Atheism = No Spiritual Dimensions To Reality?
 

I just had a personal realization- that I've been laboring under an assumption. :o

And that is simply that all atheists by definition cannot believe in any "spiritual dimensions", "spirit realm", or however you would define it.

In thinking about it more deeply, I can see how that may be an oversimplification.

Do any of you know more about this?

* - this thought line came up as a result of the Ouija board thread in the Parenting forum.

I see atheism as an "against" position, i.e. "against" a description of reality as defined by another belief system. To me, this appears to allow the statement of one's position to be defined by the opposition. An atheist is defined by the existence of theism. Insomuch as atheism is a belief system, it is defined by the characteristis of theism. . . . To me, this is not a thinking person's position. It is, at most, a picket sign.

Ruminator, you are right.
The atheists I have known are not given to believing in anything like a spiritual realm. At all. I am not sure why this would bother anyone else.

It's not so much "against" as "lack of". You can also be "against" but it isn't necessary. It is defined by theism in the same way that "gentile" is defined by Judaism. Before Judaism, everyone was gentile, but there was no need for a word for it. "Gentile" isn't a worldview or a belief system, and neither is "atheist".

Atheists are likely to reject all "spiritual" explanations for phenomena, but the only thing that is atheist by definition is the lack of belief in deities.

I consider myself an atheist because there are no gods I believe in.

The spiritual world doesn't really interest me, I'm pretty happy just checking out the natural world. The spirituality of others doesn't offend me in any way, but like I said to Els the other night, it just seems like roll playing games to me.

To qualify my previous statements: I would say that a person who identifies themselves as a "hardcore athiest" is going to great lengths to disassociate themselves from an established belief system; and making little statement towards what their own personal belief system is.

I am less interested in being a member of the "2 + 2 is NOT 5 like they said" club, than the "2 + 2 IS 4 and here's why" club.

It's just about redressing the balance, Flint. If the status quo were not such that atheism is by its nature suspect to many people, and religion underpins much of society, 'hardcore atheists' would not feel the need to bang a drum.

It's less about the strength of belief than it is about the vehemence of that belief, in the face of a world that is primarily theistic in nature and hostile to atheism.

You're right. I agree.

I think it is possible for an Atheist to believe in some spiritual dimensions to reality.

Atheism is the denial of the existence of a particular kind of being: A Theos, a theistic deity, i.e an immanent, transcendental god.

This does not necessarily rule out other "spiritual" beliefs - ghosts, reincarnation, spirits and spirit guides, karma, animist spirits, nature spirits, magic etc etc.

Of course most Atheists don't believe in such things, but there is room for it.

The spirits that I know, and most fear, are usually seen in the bottom of a glass.

A (with out, lacking) Theism (Belief in a deity)

Someone who believes that there is no spiritual dimension to reality is a materialist - everything that exists can be described as purely natural, and nothing that it is outside of the physical world participates in the causal chain.

All materialists are by definition atheists, but not all atheists are materialists.

I dunno. They say they aren't (materialists). But there is no proof. But I have also been an atheist.

I don't believe in the supernatural. I don't believe in re-incarnation, an afterlife, or spirits...because it seems unlikely; based more on what is desirable than an explanation for what is. Were these things to exist then we would have to redraw the bounds of nature to incorporate them. I see no need to have a supernatural explanation for anything that exists.

I think that's a bad analogy for the theist/atheist comparison. Gentile is a label for an out group, not an in-group appellation. The atheists I know label themselves such, while no gentile I know uses that label unless referring to themselves from a Jewish perspective.

Now I've got that Madonna song stuck in my head. Living...

If humanity is any indication of an inherent spiritual nature then I would say yes, I've met althiests who seem to posses a spiritual nature and some spiritualists who are kooks and some Christains who have no humanity at all.


I know that was overkill of an answer btw.

Wasn't overkill. I think it demonstrates the problem of definition quite nicely.

Thanks guys.

Zengum, you are picking up exactly my line of thought.
That holding an atheistic belief doesn't necessitate an automatic disbelief in all things spiritual, ie. that if all of the physical universe came into existence without a Creator, then a spiritual realm might well have also done so.

So I'm wondering if there is any developed body of thought along this line at this point.

There would be no need to refer to oneself as an atheist except from a religious perspective. If not for religion, there would be no need for the word atheist. It would just be the way things are.

That's true, but I think it denies the importance of the social aspects of the issue. There's a big difference between labeling oneself and being labeled by others. Which might be a tangential point in this conversation.

"might be"... :p and not the first, but we all know threads go various places in their evolution. :D

Perhaps it can be the form that the spiritual world(s) take, too. Rather than a human-shaped supernatural being with a name who takes an interest in human affairs, the spiritual world can be life forces that share space with the physical. I can't go for the superhuman being(s), but I'm not a-spiritual. The physical world is easier to deal with but the non-physical has its attraction, too.

"So you do believe in evolution," HJL advanced.

Atheism does allow for spirituality, though the few flat-out atheists i have known seem to tend to the 'no supernatural soul and nothing metaphysical in this world' camp.

Buddhists, however, can be atheists yet still hold to the idea that the soul lives on in rebirth until nirvana? That I would call a spiritual dimension.

It almost sounds like, according to what you are saying, I am a materialist. I don't even think "supernatural" should be a word--it's impossible.

But I don't consider myself an atheist. At all. Why does God have to be outside of the physical world? I think of the universal intelligence as the all-inclusive organization of the patterns of the physical universe.

And I don't discount the existance of what is percieved as a spiritual realm. It's simply a part of nature we don't understand yet; and probably aren't designed to ever understand. But that doesn't make it not exist.

I struggle with the fact that people percieve a conflict here. I can, quite easily, agree with everything believed within religion, without violating everything believed within science.

Ah well, you are among the first atheists I have known that have not denied a spritual realm. Usually when I spoke to my atheist friends about it, they acted like they wanted to vomit, then argue.

So you are special. So you are our unique little atheist.

Atheists can talk all day about natural law. I've just never heard one advocate the existence of a spiritual realm. They usually chalk it up to superstition and are done with it. And by "superstition" they mean, getting a shitty look on their face.

Heh. Maybe someday, we can create our own spiritual realm; some sort meetingplace of the minds where the flesh is unimportant.
We shall call it --

Teh Interwebs.


Other than that smart-aleck comment, I agree completely with what jinx said:

HLJ, yes I sure do believe in evolution. It is a readily observable process within various species; or like in the example of this threads development.

Flint, I couldn't agree more.

Flint, how do you mean that?
I believe God must be "outside of the physical world" in the sense that He isn't reliant upon it for His existence. The physical universe exists within the realm of time, and God transcends time.
God created time for the physical universe to exist in.

If I believed in a "universal intelligence" that definition would work well for a start. But I don't believe it exists.

That speaks to me as well.

Though I don't understand how you manage that?

jinx and Pie, There is so much beauty and mystery in the physical natural world I totally understand how you feel.
But the mysteries of time, eternity, and the spirit realm fascinate me and stir my mind.

Sounds like Flind might be a Deist.

A theist believes in a God which is Immanent (fills the universe) and Transcendental (goes beyond the universe).

A deist believes in a God which is immanent but not transcendental. That is, there is a "God", and that God just is the sum total of the universe and everything in it, considered as a whole.
It is quite possible to break this Deity down into specific local spirits and personal spirits if you want, but this is not compulsory (and I guess could be named Animism).

I'm an atheist, and most of the other atheists I know shun or ridicule all things that can't be proven. Ghosts, Bigfoot, god, satan, heaven, hell, angels, demons, a soul, reincarnation, etc.

As an atheist, I do believe in karma, but not as a magical power. I just believe if you do bad things, bad things are more likely to happen to you either out of retaliation, or even because psychologically you do destructive things because you know you deserve them.

I personally feel like going to church is a waste of time and know that you don't need spiritual or religious beliefs to have strong ethics and an accurate sense of what is right and wrong.

Many of my religious friends always act surprised that atheists are some of the most ethical and kind-hearted people they know. I feel that way about most of the Mormon friends I grew up going to Mormon church with. I feel that they are very nice people who try to help others, but they are skewed in a strange way. I feel like yes....I agree with that....yes...that makes sense.....I can see where you're coming from......wtf? Where did that come from?

Yabbut, what do y'all think of Ouija boards? Hmmmmmmmm? :eyebrow:



;)

Fixed that for ya. ;) Some are pricks, as are some religious people.

True enough Bruce, there are screwed up people everywhere.

As I said, easily. I don't shackle my thoughts into any pre-determined conclusions.

I understand that the body of religious writings represent the wisdom of thousands of years of human experience, and I know that human nature never changes--these writings are as relevant as they ever were. I know also, that the laws of physics do not change, although our understanding of them is always incomplete. Our understanding of the physical universe is an ever-changing work-in-progress.

When reading a composite of anctient writings, I consider this context. Is what is important to the aspect describing human nature necessarily directly correlated to the aspect describing the physical universe, i.e. do we have to believe the texts as literal or can we take away their true value without bundling in unnecessary baggage? Do I not have the luxury of using ALL the knowledge at my disposal in fleshing out an idea of what they were writing about?

I'm not saying that my knowledge of the universe is necessarily superior to those in the past, but that neither of us can confirm that knowledge. And, at best, we are all dealing in metaphors for something we are literally unable to understand. Therefore, I do the best I can with all the knowledge I have to form one coherent description of the universe. I recognize that all who came before me were making this same attempt; and I acknowledge their work and build upon it rather than tossing it out without consideration.

Right or wrong, what this means is that I place everything I read into a massive logic chart and calculate the probability of something's liklihood based upon how well it matches the literal or metaphorical descriptions found within other sources. I don't discriminate against a source simply because it is a religious text; however, as soon as someone starts quoting one, exclusive text as the source of all knowledge, their credibility drops to near zero almost instantly.

From what you've described, that sounds about right. What I call God is immanent, but not transcendental.

However. That's not the whole story. I refer to God as an organizational intelligence, because physical objects which are sufficiently organized do begin to exhibit properties which appear to be transcendental to their component qualities. I do not believe that physical objects can be literally transcendental; however, to the degree that we are able to perceive certain of their qualities, they appear that way to us.

I believe that religions describe the apparent transcendental properties of the universe which, while theoretically capable of being scientifically explained, such a description is not likely (or was not likely at the time of a particular writing). In those cases, a vague metaphor is (or was) probably the best approach available. A metaphor can contain more information than can be communicated verbatim, acting as a kind of data compression. However, as the granularity of our knowledge increases, we can begin to take more literal views upon things.

Wow, every time I go away ya'll start the most interesting conversations. I'd weigh in, but ya'll already know my sentiments on this subject. It's been an interesting read.

Thanks for your detail Flint.

Flint, again, that is quite plausible. One term for what you are describing is "emergence". Often a larger scale thing can "emerge" from the simple behaviours of small scale units.
For example, gas molecules behave according to Newtonian physics, and this results in things like pressure and shock waves and the cylindrical shape of tornadoes. Likewise, a riot "emerges" from the behaviour of many individuals in the street, as a recession emerges from the behaviour of people in the economic sphere.

So, to continue classifying Flint (and spelling it properly) I think he is an Emergentist Deist. Come to think of it, I think I am too.

Yeah, emergence. That's what I meant.

Where dyslexics go when their tooth is abcessed...

fixed:
 

:lol: nice work the pair of you!

I'm glad you are happy with it zen, now I won't be forced to make an anagram and show everyone my true colors.

(I underlined, and italicized the above to make it easier for everyone.)

... Coming back to this- I was thinking (before getting engrossed in my other thread for the last couple of days) that maybe there is something already "afoot" in science that will lead to our gaining better understanding of the spiritual realm as indeed being a basic part of the physical realm that we experience with our senses.

Here's a quote to get us started- "The space-time theorem of general relativity establishes not only the Creator's extra time dimension(s) or their equivalent, but also His capacity to operate in all the space dimensions the universe has ever possessed (or their equivalent). What follows, then, from string theory and from all these recent findings in particle physics and astrophysics, is that God must be operating in a minimum of eleven dimensions of space and time (or their practical equivalent)."- from Beyond The Cosmos, by Dr. Hugh Ross, PH.D.

I realize its from a christian perspective, but it still points out what I'm meaning for us relative to this discussion. These concepts are really cool stuff to me, I didn't include here the extra-dimensionality of time(infinite time in an instant of time). But I highly recommend his books for gaining greater understanding of how this universe works, and may work.

So here's my thought- namely that as mankind grows in knowledge we will find that the spiritual realm fits into this same universe's space and time, occupying it as well in additional dimensions that we as yet haven't found means to identify or move into, but they would still be operating under the known laws of nature with additional laws of which we are currently unaware.
It would only be supernatural in the sense that the dimensions exceed the four we live in. (our single dimension of time being the fourth)

I don't think this is a complete thought. Your quote in essence says "Scientists have discovered new stuff. We should then assume that God knows about and is controlling all this newly discovered stuff." This is like someone who believes that the Earth is the shell of a turtle being presented with evidence that the world is a sphere, and concluding that it must of course be a spherical turtle shell. There is no reasoning going on there, it is simply a theist saying "Me too!"

Your thought that I quoted is not a new one. Basically it comes down to "All the evidence points to my viewpoint being wrong, but because we don't know everything there is to know yet it is still possible for my views to be justified. Therefore I will cling to the belief that my viewpoint has merit." Sure, we might discover a new dimension with angels and God, etc. Of course we might discover a dimension where the flying spaghetti monster holds sway, or a dimension of marshmallows. There are an infinite number of things we *might* discover, but believing in random crap with that as a justification is lunacy.

The God of the Gaps.

Phage, really guy, lighten up a bit.

I purposely didn't post what details might be found to exist because at this point anyone's opinion is as good as any other. Sheesh. ;)

No Dana, I posited no gods did I? This is just in line with the basic concept of a spiritual realm that we've been discussing.

I didn't think Phage's response was out of keeping with the tone of the discussion.

Look at what Phage posted as my quote and what he derived from it.

For the purpose of discussion I was intentionally keeping the concept neutral of any specific perspective.

I'm hitting the hay now, talk to you later.

Well, he perhaps phrased it harshly, but I don't think it was out of keeping with the thread at all.

Now, go sleep man! *smiles*

As soon as I learned there was no Santa I knew that there could be no god, for what is a god but a Santa without limits?

Really, when I was in first grade, I learned in one swell swoop that there wasn't an Easter Bunny, Santa Claus or Tooth Fairy. Must have been the beginning of me wondering what else are they were lying about.

I'll rephrase my thought to see if I can make it more clear.
We got sidetracked before from my thought and intent.

The fact that astrophysicists have identified a need for a minimum of eleven dimensions to exist in our universe creates possibilities for atheists who believe in a spirit realm.

This thought goes back to the early part of this thread where that was being discussed.

I will rephrase my reply to see if I can make it more clear.

The presence of "the unknown" gives possibilities for atheists who believe in a spirit realm. The discovery of a minimum of eleven dimensions neither adds or subtracts from those possibilities.

As a general rule, the likelihood of a given theory being proven correct increases when evidence is found in its favor, not just when more evidence in general is found.

Phage, I like your statement.

From my point of view, I'd extend your description of the The "unknown" -- it also includes mass-less frictionless pink elephants that run the whole show, or the FSM, or any old gobbledy-gook man cares to invent this week.

Without evidence to support it, all explanations are equally implausible. That includes any "spiritual realm".

(Incidentally, this is why string theory gets such a bad rap from most physicists -- lack of testability. Whatinhell is the point of a theory that can't be tested, or held up to direct observation?!?)

Research grants or "tithes".

:lol:

No astrophysicist said there are eleven dimensions. What the guy you quoted said was, if there's a god, there would be like, eleven dimensions or something to contain that. ...somehow.

M-theory predicts 11 dimensions.

Do I hear 12 . . . anyone? anyone? May I have 12?
11 going once . . . 11 going twice . . .
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