Irrational atheists....?

Question

I asked a question pertaining to the illogical beliefs some atheists hold. For example, I'm an atheist and I have an ungrounded fear of the number 13. Others believed in telepathy, telekinesis, etc.

Do you think we are all hardwired to believe in irrational things?

Answer 1

I definitely believe in extraterrestrial life out there, somewhere. I'm an atheist, and many people would consider that to be irrational.

Answer 2

Well, the 13 thing is a personal phobia. I have mine also - it's part of being human.

We have a minimal grasp of what the brain is capable. While I don't believe all the paranormal silliness that has become public , I think that telepathy and telekinesis are a possibility. Nobody who has debunked the "palm-reading/tarot/crystal energy" claims has proved that either is impossible - only that the examples they investigated were fraudulent.

I also believe that there must be other life forms out there someplace, including sentient species. I don't think they have been here. If anything, if they had, I think that they would consider us hands-off until we mature as a species. Sort of a "Let's wait and see if they self-destruct or manage to get their act together."

I do not find anything in human religious beliefs scientifically or academically appealing.

Answer 3

I can't speak for other atheists, but personally, I have no supernatural beliefs at all.
Most examples of "telekinesis" are good acts of sleight-of-hand.
"Telepathy" is usually just good guessing based on speech patterns and body language.
Nearly all of the so-called "supernatural" phenomena have been debunked by legitimate scientists.
There is no "hardwiring" for supernatural beliefs. No one is born with supernatural beliefs. It's pretty much accepted in the field of psychology that fears are based on a lack of knowledge, and superstition is largely learned behavior. It is usually based on fear of the unknown. Once you know what is causing the so-called supernatural event the fear goes away. Those who refuse to accept the rational explanations for the supernatural end up being victimized by their own fears. Hence the success of organized religion.
I think you'll discover the atheists with any supernatural beliefs or superstitions are in the minority.

Answer 4

in a study about evolutionary psychology, there are certain phobias that are common worldwide and across ages, such as the fear of snakes, spiders, heights, drowning.

this is because as long as man has been around, we have had to fear and avoid these thing to stay alive.

there isn't so much a reason for it now. like snakes? we have anti-venoms and other ways to survive a bite. yet the fear is still passed down through the generations.

i personally, am coulrophobic... i am afraid of clowns. there is no evolutionary reasoning for such a fear. that is why the majority of phobias are "nutured". i was not inborn with a fear of clowns. i had bad experiences with them at an early age and became conditioned to fear them.



in regards to athiests being irrational, the whole human race is irrational. humans are stupid panicky animals. YOU might think athiests are irrational, but everyone is, and its not just us athiests.

also, from an athiests POV, i find anyone who blindly believes something without proof to be irrational. i require scientific data and phsyical evidence to believe something. thats pretty rational.

Answer 5

We are hardwired to believe in the correlation between things through partial conditioning. For example, wearing a "lucky" pair of socks to a Biology exam or crossing our fingers in anticipation of a christmas bonus.
These do not affect anything at all, and we know that, but we still do them because it makes us believe we have done all we could to advance the situation to the best of our ability, and it makes us feel better.

Answer 6

i think of there is an substantial distinction. Prayer is a individual chatting with themselves or thinking internally, and then believing that an invisible being is listening to those prayers. Prayer is often a telepathic verbal substitute between a believer and their deity. Meditation isn't the comparable subject in any respect. the sensation of calmness from meditation is in simple terms the strategies going right into a comfortable state, the place it emits beta waves quite than alpha waves. in certainty, in the time of meditation, you quit thinking and in simple terms waft to a extra non violent state of awareness. Sorry to assert this, yet there is no longer something supernatural or mystic approximately it. that's in simple terms a vogue for a individual to regulate how their strategies applications for a time. in case you already know the strategies chemistry in the back of meditation, you recognize it is not interior the comparable ballpark as prayer. you're evaluating apples and oranges.

Answer 7

Telepathy and telekinesis have been studied scientifically and while they haven't been proven there is some evidence- belief in them isn't necessarily irrational just as long as one keeps a sense of perspective.

Answer 8

I think every single person on Earth is, to a point. The brain is wired to always try to make sense of EVERYTHING it processes. (That's why we see images in clouds and patterns, the brain will always put together data to try to create an understandable image.) When we don't (or can't) understand something, sometimes the brain tries to make up for that something, and so comes up with "irrational" things. (Like gods and superstitions.)

Answer 9

I don't think that we're hardwired to believe in irrational things. These beliefs are learned, sometimes when we are very young.
.

Answer 10

Eleven...I am going to step outside the realm of religion for a second. Religion or lack of religion really is not responsible for irrational beliefs and everyone has them. I am sure someone is going to say...well Christians beliefs are all irrational, lol.

I think humans...aside from religion or spirituality...have a capacity to believe irrational things either genetically, from our environment and how we are raised, or from chemical imbalances. <>