Calling all Atheists!

I am a new member of the Atheist community. After becoming an Agnostic about 6 months ago I recently started watching Bill Maher, Christopher Hitchins, and Richard Dawkins. They have provided me with the information I needed to confirm that I truly don't believe there is a god.

Now here is my question to all my fellow Athest ATS members, do you believe in spirits/supernatural entities in any form? I myself am what I would term an Agnostic to supernatural things, but I truly don't believe in a god.

NO I do not believe in the super natural. Untill I experience it myself or it is scientifically proven then I can not believe.

If science proved there was a god as described in the bible and provided me with hard facts then I would no longer be an Atheist, same applies to belief in the supernatural.

I need proof to believe in things.

reply to post by Misoir


An Atheist is one who does not believe in a god/gods. He/she may believe in spirits, as long as they believe that those 'spirits' can be scientifically proven.

Whether they believe in consciousness footprint left in material that can house electromagnetic energy, or that consciousness moves to another dimension, etc. Though currently, there is no proof of that, so an Atheist would look rather silly believing in that, but it's not unheard of and nobody can tell you what you have experienced.

Just take the most scientific route, and be as skeptical as possible.

reply to post by Misoir



I am not sure whether I believe in a God although yes I did used to but to be perfectly honest I’m just not convinced that there is one

I wouldn’t ever claim that he is not real or anything as I simply don’t know but I’m just not convinced at this exact moment in time.

But I do believe in ghosts/spirits/entities or whatever you want to call them as I've experienced them it personally or I would most certainly call certain past experiences paranormal and most people who actually know me here know that I do my best to remain as sceptical as is possible when dealing with the paranormal and know that I don’t call many experiences paranormal unless I have a good reason to do so


So yes I am not a believer of God (maybe just yet0 but I am a believer of ghosts/spirits/entities.





[edit on 10-5-2010 by Rising Against]

reply to post by Misoir


You can certainly be an atheist and still believe in the supernatural as those above have stated.

The two don't preclude each other.

If anything the two beliefs can go lovingly hand in hand.

Take the bible. If you were to take it literally and get abducted by aliens then that surely would prove the existence of aliens though offers little proof of God.

Same with a lot of what may be termed supernatural.

Keep an open mind to all possibilities and believe what you want to believe. don't let anyone decide for you.

Cheers,
Pablo

Originally posted by pablos


Take the bible. If you were to take it literally and get abducted by aliens then that surely would prove the existence of aliens though offers little proof of God.

If aliens are the god from the Bible It would prove both.

I went through an atheistic phase. I was raised Catholic, now I'm more of an agnostic. Everything has some sort of creationary force behind it. Everything. Be it the chicken and the egg, stars, planets, etc... human birth....

I have a hard time believing that something didnt create all of this. Maybe not designed it and managed it, but there was some sort of creationary force that caused existence to come into being. I doubt it is the Christian God. But something did. It couldn't have just happened from nothing. Energy can't be created or destroyed, so how did it get here in the 1st place? The creationary force. Whether that force is a god or whatever, it exists or existed. Now this is simply my opinion but I've got some sort of science on my side.

Everything began as nothing, the void. The energy that now exists in the former void came from somewhere. So thank you creator. homever you may be.

reply to post by Misoir

I recently started watching Bill Maher, Christopher Hitchins, and Richard Dawkins. They have provided me with the information I needed to confirm that I truly don't believe there is a god.

I wouldn't call that Due Diligence, but we all have our own standards...


On Topic:

Yes, since I believe energy can be left behind after a traumatic or chaotic moment, anything is possible...even a god - though I'll take the spook before the crook.

reply to post by Rising Against


There is one reason for my possible belief in supernatural entities is because of a statement by a psychiatrist.

About 4 years ago my mom took my sister to a psychologist because she has heard voices her whole life and would see figures and voices would talk to her. The psychologist said he doesn’t know what it is, so he sent her to a psychiatrist from Harvard. She told him what she has heard and seen, he said he couldn’t call it schizophrenia so he wrote it down as schizo-effective. But then he told her and my mom that he doesn’t want them to tell anyone else but it is not schizophrenia, but he spent several years in the middle east studying psychiatry and he believes it is ghosts/spirits.

That is the first time I have ever heard of a psychiatrist tell someone that they are hearing and seeing ghosts.

I was raised in the curch, left about age 12 then was agnostic until I started reading all the Richard Dawkins books, I also followed Hitchens watching the online lectures and debates as well as a couple other prominent athiests. But now im extremely spiritual, Im glad I went through the athiest phase because I had to fully explore the other side of the argument, ufortunatly believers will listen with their ears closed to guys like Dawkins so you kind of have to be an athiest to fully grasp their points of view. Im comfortable that I have weighed up both the for and against and am happy in my belief in God, but I never saw it coming...It certainly took me by surprise. It was mostly evidence outside of mainstream media and science...research wider than the narrow scope of Dawkins which did it, some of the findings which ended up swaying me simply were'nt supposed to exist in the censored supression paradigm.

Dawkins himself is open to the type of God I belive in (deep into rare uncut interviews that are out there) simply because he admits it cannot be proven or disproven. I agree with his views on the dogma and doctrine of religion, but pity his low shots on the fundamentalist christian types and their anthropomorphic creator sitting on clouds. I think he would gain more respect by launching attacks on the God Einstien believed in, the god many of todays physicists believe in rather than picking on the easy crowds all the time.

For some reason I admire how many just seem to have "faith" all along, no amount of words will ever sway what they know in their heart to be true. I was never cut out for that path, I needed slow meticulous research and evidence gathering....but looking within and using my own intuition was the silver bullet that made me never look back, unfortunatly you'll probably find what your expecting in meditation so skeptascism wont get you far apart from a little relaxation.

reply to post by Misoir


i'm don't believe in god, not sure if i'm atheist, agnostic, or a pagan worshipping nature, but i believe in the supernatural. i believe in a life after death for all beings, but stay on earth as spirits.

my experiences helped confirm this belief.

I don't believe in God in the conventional sense. I'm stuck between believing that aliens are God or that God is a manifestation of mankinds ego, and the struggle to relate our existance as something special or out of the ordinary, or the drive to understand things that science cannot explain.

I do definately believe in the paranormal, having experienced my fair share of strange events in my life time, which I would love to share one day if I can write them all down legibly.

I say i am atheist, but technically i think i am agnostic & the bulk of the evidence points to no anthropomorphic type god.

Science shows we can not possibly be the only life nor the only intelligent life in this unimaginably vast domain of our Universe.

So some humanoid god just doesn't even make sense.
'All powerful' would have to mean over the entire Universe [& possibly beyond]

And even if there were some kind of supposed all-powerful god, i would reject it. Because my independent, self-willed existence would be canceled out by that.
'All-powerful' means there is no room left for me.
& that doesn't work in my book.

I am nobody's & nothing's puppet as far as i can see [within circumstantial reason] & have no intention of surrendering to anything of that sort.

Do people want to be tyrannized?
Especially by the irrational, psychotic, madmen that seem to the so-called 'god's' of religious texts?

And if god is supposedly all powerful, WTF does he [she? it?] need my acquiescence anyway?
That just doesn't even make sense.

I personally believe there is & always will be infinitely more we will never understand or know about than what little we think we know.

Physics is sort of the rules [functioning relationships] of the Universe. Quantum blows a lot of those out of the water, at least on the hyper-micro scale.

I am sure there are many things we have convincing evidence of that can not be simply, rationally 'explained' by normal means.

I wouldn't exactly leap to attribute elaborate mystic rationales for them, but clearly standard science can't explain them & in most cases avoids them & lives in denial.

I am here to experience [as per my own self-direction]. & perhaps 'learn' if that is or could be useful.

Why aren't we satisfied with the sensory experience itself? [genuine question] Do we think we 'know'/sense there is something more? Do we need to see some deeper subterfuge?
Why shouldn't that under most circumstances be 'enough'?
Are we just naturally suspicious?
Is it our minds compulsion/nature to 'strategize'?
The experience is not enough so we have to leverage it somehow?
I don't know if that is good or bad, or good or bad depending on random circumstances.
We pejoratize hedonism as this horrible thing.
But if it is a light & delicate thing, consuming the splendor of a blue skied day? Smelling the roses along the way.
In a weird way it is almost like we are suspicious, conspiratorial about living well. It may have served some implicit strategy of evolution, but that certainly doesn't make it 'morally superior'.
But i suspect many of our supposed 'moral superiorities' really arise more from our genetic inclinations, rather than some intellectual, mental 'teachings' from some 'divine' book(s).

Any religion that goes against the grain of our [stronger] genetic inclinations can not last, imo.

although if we are to survive as a species i think we really need to examine many ideas that grate on every delicate [& gross] sensibility we have.
But i don't think we [myself probably sadly included] have the intellectual strength & fortitude for that kind of clinical, critical self examination(s).

So i will try to experience the wash of sensory input.
& Try to not let my inevitable [neurotic?] compulsion to 'figure things out', to 'know', overwhelm the simple experience of living.

Part of the joy of experience is the sense of discovery. If you already 'know' you can't discover, more pragmatically you won't bother to experience because you will THINK you already 'know'.

If 'knowledge' becomes a reason not to 'find out' it becomes a kind of death.
'knowledge' that is some kind of interim 'best estimate' keeps it alive, animate & open to change.

Terminal knowledge = death.

The Universe unfolds around us all the time, & perhaps instead of trying to break into that heart of that unfolding & lock & chain it in some steel cage, we may be better off to simply let it unfold as it will.

I don't want to be a hypocrite & overstate it, but i do think we need to at least consider & experiment with taking a different tack.

I think religion/philosophy form the 'basis of operation' for our lives.
I think a firm yet adaptable basis sounds about the best from my perspective.

[edit on 10-5-2010 by slank]

I was raised as a Catholic and taught to believe. After looking at the facts for myself, I came to the conclusion that it was all BS. I don't believe in a god of any kind (except for myself; if I ever decide to die, I've asked to be deified. I've asked that my wife also be deified; heaven can be boring if you're alone...).

I've had an NDE over 20 years ago. I still don't know what to make of it, but it has reinforced my certainty that there is no god. It does, however, resemble what I've been reading this past year about the holographic universe.

As for the supernatural, I do believe that ghosts are the product of some sort of "window" in time where we are seeing some past event.

I believe in aliens, but not in magical beings from the center of the earth.

Although I've once had a very interesting experience with a ouija board, I don't believe in spirits of any kind.

Note that I also don't believe in good or evil; they are just judgement calls. What is good for some is evil for others and vice versa. I don't think that rape, incest, child pornography etc, should be rated in the good vs evil debate; they are something else. Something totally disgusting, universally agreed upon as bad, but I believe they are outside of the realm of good vs evil.

Hello,

Im an anthiest to a extent. I believe there is things in this world that are unexplainable at the moment but i believe we didnt come from monkeys or from a explosion.


If there is a god out there hes not as powerful as people think and hes not a damning god. He could offer advice or something but i dont believe in walking on water or turning water into wine and stuff like that.


I sorta believe in spirits.I dunno about ghosts because theres no real evidence in it. Ive never seen a ghost i have had things happen to me that i cant explain. But I dunno if its wasnt my mind playing tricks on me.


Without real proof from pictures and video its hard to believe in spirits. So i guess i kinda do kinda dont.. lol

Okay, I have some questions for you.

Is it important to you that a belief be based on fact? If you think that the purpose of intelligence is to reinforce an existing belief, then just believe in whatever you want to be true, since you'll probably just end up short-circuiting your critical reasoning in order to rationalize the belief anyway.


To you, is a belief in spirits an important belief, or an unimportant one? Is it worth spending resources to validate this belief?

Is it acceptable to just admit ignorance on the subject? What's the point in believing or not believing in them anyway? Would either situation affect how your actions shape the future?

reply to post by Misoir


I don't believe in the supernatural but I do believe there are elements within nature we might not understand. I am an atheist but I have had quite a few paranormal experiences. I am not sure what caused those experiences but I am sure that jumping to the conclusion of it being a spirit isn't the best idea. So my paranormal experiences have led to me becoming a sort of open-minded skeptic about the paranormal and I've been on quite a few paranormal investigations, one in which I, and the other investigators, experienced some downright spooky stuff.

So to conclude, I am an agnostic atheist (the two ideas aren't necessarily at odds), I do believe in the paranormal because I've experienced it but I am unsure exactly what caused the experiences I had. I wouldn't be presumptuous enough to say all my experiences were for sure a ghost or spirit, some other phenomenon might be at work.

Originally posted by slank
I say i am atheist, but technically i think i am agnostic & the bulk of the evidence points to no anthropomorphic type god.

Science shows we can not possibly be the only life nor the only intelligent life in this unimaginably vast domain of our Universe.

So some humanoid god just doesn't even make sense.
'All powerful' would have to mean over the entire Universe [& possibly beyond]

And even if there were some kind of supposed all-powerful god, i would reject it. Because my independent, self-willed existence would be canceled out by that.
'All-powerful' means there is no room left for me.
& that doesn't work in my book.

I am nobody's & nothing's puppet as far as i can see [within circumstantial reason] & have no intention of surrendering to anything of that sort.

Do people want to be tyrannized?
Especially by the irrational, psychotic, madmen that seem to the so-called 'god's' of religious texts?

And if god is supposedly all powerful, WTF does he [she? it?] need my acquiescence anyway?
That just doesn't even make sense.

I personally believe there is & always will be infinitely more we will never understand or know about than what little we think we know.

Physics is sort of the rules [functioning relationships] of the Universe. Quantum blows a lot of those out of the water, at least on the hyper-micro scale.

I am sure there are many things we have convincing evidence of that can not be simply, rationally 'explained' by normal means.

I wouldn't exactly leap to attribute elaborate mystic rationales for them, but clearly standard science can't explain them & in most cases avoids them & lives in denial.

I am here to experience [as per my own self-direction]. & perhaps 'learn' if that is or could be useful.

Why aren't we satisfied with the sensory experience itself? [genuine question] Do we think we 'know'/sense there is something more? Do we need to see some deeper subterfuge?
Why shouldn't that under most circumstances be 'enough'?
Are we just naturally suspicious?
Is it our minds compulsion/nature to 'strategize'?
The experience is not enough so we have to leverage it somehow?
I don't know if that is good or bad, or good or bad depending on random circumstances.
We pejoratize hedonism as this horrible thing.
But if it is a light & delicate thing, consuming the splendor of a blue skied day? Smelling the roses along the way.
In a weird way it is almost like we are suspicious, conspiratorial about living well. It may have served some implicit strategy of evolution, but that certainly doesn't make it 'morally superior'.
But i suspect many of our supposed 'moral superiorities' really arise more from our genetic inclinations, rather than some intellectual, mental 'teachings' from some 'divine' book(s).

Any religion that goes against the grain of our [stronger] genetic inclinations can not last, imo.

although if we are to survive as a species i think we really need to examine many ideas that grate on every delicate [& gross] sensibility we have.
But i don't think we [myself probably sadly included] have the intellectual strength & fortitude for that kind of clinical, critical self examination(s).

So i will try to experience the wash of sensory input.
& Try to not let my inevitable [neurotic?] compulsion to 'figure things out', to 'know', overwhelm the simple experience of living.

Part of the joy of experience is the sense of discovery. If you already 'know' you can't discover, more pragmatically you won't bother to experience because you will THINK you already 'know'.

If 'knowledge' becomes a reason not to 'find out' it becomes a kind of death.
'knowledge' that is some kind of interim 'best estimate' keeps it alive, animate & open to change.

Terminal knowledge = death.

The Universe unfolds around us all the time, & perhaps instead of trying to break into that heart of that unfolding & lock & chain it in some steel cage, we may be better off to simply let it unfold as it will.

I don't want to be a hypocrite & overstate it, but i do think we need to at least consider & experiment with taking a different tack.

I think religion/philosophy form the 'basis of operation' for our lives.
I think a firm yet adaptable basis sounds about the best from my perspective.

[edit on 10-5-2010 by slank]

Just because(if) there is an "all powerful" God that created the Universe doesn't mean he interferes with you or is even aware of your existence. He could be just the force that created the universe because he was bored with the nothingness of the void. I doubt an all powerful God, human or otherwise would be concerned with one particular individual at all.

Geez, kid. That's probably the least informed decision I've ever seen.

One cannot possibly be scientifically minded and outright refute any cosmological creation theory. No, I don't believe in some silly god-figure, and I certainly don't believe in any kind of omnipotent being that gives a rats tail about us. I do, however, think that there is simply no possible way for us to ever prove such a thing empirically. We cannot begin to comprehend what was there (if anything was there) before the universe came into existence - the laws of physics, which govern our existence, break down at some juncture and we simply cannot unravel such an event 14 billion years after the fact.

To believe, philosophically, that there is no god, sure. I can accept such a thing, even with the barest of understandings. Listening to pundits and atheist speakers (more or less akin to evangelists working the opposite angle) may convince you, but to KNOW such a thing is ignorance, and it makes you as arrogant as those who feel the entire universe was created with us in mind.

Make your own decisions, come to your own conclusions. Don't even listen to me without taking some time to really think about things for yourself - I certainly know I've been wrong before.