Profiling the atheist

Much as I like and respect the work of Michael Tymn, I think there is a danger, when producing a list such as this, of caricature. Most of us would agree that there is probably not a single atheist who checks all of the listed characteristics yet, despite what fls claims, we all know some in whom we would recognise at least a few of those listed. I certainly know of several.

I have some quite strident atheists among my close family and friends with whom I've had some lively discussions and my frustration has never been that there is an unwillingness to accept the existence of God/gods. I'm fine with that and understand that anyone is free to reject belief in anything. I, myself, do not believe in the kind of God that my religious friends believe in and reject much of the teaching of organised religion.

No, my frustration comes with their rejection of any possibility of a spiritual reality along with the rejection of religion. A belief in the afterlife, therefore, must be a religious belief and is counted as part of religious superstition. Thus atheism's scope is extended beyond the theological to the spiritual and further to the non-physical (as we have witnessed with Steve001 and his crusade against what he terms "immaterialism"). So, while attacks are concentrated on the reviled god, the concept of which usually aligns closely with the Old Testament Abrahamic God, whatever spiritual baggage they can attach gets included in the attacks.

Mostly, I find that atheists and I are not having an argument where the concepts are understood to be the same by both sides. I'm almost always confronted by #6:


But this God who allows such horrors is, apparently, now my God and I am confronted with examples of divine retribution from Leviticus or Deuteronomy. What is this fixation many atheists have with the Old Testament and how does it disprove the afterlife? Why am I expected to justify the actions of a capricious God that I don't believe in either? 

This is not some bogus charge against atheists, as fls would have it, because I guarantee that I am not the only one to have faced that argument head on. The impression that I am left with after such discussions is that there is at least a degree of truth to the characteristics described in points 3, 4, 5, 7, 8 and 9. It is the security that many atheists feel that science is on their side and that science shines a light on superstition and shows it to be without substance. Then, of course, they feel free to list what they consider to be superstitions, claiming the authority of science as justification.

Dear Karmy, show the world a superstition that turned out to be true. Let me rephrase. Show the world a superstition than went from being one to something that is a clearly demonstratable to occur. So far that hasn't been done in the entire history of humankind, that's why the reliance upon science to distinguish superstition from reality.

Dear Karmy, show the world a superstition that turned out to be true.

Oh let's see, microorganisms, iron hulled boats, the earth revolving around the sun, plate tectonics if I remember correctly, most of newtonian physics...

These aren’t matters of opinion. I wasn’t raised in a religious or fundamentalist (of any type) family, I wasn’t rebellious against authority (didn’t really apply), I don’t believe/assume those things which are prefaced with “believes/assumes”, etc.

Those few you mentioned may not be but I would guess that others here might dissagree. For example I would argue if there's any that I could say you are probably guilty of it would be

4) cannot now believe anything that can’t be replicated and validated by science;

11)  doesn’t fully grasp the difference between evidence and proof;

Building a proper behavior map is way too much effort to spend on this comment but the one single thing that I would say sums this up the best is this piece of this comment from this thread and it's link:

I can't come up with three. Spontaneous events need to be documented under blind conditions and of the "all or none" type to be evidence, and I don't know of anything that fits that criteria, even my personal experiences.

The two logical problems with this are

1: Stating that it must be of the all or none type is a threshold argument. I.e an argument that states that the thing is not actually the thing until it passes a certain, arbitrary threshold. Such as trying to argue a bale of hay isn't made of hay until it weighs 500kg. Even though it's still made out of the exact same substance at 499kg and lower. 

2: There is no such thing as all or none under empricism, Even within the conditions set by your associated link. Th universe is an open system and it is thus impossible to control all variables and get an all or nothing answer to anything in the universe from within the universe. There can thus be no true "facts" under empiricism.

I've had experiences that fit that criteria and yet, thanks to my refusal to acknowledge the possible reality, I still ended up not believing them and attempted to twist them to somehow, someway, be just in my head. My favorite example is when a spirit I'll call Crimson beat the shit out of me in a projection out of frustration since there seemed to be nothing she or anyone else could do to convince me that they were real people and not in my head because no evidence was ever good enough for me. I ended up with a black eye, bleeding nose, two loose teeth on my lower left jaw, and assorted cuts and bruises all over the left side of my body. All while sitting in a crowded library. Yet after that, despite there being literally nothing else that that could've been, I still wasn't convinced. I still tried to twist it around and tell myself that maybe, somehow, someway, it was all in my head.

So when someone actually believes there's such a thing as "all or nothing" evidence, that's a major red flag that that's someone who doesn't understand empiricism, Who doesn't understand their own bias or that they even have one. And thus someone who is more likely to misrepresent and misinterpret evidence due to that perception.

Don't get me wrong, I think I tick off a few thing on  here to varying degrees, Namely points 9, 17, 19, and 21. Maybe 11 as well. But it would be dangerous for you or anyone else to assume they don't tick off anything at all.

i suspect the only relevant statement is “hardcore”, and “atheist” is immaterial. That is, it is a description of dogmatism, not atheism. The author simply worded the points so they were specific to dogmatic atheism, but with a little rewording, it could be made into a list of characteristics of hardcore believers.

Had you read the article the author was pretty specific about what he was talking about, namely talking to people about afterlife research. That's where his list came from. The fact that you could easily make it into a list for hardcore believers is more damning to atheism, not less. It's the reason why people joke about atheism being just another religion and people following the "church of scientism". Because those people, despite their claims of rationality, are known to make the exact same arguments as the religious people they criticize. It's why the term skeptic has become associated with people who categorically deny things that go against their, typically, atheistic/materialist worldview. To the point that even people within those spheres don't want to be associated with the word anymore.

. If you look at the reference I provided earlier, dogmatism is found at a higher level among the religious, than the non-religious, though.

Mass atheism, especially organized atheism, is such a new thing that I don't think you can accurately say that. It's like arguing a car that's been out for two weeks is the safest thing in the world because there's no accidents on it yet. Yeah it's technically true, but it's also only been two weeks. I'm going to wait a good 50 years before deciding how atheism actually fares compared to religions.

I could very easily see it turning into a Gattca style genetic superiority thing and also creating a scientific elite, something you already see with the increasingly popularization of "Technoracy" a socio-economic model dreamed up back in the 20's if I remember correctly but has a large amount of backing and funding from very powerful and influential people today. A model that almost literally turns scientists into a clergy, cloistering themselves and their knowledge away from the public eye. Basically like Plato's concept of Philosopher Kings on steroids. Or Brave New World. Take your pick.

Oh let's see, microorganisms, iron hulled boats, the earth revolving around the sun, plate tectonics if I remember correctly, most of newtonian physics...

Stones falling from the sky, aka meteorites.

Oh let's see, microorganisms, iron hulled boats, the earth revolving around the sun, plate tectonics if I remember correctly, most of newtonian physics...

Poor examples. Let's consider ghosts, faeries, vampires, non local consciousness, gods and goddesses... You know.

Oh let's see, microorganisms, iron hulled boats, the earth revolving around the sun, plate tectonics if I remember correctly, most of newtonian physics...

You could have added meteorites.    [EDIT: Damn, someone beat me to it!]

"Stones cannot fall from the sky, because there are no stones in the sky!"   – Antoine Lavoisier, An Important Scientist.

Actually, the point I was trying to make was not that some superstitions turn out to be true (although, as you point out, that happens) but that declaring something a superstition based upon one's favourite dogma is mere prejudice. Looking at an example from the other direction, some scientists used to endorse eugenics and associated theories of racial inferiority. These were superstitions given scientific authority due to the support afforded to them by prominent scientists and we all know of the horrors they led to in the 1940's. 

Again, the point is not to defend superstition but to show that the word can be used in a pejorative sense when it suits a particular argument. From a personal perspective, I regard the evidence brought forth through thousands of NDE accounts enough to dispel the superstition tag. Ian Stevenson's work on cases of (possible) reincarnation appears to have been taken quite seriously by arch-skeptic, Carl Sagan, as Jim Tucker points out in his review of Stevenson's research. 

In 1996, Carl Sagan, the late astronomer and a founding member of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), wrote in The Demon-Haunted World, "At the time of writing there are three claims in the [parapsychology] field which, in my opinion, deserve serious study," with the third being "that young children sometimes report details of a previous life, which upon checking turn out to be accurate and which they could not have known about in any other way than reincarnation." (Sagan, 1996: 302). 

Alan Turing was similarly impressed by data indicating the case for telepathy. He is quoted in this article (worth reading although Steve will, no doubt, studiously ignore it) in the Scientific American.

Brilliant Scientists Are Open-Minded about Paranormal Stuff, So Why Not You?

As Turing noted, paranormal phenomena such as telepathy and telekinesis "seem to deny all our usual scientific ideas. How we should like to discredit them! Unfortunately the statistical evidence, at least for telepathy, is overwhelming. It is very difficult to rearrange one's ideas so as to fit these new facts in. Once one has accepted them it does not seem a very big step to believe in ghosts and bogies. The idea that our bodies move simply according to the known laws of physics, together with some others not yet discovered but somewhat similar, would be one of the first to go."

Even if Sagan and Turing were being slightly mischievous (which seems to be the spin preferred by later atheistic commentators), there is no doubt that the default atheist claim of "no evidence" accompanied by derisive terms such as "woo" can be seen for what it is: a lie.

Poor examples. Let's consider ghosts, faeries, vampires, non local consciousness, gods and goddesses... You know.

Yeah the stuff you personally label superstitions that are easy to handwave, not that which got widely, culturally labelled as such which make better historical examples requiring actual intellectual rigour to discuss.

Yeah the stuff you personally label superstitions ...

Exactly my point.

You could have added meteorites.    [EDIT: Damn, someone beat me to it!]



Actually, the point I was trying to make was not that some superstitions turn out to be true (although, as you point out, that happens) but that declaring something a superstition based upon one's favourite dogma is mere prejudice. Looking at an example from the other direction, some scientists used to endorse eugenics and associated theories of racial inferiority. These were superstitions given scientific authority due to the support afforded to them by prominent scientists and we all know of the horrors they led to in the 1940's. 

Again, the point is not to defend superstition but to show that the word can be used in a pejorative sense when it suits a particular argument. From a personal perspective, I regard the evidence brought forth through thousands of NDE accounts enough to dispel the superstition tag. Ian Stevenson's work on cases of (possible) reincarnation appears to have been taken quite seriously by arch-skeptic, Carl Sagan, as Jim Tucker points out in his review of Stevenson's research. 


Alan Turing was similarly impressed by data indicating the case for telepathy. He is quoted in this article (worth reading although Steve will, no doubt, studiously ignore it) in the Scientific American.

Brilliant Scientists Are Open-Minded about Paranormal Stuff, So Why Not You?


Even if Sagan and Turing were being slightly mischievous (which seems to be the spin preferred by later atheistic commentators), there is no doubt that the default atheist claim of "no evidence" accompanied by derisive terms such as "woo" can be seen for what it is: a lie.

I don't like saying it's an outright lie because in order for it to be a lie the person has to be consciously aware that they aren't telling the truth. I think more cases are people just not bothering to look up whether there's evidence or not, or in some cases having trouble finding good sources. Either way it's still not good.

But yeah, the term superstition, much like the term science among other things, are just labels that can ultimately be applied to anything. Its basically just a source bias at that point. I think it's important to recognize that I and everyone else are equally susceptible to the logical failings we criticize in others. And that the moment that someone believes they're totally free of such failings is probably the moment that they're most guilty of them. Also to recognize that, in the real world, logic is generally quite grey and no one really knows anything. Understanding that helps keep you from falling into the source bias trap, labeling what we believe in as science and what we don't believe in as superstition. Although I doubt I or anyone can guarantee they'll never fall in it anyways.

Even if Sagan and Turing were being slightly mischievous (which seems to be the spin preferred by later atheistic commentators), there is no doubt that the default atheist claim of "no evidence" accompanied by derisive terms such as "woo" can be seen for what it is: a lie.

There's some discussiion of Turing's opinions here:
https://psiencequest.net/forums/thread-a...ng-and-psi

I haven't seen any evidence to suggest that Turing was being anything other than straightforward in his statements about telepathy. In that other thread I quoted an essay he wrote when he was 19, indicating that at that time he believed in a spirit distinct from the body, which was able to determine the behaviour of matter in the brain and possibly in the outside world, and which would become associated with another body after physical death. His views about the spirit may or may not have changed later, but he does seem to have been impressed by the experimental evidence for telepathy.

In contrast Sagan thought these phenomena were unlikely to exist, but thought that some of them deserved serious study:
https://psiencequest.net/forums/thread-t...1#pid20461