A question for Atheists?

Question

I know you do not believe in a higher power, hence the name atheist. However, do you believe in anything spiritual. A Soul, Karma, Fate, Reincarnation, Ghosts, or Psychic Abilities? Please respond politey. I am wondering because a few of you have expressed sharing some Buddhists viewpoints with me. Is their a spectrum if atheism or are your beliefs clearly defined?

Answer 1

There is no atheist handbook. There are no atheist 'beliefs'. Atheism simply means NOT believing in god(s). What atheists think or believe is entirely up to them, on an individual basis.

Spirituality does not (necessarily) have anything to do with the supernatural, spirits, gods, fairies, souls, ghosts, etc. You are confusing 'spiratualism' with 'spirituality'. Spirituality has to do with self-realization. Many atheists, in that regard, have a 'spiritual' side to them.

Buddhism is about self-realization, and does not involve dieties.

I have personally had some very profound 'psychic' experiences... but I am not inclined to label them as 'supernatural'. I think that anything that can exist in the universe, and any event that can occur in the universe is, by definition, 'natural'. 'Supernatural' is a cop-out word that is applied when a natural explanation is not apparent to us... it doesn't mean that a natural explanation doesn't EXIST... it just means that we don't know what it IS... yet.

Answer 2

Everyone believes something different. Personally, I don't believe in any higher power, soul, fate, psychics, ghosts or anything.
Karma sounds like a good theory, but I think it really only applies to interpersonal relationships. Like, if you do good things, and help people, etc. then people will treat you nicer and be more willing to help you if you need it. I don't buy the whole cosmic energy or reincarnation part.
There really are no clearly-defined beliefs as far as atheism goes, since atheists basically denounce organized religion. If an atheist starts to believe the teachings of Buddhism, he's no longer an atheist, hes a Buddhist.

Answer 3

I don't believe in a god or gods, but I'm still undecided on the soul, karma, fate, reincarnation, ghosts, psychic things. If I had to decide right now, I'd have to say no, I don't believe in most of those things. But then again, I can't prove there's no god, either.
So does that make me agnostic? or just wishy-washy? Of your list, the things I think are more likely are soul and karma. And from reading other answers, thinkin there's a spectrum of different beliefs. But then again, atheism is not a religion =)

Answer 4

Souls....I think we ARE souls.

Karma - I believe in instant karma. I'm not sure about life recycling.

Fate - sometimes yes, sometimes no. I don't have strong feelings on this, but I might believe that there are fated signposts along the way. I might also believe that we have an individual purpose in life, and we receive signs to help us follow it....ok, obviously I don't know what I believe here.

Reincarnation - see above.

Ghosts - would have to see for myself. My mind is not open on this exactly, but it is ajar.

Psychic abilities - absolutely. I have some, I have had experiences with others who do have them.

This is a more terse answer than I'd like to give because I haven't really sat down and come to conclusions in some of these areas, and because I only have 10 minutes before I leave for the day!

Answer 5

I am an atheist for the same reason I don't believe in Fate, Reincarnation, Ghosts, or Psychic Abilities. There is no evidence for any of these things, (or for "God"), and a lot of evidence to the contrary. But atheism is not a doctrine, so of course there are no "clearly defined beliefs", atheism is simply a lack of belief in theism.

Answer 6

My guess is you will get different answers because there is no atheist dogma, we kind of figure things out for ourselves, so we all have our own opinion about things like this.

Personally, being an Atheist to me is not believing in the god of the bible, Koran, etc. or any god who created the earth and is sitting in judgment of humankind. I think that there are other entities in other realms of existence. I reason it this way - If we came to be here, other things no doubt came to be in other places. I don't believe they have anyway to even contact this realm, much less control it, because I have seen no evidence to prove it. Same thing with ghosts, reincarnation, no real proof.

I believe the human mind has much room for growth and the next step in human evolution will not be physical, but mental. Our brains have capabilities we haven't discovered yet and I think some people have greater access to these abilities than others. That's why I think meditation works, even prayer, but it's not the gods answering, it's the person themselves, their mind getting it done - mind over matter.

What I believe is always based on all information I have at the time and is always subject to change based on new info. I think to believe that way is exciting, you never know what's next and your always making up your own mind and accepting responsiblilty for your own life.

I think that's why it's so easy to go off on someone who just spouts religious propagana at us like a trained parrot. We work hard to come to our conclusions and when someone says to believe god on the sole basis of "it's in the Bible", it gets very frustrating. So we got to tease them.

Answer 7

Thanks for the honest question. I hope I provide a good, concise, intelligent response for you....

As an atheist, I do not beleive in many ideas of spirituality. I do not beleive in souls or ghosts or reincarnation. I do somewhat beleive in Karma, or in the idea that what you "reap is what you sow" so to speak....regardless of religion, if you hang out with drug dealers and punks, yuoure likely to get arrested...make sense? Thats Karma for you... As for psychic abilities, I do not think it requires a spiritual explanation.....I beleive that we all have these abilities, and that some are more in tune with their abilities than others.... This might explain why there is no pre-history...perhaps, mankind once communicated via telepathy! If so, who would need to read or write when you could trasfer ideas and thoughts via the mind??
Budda made a lot of sense. He said to not beleive ANYONE or ANYTIHNG, not even Budda himself, if it did not make sense and feel right to yourself. Cant argue with that.

Answer 8

There is a use of the word "spiritual" to which most atheists can subscribe. But it has nothing to do with supernatural forces or entities. It is associated with profound emotions: awe at the immensity of the universe, love (small, large and extra-large), essential joy, a sometimes overwhelming empathy for our fellows, and our ability to share each other's creative powers (e.g.,in the arts and sciences). All these arise from our human condition, but have no "formula" to represent them.

Answer 9

I don't believe in a soul, karma, reincarnation, nor ghosts.

But I am unsure about fate, and psychic abilities. Fate may exist because the universe in deterministic (even though humans interpretation leaves it indeterministic: Heisenberg). Psychic abilities may be a different concept of our five senses. A subconscious recognition of events that our conscious does not interpret directly.

Answer 10

My being an atheist mainly comes from having a skeptical and scientific approach to the world around me. so without some definitive evidence for or against something its hard for me to accept things like the idea of a soul or God/afterlife, karma, fate (especially) and any kind of paranormal nonsense (even though it would be cool if there were ghosts and sasquatches running around.)