I am the friend OP is referring to and I am also an atheist
Comment on Can a reasonable person genuinely believe in ghosts?
HubertManne@piefed.social 21 hours ago
I knew an athiest who believed in ghosts. no idea how he squared that.
ageedizzle@piefed.ca 20 hours ago
HubertManne@piefed.social 9 hours ago
the dude I knew was all like well evp’s and im like yeah and play records backwards to hear satan. They are like well all these researches with hauntings and im like yeah and all the verified miracles the churches detectives do.
LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world 17 hours ago
Aaah the plot thickens
porcoesphino@mander.xyz 21 hours ago
Don’t you just need to believe in a soul? And haven’t philosophers been pondering that in various ways for a long time?
I think this post on another thread nails the core of the issue for me and it’s pretty independent of religion (since I think potential mechanisms could be independent of religion):
HubertManne@piefed.social 21 hours ago
Its wierd to me when someone does not believe in god because of no evidence but will believe in ghosts, spirits, elves, fairies, aliens, magic, etc with no evidence. To me atheism is not believing in the supernatural at all be it god or the philosphers stone.
Iconoclast@feddit.uk 17 hours ago
It doesn’t need to be supernatural though - just something we don’t yet understand. Aliens aren’t supernatural - they’re just life from a different planet. It’s not just lack of evidence why I don’t believe in God. The whole concept collapses under scrutiny.
Aliens at least seem like something that could conceivably be real. We already know there’s life in the universe. Claiming we’re alone is already a kind of a crazy position in itself.
HubertManne@piefed.social 10 hours ago
I don’t see why the concept of god collapses under scrutiny. Sure any specific does but so does like specifically romulans existing.
porcoesphino@mander.xyz 21 hours ago
Ah, I see.
I’d argue we all believe in a thing or two that we don’t have great evidence for when confronted. And I’d argue the size of the collection of things we could believe is mind bogglingly large. So then you end up with combinations like this.
But yeah, agreed from the framing in your comment that believing both is pretty logically inconsistent.
Thinking through this idea a bit more, I think there are a lot of people that would describe themselves as atheists that believe in that certain things will improve their health in a way that others would describe as lacking evidence and should be included on that list. If you push on that idea then I think you’d start getting tension and pushback from a lot of atheists. I’m sure there are other categories you could do this with but I’m not thinking of others quickly now.
HubertManne@piefed.social 9 hours ago
I mean for myself there are things I do that can’t say have rigorous scientific proof but usually have some basis and personal experience that it works for me. I mean if I found prayer effectively solved problems for myself I likely would not be athiest even if no studies showed that. I take fish oil because an eye doctor recommended it for dry eye and my personal experience is it helps but I have no study to back it up. I take a vitamin supplemented cod in particular because my doctor said I needed to get more d and that was the only way I was willing to get it. I take a diosimin supplement because when I had a bad hemmoriod it was prescribed to bring it down and I found out it was also prescribed as a profolatic at lower doses so I basically self medicated. Seems to help. When I talk about the effects of these on myself I should mention im bad at consistantly taking them and when I don’t I notice stuff. I like long baths and it seems to have a variety of beneficial effects especially with sleep and stuff so its good when done to be done at night. I think I have seen studies but not things I would consider rigorous. I mean. I really don’t think I have anything that does not have some basis and im pretty aware of how weak or strong the basis is of most things I do.