A theist believes God(s) exist, atheists do not. Why assign any other beliefs or non-beliefs to atheists?

Question

Is there some reason not believing in God(s) would prevent a person from believing in reincarnation, souls, spirits, ghosts, or any other supernatural phenomena?

If so, what would that reason be?

Thanks, Trainer.

I keep seeing people claim atheists believe in "nothing," but that is totally false.

Atheism has a very simple and concise meaning:

"I don't believe a Supreme Being ("God") exists."

stated another way:

"There is no credible evidence to support God belief."

But, the why is totally irrelevant. As is anything else an atheist might choose to believe.

Here is a religion (Jainism) that is very spiritual and does not believe in a Supreme Being. It predates Christianity by about 1,000 years:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jainism

Easier for you to read that than for me to try to explain it.

There are far more things we don't know than what we know. From my viewpoint, the entire universe is "alive" and has a "spirit" in the sense that we are all interconnected. But, that does not mean I believe in personal spirits ("souls") or Supreme Beings ("Gods").

Answer 1

I agree. In fact I would argue that paranormal phenomena are easier to reconcile with atheism than most religions.

Answer 2

I have no idea if reincarnation of some sort is possible. It would in my opinion seem consistent with life. I am conscious now, why not in another 1000 years? Its clearly possible without a God involved in the process. I have no idea what a soul is unless it is defined as the conscious. spirits and ghost I would put into the same category as theology and their God. Ghosts are the same as Gods and other spirits i think. there is no evidence to support their existence. And the evidence for is clearly suspect.
As an atheist I still believe in the possibility that there is some great and power things at work that we are unaware of in this universe. Unaware means i cannot describe them and therefore have no belief in them.

Answer 3

From my understanding of the terminology that's all theist and atheist mean is "God exists" and "God does not exist". The more specifics of belief are left up to the individual. Consider Buddhism, Taoism, and Jainism. They are three religions that are pretty much atheistic. Buddhism never actually says anything about the existance of God and it seems the Buddha just decided to leave the idea of whether there is or is not a God up to the individual because as far as he was concerned it was a nonissue. Mahavira said that all that can be said if God exists is that "It is" and that like Buddha it is up to us, not God, to make the decisions and take the actions to reach our spiritual goals. Taoism only as Tao. It's not God or gods and goddesses or spirit. In fact it's pretty vague on exactly what Tao is (sort of like Brahman in Hinduism, on the one hand Brahman is God and on other hand Brahman is beyond distinction and ability to say what It actually is). All that can be said of Tao is that It is. The Tao Te Ching even makes it clear "whatever can be said of Tao is not Tao, whatever can be compared to Tao is not Tao". It says "Tao is the One which became the Two which became the Three which became the Ten Thousand things." Again sounds a lot like Brahman as described in Hinduism's Upanishads.

And yet Buddhism, Jainism, and Taoism all have philosophies, belief systems, and even cosmologies of the universe. Buddhists don't necessarily believe in God....they don't even believe in an individual soul....yet they believe in reincarnation (although as a Hindu it can be confusing for me to understand exactly what it is that reincarnates).

Being a theist or atheist doesn't necessarily stop a person from believing in things like reincarnation, spirits, ghosts, souls, etc. It just means that they describe them differently than a theist. They find other explanations. And for the record not all theists believe in reincarnation, souls, spirits, and ghosts. So even calling oneself a theist doesn't guaratee that you are talking to someone who believes in any one of those things either. They may just simply believe in God.

And really that's about as much as we can truly define. It's like saying someone is a Hindu. Hinduism is amazingly diverse and you can't really know for sure what the Hindu believes. You have atleast nine basic things that all Hindus believe in common and that's about it. The same is true for mosts other religions. Christians have only a few basic beliefs they hold in common (coincidently about only nine). Beyond that various Christian denominations have different interpretations, practices, and beliefs that vary from another. Just look at the belief of the Pope. Some Christians interpret that there should be a Pope and others say there shouldn't be a Pope. That's just one example out of many. And such things are true for all religions. With all the different perspectives all looking at the universe and the inner Self, etc it is not unusual that all of us individual humans would come up with different interpretations based upon our experiences and understanding. Beyond that you can't assume anything more. With theist and atheist the most we can "assume" is that the individual we are speaking to that identifies themself in such a way does or does not believe in the existence of God.

Great question!

Answer 4

There is no reason at all,

There is a wonderful mysticism surrounding the modern world of man, plus we have a legacy of 3000 years of philosophical learnings around this subject to study and base further beliefs on.

Supernatural and preternatural phenomena fit even less well into religious philosophy than atheistic philosophy as the religious camps are fairly closed in their outlook.

Ironically, it is the atheist that can look at these phenomena with open eyes and question them far more logically. Whatever interpretations come from this, are no less correct, but become articles of faith none the less!

To my mind anyway!!

Great question J.T....I will think about this some more I think

Answer 5

I'm an atheist, which means, I don't believe in God and I don't have any religion. I believe the posibility of reincarnantion, I think ghosts are real, I don't know about souls and spirits.

I believe God and Religion are used to control people but ghost aren't a power trip, neither is spirits.

Answer 6

well,,, your definition of "atheist" is going to depend upon your definition of "god".

take "fate" for example. a person who believe in fate believes that seemingly meaningless things are actually happening for some purpose because there's some force that desires that things be a specific way. now,,, how is that not a god? anyone who believes that the universe has an agenda essentially believes in god.

so,,, i suppose that technically an atheist might be able to believe in souls, but they certainly wouldn't be able to believe in something like karma (because karma is essentially a god). --- as for reincarnation, i guess it would depend on the nature of the reincarnation being believed in. one could in theory believe that reincarnation occurs as a natural and mindless process. if however they believe that there's some purpose behind it, or some guiding force that gauges good and evil, then i think it'd be fair at that point to call reincarnation a sort of god, and deem anyone who believes in it a theist.

really though, this is just an argument about semantics. and it's why questions like "are you an theist?" should be avoided and replaced with questions like "do you believe in any supernatural phenomena?".

Answer 7

First I'm christian...
According to the Bible... God gave souls..

Genesis 2:7 " And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul."

Then Atheists shouldn't believe that we have souls.. because God gave them...

That's also the same reason for not believing in Heaven and Hell... Because they represent God's rewards to people... Either by going to heaven or to hell...

Answer 8

My personal version of atheism ..my own atheism is that I do not share the theists belief in a god or gods because I am unconvinced by their claims.
I am also a skeptic because don't share a belief in superstitions / the supernatural with those who make do believe these things for the same reason...I am unconvinced.

Answer 9

There are different types of atheists - the spiritual atheist and the scientific atheist, to name a few.

A scientific atheist doesn't believe in reincarnation , spirits or anything supernatural.

Answer 10

I don't think that atheism would necessarily preclude belief in those other things, but I think it would be odd for an atheist to believe in them. Perhaps I'm wrong, but my own reason for not believing in god (complete lack of evidence) also applies to all of the other things that you mentioned, and I can't imagine why I'd use it against belief in god but not against those other things.

Answer 11

Many atheists, including yourself, claim to limit their beliefs to those supported by "logic, evidence, observable and/or demonstrable events" (your words.)

How would any spiritual or supernatural phenomena fit that criteria? And if any would, what makes our observations of a Supreme Being any less credible?