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What belief is weirder
Being a skeptic and believing in god 39%  39%  [ 7 ]
Being an atheist and believing in the supernatural 61%  61%  [ 11 ]
Total votes : 18

DevilKisses
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04 Jan 2016, 9:16 pm

What do you think?


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Ishi2
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04 Jan 2016, 9:26 pm

You can believe in a god and still be skeptical, but to be an atheist is totally opposite of believing in the supernatural, making it the weirdest.


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kraftiekortie
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04 Jan 2016, 9:29 pm

Neither. I think believing that juice is good in cereal is weird.



naturalplastic
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04 Jan 2016, 9:56 pm

Ishi2 wrote:
You can believe in a god and still be skeptical, but to be an atheist is totally opposite of believing in the supernatural, making it the weirdest.


This.



kraftiekortie
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04 Jan 2016, 9:57 pm

A belief in the "supernatural" is not inconsistent with atheism. All atheism is: a total non-belief in a tangible God/gods. I believe many atheists believe in metaphysics.

A skeptic who believes in God is probably just having doubts. He/she wants more evidence.



naturalplastic
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04 Jan 2016, 10:28 pm

kraftiekortie wrote:
A belief in the "supernatural" is not inconsistent with atheism. All atheism is: a total non-belief in a tangible God/gods. I believe many atheists believe in metaphysics.

A skeptic who believes in God is probably just having doubts. He/she wants more evidence.




She didnt say "a skeptic ABOUT God". She just said "skeptic".

A skeptic is a person who looks for evidence about anything. Since the data is incomplete about the existence of god a skeptic could end up being theist, atheist, or agnostic.

But an atheist who believes in metaphysics would be somewhat of a contradiction. Believing that there are supernatural forces in the Universe but not believing in a supernatural head honcho for the Universe would be an odd combination of beliefs.

Atleast in the West it would be an odd combination. There have been "atheistic" sects of Hinduism in which there are metaphysical laws of karma, but no head deity. But thats not quite the same thing as modern Western Atheism.



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04 Jan 2016, 10:37 pm

An atheist does not accept that there is a god or gods; that says nothing about the existence of other things beyond what most accept as "natural". One might believe in ghosts, for instance, so long as one does not believe that a ghost is a soul created by a god or god(s), and still be an atheist.

I've also known religious Believers who question every aspect of the faith they are taught or expected to conform to. I've also known plenty of Believers who are skeptical of Science. The latter simply have their own very different definition of, "proof" and "empirical knowledge".

I'm stumped, DevilKisses; which one *is* weirder???


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04 Jan 2016, 10:39 pm

Atheists are not supposed to believe in anything. God, Satan, Buddah, the Easter Bunny... so believing in things like ghosts or fairies or whatever wouldn't make sense.

A person who is agnostic may be skeptical of God's existence because there's no real proof. But they may not disbelieve either, since life is full mysteries that we'll probably never know the answers to, and trying to come up with an answer would drive us insane so it's better to just accept that.



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04 Jan 2016, 11:16 pm

The One True God people then go off about his girlfriend, brother in law, the child his girlfriend raised with his brother in law, and his enemy that is as powerful as himself.

It is a rewrite of the Baal story.

Skeptics refuse to believe in anything, which is lazy.



Edenthiel
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04 Jan 2016, 11:34 pm

lostonearth35 wrote:
Atheists are not supposed to believe in anything. God, Satan, Buddah, the Easter Bunny... so believing in things like ghosts or fairies or whatever wouldn't make sense.

A person who is agnostic may be skeptical of God's existence because there's no real proof. But they may not disbelieve either, since life is full mysteries that we'll probably never know the answers to, and trying to come up with an answer would drive us insane so it's better to just accept that.


a-theist = no theist = no deity = no god

Nothing else is implied nor specified by the word. It pertains only to cosmology; they do not accept that the universe (including us humans) was created by a deity of any sort.


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kraftiekortie
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05 Jan 2016, 1:24 am

An atheist doesn't believe in a God/gods who is consciously aware of his/her/its existence.

They could believe in "forces" which are not conscious of their own existence.

I don't believe in either.



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05 Jan 2016, 3:17 am

One of the drivers of atheist belief is the apparent inconsistency of an omnipotent deity with the moral imperatives inherent in many religions (as per the classical "Problem of Evil").

However, many supernatural beliefs (although similarly unsupported by empirical evidence) do not fall in to the above category.

A belief in an extremely powerful being capable of shooting laser beams from his/her eyes, using telekinesis to move entire mountains, touching MC Hammer and moving at super-light speed may challenge what we know about the laws of physics, but such a belief does not raise the same philosophical objections as an all-powerful benevolent creator of the Universe.



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05 Jan 2016, 6:00 am

DevilKisses wrote:
What do you think?


I think I need to know what definition of supernatural you're using. As already mentioned, it can simply mean "relating to metaphysics".



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05 Jan 2016, 7:09 am

Actually, "metaphysics " does not exclusively refer to the supernatural. Any system that seeks to explain/describe reality is metaphysical. Materialism is metaphysics. Idealism is metaphysics.
Unfortunately, the new age movement has co-opted the term and now most people think it refers exclusively to the supernatural.
Meta- physics. "Meta" refers to a higher level of abstraction. Physics asks what are the laws of physics. Metaphysics asks why they exist. A metaphysical question is, "why is there something rather then nothing". In this sense quantum mechanics is metaphysical. It deals in virtual particles etc. However, that does not mean that it postulates ghosts, God or chakras.
Actually, chakras, spoon bending, rieki,ghosts, angels...have nothing to do with metaphysics. (regardless if they exist or not) They are not a higher level of abstraction.


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05 Jan 2016, 7:19 am

If one (wrongly ) defines "metaphysics " as supernatural. Then when one says that "supernatural " is what relates to metaphysics, one has commited a tautology. Supernatural is what relates to the supernatural.


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05 Jan 2016, 7:36 am

I guess new age people confuse abstractions with ghosts! Abstractions are not ghosts!
Grammer asks, " what are the rules of grammer, do I capitalize names,etc. Meta-grammar asks,how do those rules facilitate communication (Chomsky for example.)


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