Does atheism necessarily imply materialism?

Question

It's really a rhetorical question, but I'm interested in your responses. Take ID, for example. ID doesn't imply the God of traditional theism; ID could well be accounted for by the kind of systems theory proposed here:

http://www.amazon.com/Interconnected-Universe-Conceptual-Foundations-Transdisciplinary/dp/9810222025/sr=8-1/qid=1170856749/ref=sr_1_1/102-5478643-1795354?ie=UTF8&s=books

Note that this kind of integration of systems, complexity, and quantum theory is a *naturalistic* explanation of anomalous phenomena appearing across disciplines, including quantum physics, cosmology, biology, and consciousness studies.

When you resort to a priori dismissal of anomalous phenomena for the sake of adherence to your paradigm, you impede the work of genuine science. Reality may not be what you think it is (in fact, if the history of science is any indicator, it certainly isn't), but that doesn't mean that traditional religion is right, either.

Answer 1

Indeed, very interesting....
I have started to read philosophical books such as Plato's Socrates, Apology and the Crito. I am now reading Soren Kierkegaard's the Sickness unto Death which is noted as "one of the key works of theistic existentialist thought". So far, the reading is fascinating and definitely raises many questions.
We may never know if reality is what we know it to be, in its traditional sense, or if traditional religion is correct. This is true. Though, it's much fun to debate, don't you think???

Answer 2

What do you define as "Traditional religion?" The leading religions today? The leading religions have changed throughout the years.

All Atheism implies is that they believe there is no supernatural diety as stated in the bible.

Science has made many many discoveries that have changed our way of logical thinking. They continue to make discoveries that change our way of thinking and will continue to make discoveries that change our way of thinking. This is called "Cognative Thinking"... learning from the past and making adjustments.

Hard for Athiests to believe that a series of books and writings by humans from 2000 years ago that the church put together and called the "Holy Bible" is the end all of disussion when it comes to how and why we are here.

The pope conceded in 1992 that the earth indeed revolves around the sun. Nice to see them catch up to science at least in SOME respect. They are in the process of conceding the whole "Earth being 5000 years old" thing too as an "interpretation issue."

When it comes to how and why we are all here, all we know right now is that we don't know. The End.

Answer 3

It does seem to.
My understanding of the concept is: "no agreement that there is
any other universe than the material."
It's true that quantum physics poses more questions than it answers in terms of the source of the material universe....... but despite this "genuine science" will only look at or acknowledge the material.
Science running around in circles in an effort to be right does not impress either.

Answer 4

I'm an atheist but I study and practice Buddhist philosophy that is founded on the rejection of materialism. 800 million Buddhists have no belief in either God or materialism.

Answer 5

I think any creation mechanism that involves free will could be called intelligent design. Those that don't would not be called that - they are naturalistic and physical. I don't think that free will exists though so there you go.