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22% of Atheists believe in New Age nonsense.

[friendlyatheist.patheos.com]

I wish this were not true, but I suspect it's right or close to. You see it here on this site as well.

I think all religious nonbelievers should be as skeptical about new age and similar nonsense as they are about mainstream religions.

I have been surprised on many occasions by people who tell me they are not religious but believe in something "out there" or they are sort of "spiritual' and so on.

I think serious atheists should frown unambiguously on this sort of thing. Religion in another form.

David1955 8 Oct 3
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8 comments

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For me, not believing in any kind of gods means not believing in any other kind of supernatural nonsense either, and asking for evidence when extravagant claims are made. I think the psychology of why some people need to believe in 'something out there' even if they claim to be atheists is very interesting and I would love to read more about it. Books I have come across about the psychology of belief tend to focus only on why religious believers override their rationality. Anyone come across a book about supernaturalist atheists?

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Einstein taught us that all matter is a form of energy, so since energy can neither be created nor destroyed, we have always existed and will always exist in some energy form.

No reason to think energy souls or entities don't exist, and quantum physics already tells us different dimensions exist.

"For physicists, the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion." -Einstein

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Any time one believes in something that is not real there is a potential for harm.

who determines what's real & what's not?

@walklightly This is a valid question. The tangable for one. Senses are another. Logic can be helpful. Sometimes we must defer to thers such as in science where facts can be proven. We could individually be delusional the only thing we can do here is to "trust" that everyone else is based in reality. We can test what is real and not real according to physics. We can determine with tes what is physical. The meta physical by definition does not exist. There is not really a Who in the answer.

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Woo is irritating but generally harmless.

Anti-vax nut jobs are potentially very harmful to the immune compromised and they are dangerous to that community.
relativel
Most other woo masters chem trails, crystals, ghosts, cryptozoology relatively harmless.

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From what I have read about neural development and the evolution of consciousness, a religious belief system of some kind, or spiritual explanations for puzzling or incomprehensible phenomena, is a kind of default setting for the human brain. Just as children have to outgrow simplistic black-and-white, either/or thinking, adults CAN outgrow the need for spiritual explanations for the incomprehensible things in life, but not all of them do, or want to. Apparently, ascribing spiritual explanations to some things (i. e. Why did my baby die?) makes life more tolerable than not doing so. Also, it's entirely possible that giving up spirituality in all its many manifestations drains some of the color and joy from life. Exhibit A: Jean Paul Sartre and his existential world view.

@David1955 You misunderstood me. I don't think of Jean Paul Sartre as New Age at all. I think of him as an example of rather a cheerless nonreligious, nonspiritual person.

@sunhatpat I am a nonspiritual, nonreligious person and I am also a (generally) cheerful optimist!

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to tell people what they should or shouldn't hasn't convinced anyone yet. you don't have to sign on other people's world view. as long as they don't do any harm - what's the problem?

@David1955, if you prefer believing in christian or islamic sophistry to taking a long hard look at those "mainstream" religions' history (& presence!) in reality ... i rest my case.

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I think you need to lighten up.

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I believe in new age shat as far as consciousness on mater, power of attraction, meditation and chakras (as a classification system of me as a system...kinda like the OSI model in computer science). I have seen theories about the ancient pyramids being microwave transmitters, ancient aliens, etc. While I'm not shooting messages to E.T., Im not so arrogant to think that we know all there is to know.

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