hinduwoman

Yeah, atheism means no belief in god/s. It does not refer to any other metaphysical forces.
So Jains and Buddhists are both atheists and believers in reincarnation and nirvana.

happyboy

oh, don't get me started on magic. i have 3 wiccans friends who blather on and on and on about magic. i get very tired very quickly hearing about this topic.

Shadowy Man

Not trying to be too much of a hard-ass, but when you say "energy" you don't mean the same thing as scientists who use the word mean, right?

How about "essence" or "aura" or something? Energy actually means something specific and is highly measurable.

Kuu

I know an atheist who believes in ghosts. He thinks the soul lingers on if a person dies suddenly and talks on about how Ground Zero is haunted. He also believes that science will prove the existence of a soul (actually he believes some scientists already have)

fando

Thanks for clarifying, but this only reaffirms what I've been thinking: That the whole point of discussing methodological naturalism is to show that science has nothing to do with supernaturalism. That's why I called it an artificial construct -- it's merely a conceptual framework used to demonstrate the futility of using science to study all these supernatural phenomena. Nevertheless, I agree with the conclusion.

It hardly surprises me that people can claim to be both atheist and astrologers. I don't think critical thinking and awareness of the influence of emotion on belief are requirements to be an atheist. It's easy to imagine an atheist who became so primarily because of a bad experience. The skepticism can develop afterward.

happyboy

magic, astrology, etc etc, all a load of bull****. i have very low levels of respect for anyone who believes in magic or the supernatural.

a highly annoyed happyboy who's very tired of hearing about this subject

-RRH-

I can read tarot, and palms a little bit. I view them as just useful tools for dredging up subconcious knowledge, and not as anything supernatural.

Though some people view subconcious knowledge as infallible, I don't. The reason we have an intellect is because our subconcious is sometimes completely wrong.

lisarea

While I would personally tend to agree on astrology, magic, etc., and in fact, discount out of hand the whole concept of anything supernatural, I wouldn't go so far as to actually get angry at the mention of things I don't personally believe in.

There are as many belief systems out there as there are people, and I don't see much difference in the knee-jerk reactions of hardcore skeptics and the same thing from hardcore theists.

We don't know everything there is to know about the way we communicate, and we can't accurately describe every natural phenomena out there. We do know that the human brain has some vestigial instincts that help us do things we cannot yet articulate. Language, for example. We could never do that by thinking about it.

To discount out of hand that people have access to certain intuitive resources that we can't describe would be, I think, capricious.

I don't mean to defend magical thinking by any stretch, but magical thinking itself is a natural phenomenon, and merits investigation in its own rite, if nothing else.

crocodile deathroll

Ghosts are also described as supernatural deities. I doubt he would be a true athiest if he believed in such supernatural beings.

All the Buddhists I know in fact do not believe in such things.

Philosoft

I don't consider a ghost a deity. "Deity" implies a divine nature; indeed, the root word is the Latin Deus.

I don't believe I've met a Buddhist who believes in ghosts either.