Atheist and science … A challenge to thinking on other topics
I for one don’t get this people, why is it that atheist are so close minded that they lack imagination to see some topics as possibilitys examples….
1.) Ghost
2.) Reincarnation (non spiritual)
3.) Conspiracies
4.) Esp and related (telekinesis, spontaneous combustion, etc…)
5.) Ufo’s , Aliens, extraterrestrial life
And all of the above are no relation to gods or then in liken to….
Ok just in case you have forgotten the definition of atheism here…..
Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities.[1] In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities.[2] Most inclusively, atheism is simply the absence of belief that any deities exist.[3] Atheism is contrasted with theism,[4][5] which in its most general form is the belief that at least one deity exists.[5][6]
Link :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism
Nowhere does it say anything about being close minded with lack of inspiration in the scientific field.
Yes I know atheist are skeptics in nature as I am but I always say prove it either way for or against that it does or does not exist… I know that leaves the god question in there but no I CAN prove that wrong. :)
These topics need to be proven though scientific theory, but how? As far as I can see we are still babies in the flow of technology. People forget we did not have iPods and cell phones 30 years ago. We barely had computers and there already 100% faster that then and TV was only invented less than 100 years ago.
Humans have been around for 100,000 years and only in the last 200 have we just created this mega society that has communication (worth mentioning). So why is everybody so narrow minded?
Go ahead tell me how some atheist started being unimaginative and almost hateful to human curiosity?
Let the great debate begin ……
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EDIT:10/28/2011 Please read
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Ok after a few days of running this discussion I have gotten some great replies and now I'm going to tell you why and what I did here....
It was a personal experiment to "poke the bear" and "test the waters" to see what other Atheist were like. I don't actually know any other Atheist personally. I am new to atheism, only being one for a little more than a year or so i was an agnostic before that. I really don't think atheist are closed minded (this post proved that to a degree) though i do think we rely on the main stream in science a little to much because alot of it is controlled, programed, objectified by people who want to control us. OK I know i just sounded like a nutter there, but really look again why does your little one want that new Elmo doll? And why was it a week before any news broke on the OWS ? Though they are rather quick to point out that a terrorist was killed today....
And on the subjects above I do believe we should keep and open mind and not use the easy fall back " no they don't exist" to the proper "undermanned" or "undecided" it gives us just a little more room to grow as humans by implying "we see your point but prove it and we know that's going to be hard to do". yes we are skeptics let us just not be the negative cynical ones (yea that's harder than it sounds).....
Oh and Thank you for putting up your responses it really did help me "see a little more"
yea i'm still answering what i can :)
Richard
Tags: aliens, conspiracies, esp, ghost, reincarnation, ufo
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Isaac on -
The default position is to take the null hypothesis. If someone has evidence for a certain, I'm all ears, but if not, there is no rational reason to entertain such claim as a legitimate possibility.
"Undecided" is way easier to say than "no."
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Permalink Reply by Richard C. on -
cool, thanks for your reply :)
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Permalink Reply by Chad Poelman on -
I'm assuming that most of us on here are not scientists. So for me if there is something I can't observe or test myself, than I trust peer reviewed scientific evidence. I have no problem and would be quite excited if a scientist found a falsifiable way to test a hypothesis of any thing on your list. But until that time we're still left with extraordinary claims that have no evidence. It may be fun to speculate on the topics, and I may even give some topics a higher level of probability than others, but we still do not have enough information to claim a rational belief in most of your list. (I may give an exception for extra-terrestrials. I don't give much credit to abductie and UFO claims, but I believe that our knowledge of evolution and the size of the universe allows for a reasonable belief in the possibility of life on other planets)
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Permalink Reply by Richard C. on
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Thumbs up !
Yes, I agree we are limited to what we can do and unfortunately that we are limited to only what "they" want us to have access to. There are ways we can do things for our selfs but unfortunately once again we don't have "bottomless pockets" I have seen equipment that any one can have access to, but like the people who tell there story's it's not common place events or occurrences on a regular basis. Yea really hard to be at the right place at the right time.....
Unfortunately we ourselfs unless we have a chance to experience any of the mentioned we may never know especially with ghost and aliens....
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Permalink Reply by Doug Reardon on -
I investigated all of those topics years ago and found no support for any of them, so I decided to quit flogging a dead horse. If new credible evidence arises I may change my mind, but until then I won't waste any more time.
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Permalink Reply by Bryan B on -
Agreed. I am convinced if someone comes up with solid evidence of something like the topics mentioned it will be front page news.
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Permalink Reply by Richard C. on
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yes so true to both and understood, only problem though is it will never make "front page" our current media won't allow it. Why ? Because of too many "religious" types....
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Permalink Reply by James on -
Just because most Atheist reject such things doesn't make them close-minded. I'm sure most Atheists are like me, in that they don't believe in these things since there is no proof for them. That said, I am not dead-set in the belief that these things are false. It's simply that there is no evidence to support the claims, and in some cases there is evidence that actually conflicts. I can imagine these things, and should evidence come to light in support of them, I would change my opinion. This openness actually makes me open-minded, not close-minded. For many of us, saying that 'I don't believe in ghosts' is simply a shorter way of saying 'There is no evidence currently available to support the hypothesis that there is a spirit, and that it can survive ones own death to roam the Earth. Because of this, the likelihood of it's existence is highly improbable'. Obviously, the former doesn't express the true thought process as accurately, but brevity often wins out.I will say that I find most items on your list unlikely save one... Extraterrestrial life. Now, I don't think we've been visited, but given the sheer vast numbers of stars and planets in the universe, I would consider the likelihood that there is other life out there somewhere quite probable.
I agree that the term 'Atheist', has no stance on these subjects. However, since most Atheists seem to come to Atheism through skepticism and examination of evidence. With this in mind, it's not surprising that most don't believe in ghosts, or the like. If there's no evidence, it's perfectly valid to doubt. Doubting doesn't make one close-minded or unimaginative though. To me, in the total lack of evidence, the honest thing to do is to say that it is unsupported by evidence and is classed as unlikely (to varying degrees depending of the subject/info) based on what we know thus far. But we still remain open to the possibility of new info or discoveries changing those classifications. I can imagine ways that ghosts could be explained (wandering spirit, mufti-verse bubble crossover, etc), reincarnation (soul flowing from life to life, physical rebirth, recycling of matter), conspiracies (this one would be case by case), ESP (could it be the next step in evolution?), spontaneous combustion (actually I can't think of a way physics or our chemical makeup allows this one to work [assuming what we know to be correct]. The wick effect is the usual factual explanation), UFO's (alien visitors, time travelers, dimensional travelers), aliens (life from other worlds, time, dimension)... I can imagine the scenarios, but I also weigh their individual probabilities. Some may seem very unlikely, a few probable, and a couple likely. The things that seem unlikely are the things we tend not to believe in. But even thou we don't believe in something doesn't mean we are closed off to it. Simply that what we currently know tells us it's unlikely. I can imagine a unicorn. Maybe it is an extinct evolutionary cousin to the horse. There are similar creature to the horse that have two horns, so one doesn't seem like too much of an ask. But there's a problem. Even though I can imagine a scenario where unicorns were real, there is no real evidence they existed, no fossils, no signs of a vestigial horn trait in horses today. Given that this information makes the unicorn's probability slim, I will say that I don't believe unicorns existed. This doesn't mean I'm 100% sure and invested in the stance they didn't exist. Simply that given what I know, there doesn't seem to be a good reason to believe that they did. I wouldn't say that makes me unimaginative though. Heck, I rather enjoy such mythological creatures as the Griffin, Phoenix, Pegasus, Dragons and Snallygaster. I don't believe these are real, but I do think they are interesting and sometimes majestic creations.
Cheers!
James
Cheers!
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Permalink Reply by Richard C. on
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kudos ! thank you for your reply . makes sense to me. there are just allot of folks out there that just say "nope not real" when i think we should say "undecided" to it thats all we really don't know but we do entertain the idea...
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Permalink Reply by Trish E. Harmon on -
I already wrote about what I believe and got lots of blasting for it, but here's the bottom line. As some others have said, what I believe, which is the possibility of ghosts (for lack of a better word) and aliens, affects no one. I am not out "preaching" you better believe in this or else. I just have my own personal experiences to rely on and I do not expect anyone to believe me or to take me seriously if they don't even know me. I know me and that's all that matters. I am not out to convince anyone. If I meet someone with the same beliefs, or at least who is open to the possibility, then it's something I can talk about and have an intelligent conversation about. Otherwise, it is something I don't talk about or think about on a daily basis. I just feel there's something more that we have yet to discover definitively simply from my own experiences.
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Permalink Reply by Richard C. on
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Thank you Trish :)
No. No bashing here. Though I have never experienced any myself I know others who have. I'm just trying to convey to those who just don't take a second thought and just say "nope don't exist" to give the more responsible reply of "undecided" because they truly don't know ether way and opening possibility instead of denial existence of ....
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Permalink Reply by Richard C. on
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see Adam we all do that (though i kinda rigged this post so that i would get that kind of response)...
and thanks for taking the high road :) You will one day young padowan make a great master ...
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