atheists have one thing in common: they either believe there are no gods or at least decline to believe in any gods. there is no rulebook for atheism. not believing in any gods is definition, not canon. so ask one atheist and s/he will believe in ghosts; ask another and s/he won't. it's not as if we've organized and decided what we can or cannot believe. that would make us, oh, i dunno, a religion or something. that being said, i think most atheists extend their disbelief to anything that sounds hinky, for which there is no evidence or hinky evidence, and has a history of being connected with other hinky stuff. so while one does not, as you put it, preclude the other, your average atheist (whatever that turns out to be) is probably less likely to believe in ghosts than your average catholic, who believes in at least one (and it's holy at that).

g

For atheists this should be pretty clear. Lack of belief in gods or any other supernatural beings of any kind. For agnostics it can get a bit muddled.

My own personal view as an atheist is that there is no separation between mind and body and when the body dies so does the Mind therefore there can be no such thing as a soul or a ghost

Don't think this is a time sequence based relationship. It is my experience that as most (not all) atheists have a higher standard for truth (things demonstrated with testable facts) over faith (things believed without evidence), All rational atheists I know have long ago outgrown the superstition/faith based assertion of ghosts and spirits.

I like the debate fodder-- Let me come back to this-

Colette