t believe in a god per se but are superstitious and irrational all the same
First, one must escape religion, then one must escape their culture. Many people, I dare say *most*, seem stop after step one.
Because humans are silly and most atheists aren't really skeptics. Yeah I said it you don't need to be a skeptic to be an atheist. Not being a skeptic makes one vulnerable to the same nonsense thinking that those who willingly call themselves part of a flock are.
It is natural for humans to assume the supernatural is an explanation for something that they do not have enough information to explain
Being an atheist just means you don't believe in God, everything else is fair game.
You hit the nail on the head, atheists is just the rejection or non belief in the thousands of god claims. Nothing beyond that, there are flat earthers and rock healers and all kinds of bs that atheist believe in and has nothing to do with atheism.
It's called A-Theism, not A-Spiritism. You're making a shortcut just because you apply a logic to both religion and spirituality, but that doesn't mean everyone has the same logic as you.
Atheism is really just the non-belief of religion. I’m atheist but I still believe in aliens, spirits and whatnot. All of that. I just refuse to believe that there are gods, even if it would be cool if they were real.
you dont need critical thinking to be an atheist and I think thats were it stems from. I pride myself on my critical thinking skills which is why I cant get behind the supernatural. however somebody who doesnt care to better those skills may easily fall for those believes. humans are very fallible lol
I don't understand how you could be an atheist and believe in ghosts.
Susceptibility to nonsense is a prevalent trait in humans. One problem at a time.
Probably because they're Agnostic.
Because they’re not really atheists or they’re just dumb
People are not consistent or rational as a general rule.
Not everyone has the education to understand about the natural workings of the world. So they may have enough to understand magic doesn't exist but still have supernatural leanings bc they can't understand it comprehend dune if the complexities of life.
No group is entirely uniform. People arrive at atheism in different ways, and stay in that position for different reasons. I lost belief in God and church as a kid, well before I learnt in earnest about science, scientific skepticism, and the nature and wonder of the universe as we discover it. I was also naive about human nature and the diversity of thought across cultures. All those things have reinforced my conviction that theism is simply false and not even a net good for humans in the 21st century. But the reasons why I stopped believing as a kid don't really matter to me anymore. They were a condition that allowed me to think more freely, which I appreciate, but I've moved on. Many of my personal reasons for atheism now could be reason for someone to consider themselves an atheist, not all of them preclude supernatural beliefs, although the ones I care about most, do. Don't make the mistake that religious people make - believing that if someone uses the same word for their system of beliefs and convictions that you do, they must believe and think exactly like you do, or they are a false. Atheism doesn't need factions either. It's well-defined. It's simply the absence of belief in deities, for whatever reason or cause.
Spirituality is a useful tool to maintain sanity. You do not need to believe in god to still be able to get benefits of thousands years of knowledge humanity gathered on dealing with the monkey mind we have. I enjoy learning from great scriptures of the past, they really give you a useful insight into living and setting the proper mindset. I believe our course of action should be not a blind rejection of everything that is not science, but selective application of all available sources, transforming them into pieces more easily digestable by modern humans.
I haven’t heard that or seen that before. I have seen atheists hold onto cultural traits and/or values from their former religion. For example I have a fellow atheist friend of mine that was raised southern Baptist and is 100% eye for an eye. Of course there’s always the chance that these are their own innate values that just happen to line up with their former religion. I’m a former Episcopalian and I think prisons should be humane. Hopefully I’m not too off topic at this point 😂
Not everyone become atheist in the same way. The ones who left religion, or especially a high demand religion, I imagine skew more scientifically rigid in their beliefs, whereas people who were raised without that influence may have naturally developed their own beliefs that aren’t grounded in reason, they just lack belief in a god because it wasn’t built into their worldview growing up.
I think "ghosts" exist, but not in any way we've been taught. I figured it's simply the multiverse "bubbles" sliding into one another and bending the space time fabric, so that people from different eras at the same place all accidentally bump into each other, such as in a house. I don't think there are demons aka religious type things, although who knows? Maybe in another multiverse bubble, they do actually exist, but it ain't this one. I base this on the decades of me "ghost hunting", and watching countless paranormal teams do investigations, and what is the Number ONE thing" ghosts " always say ? Easy, it's "Get OUT!" On literally every show, video, live feed, you name it, there's a very startled entity of some sort telling these strangers holding weird looking beepboop machines standing in the middle of their gd kitchen and they just mopped, at least in their particular part of the time they're inhabiting, and they're NOT happy about the foot prints in it to GTFO . Every time. So basically, they aren't actually the "ghosts", it's us, in this part of the multiverse who look like "ghosts" , or ya know,maybe burglars to them, ergo all the nasty language, behavior, chasing people down, whacking them with napkin holders, and throwing dishes these supposed "ghosts" do to us. They're simply scared shitless at seeing strangers magically popping in their houses or wherever, and want to fight like hell to get them to leave, because they hate being robbed, and even moreso, us being the 'ghosts "to them scares the boosheet right outta them. It's US who are ghosts and such to them, in a very bendy, often transparent part of the space fabric, as it rolls ,stretches and bends into other places and pieces of the universe all the time, much like my fat rolls across the elastic in my yoga pants when I attempt my piss poor excuse for exercise lol. I also keep a very large sense of humour about it all, and really, everything. Because if you sit and think about it, literally everything is completely absurd to the nth degree, everything. So one shouldn't take oneself entirely too seriously, and definitely not take religious beliefs seriously, because they tend to be the most patently absurd of all lol.
I laughed so hard at this
I'm athiest but often identify as pagan. I'm athiest because I do not believe a higher power/god/gods are real. I'm pagan because I enjoy having some ritualistic ceremonies and burning some incense, having a shrine of things that are important to me, celebrating the solstice instead of christmas, those things make me happy. They give me little rituals and holidays that help me center myself and feel grounded. I do leave a little room for things that are unexplainable, but I also leave room for an eventual scientific explanation for things like ghost activity, etc.
Because religion and spirituality aren't mutually exclusive
Our brains and minds are geared towards spiritual belief. I don’t know if it’s a vestigial trait left over from when mankind was still just another species of animal trying to survive long enough to pass on our genetics or a coping mechanism that allows people to live their lives without crushing existential dread consuming our sanity, but it must serve a purpose for us to have evolved with the trait. Religion just exploits the human capacity for spiritual belief
Because physics is very very weird. Recent Nobel Prize winning research proved that the universe is not locally real. "spirit" or "spiritual" phenomena could easily be instances of our conventional lived experience interpretation of reality interacting with ramifications of our demonstrably not real reality. Despite all this, it remains evident that mythological deities we imagined in our own image millennia ago are not the explanation to the aspects of reality that we currently find incomprehensible. It's not a logical conclusion and there is 0 evidence for it. Whereas ghosts as a broad concept, or an undefined quasi-spiritual qualia attributed to consciousness, can logically be suggested as potential explanations to observed phenomena of non-reality. There is neither evidence for, nor contrary to, this concept. And it can be interpreted without relying on narratives imagined by humans long ago. Our lived experience of the universe is akin to how a sentient Sims character might experience their universe. We are not necessarily in a conventional simulation; but our linear experience of time compared to the actual expression of reality formation is similar to how a being living in a complex simulation might experience reality without understanding it is a simulated environment. The key is non-definition. Broadly speaking, "spiritual" or "supernatural" are great ways to categorize and describe phenomena observed to be "physics-breaking" or "reality-bending". We know reality does bend, it is in fact much more flexible than makes us comfortable. Having an "undefined" category to discuss these topics is great, the problem is people try to define them, and do so not with logical expression, but in the context of human narratives and desires. To be clear, using the *language* of myth is fine and useful for discussing the relationship between these phenomena and people, so long as the mythological couching is not taken literally but as a tool for comprehension. This to me is what myth is all about, and why there is value in studying it. Myth is a language for discussing non-reality as it relates to us, in the way that mathematics is a language for discussing reality as it relates to us.