Can you still be an atheist if you believe in the paranormal?
January 12, 2015 at 12:01 am
(This post was last modified: January 12, 2015 at 12:02 am by Regina.)
I'd consider myself an atheist, I don't believe in God and I like to see evidence before I'll accept belief in anything, as most atheists would.
I have had a couple of experiences I can't really explain though, and it's strange to me. I've felt a hand on my shoulder once, I was about 14 years old at the time and it happened in the living room in my house. I'm pretty sure of what I felt, it felt like a hand and was there for about 3 seconds. When I described what I felt to my Mum, she said that my Dad had described exactly the same experience, and in the same part of the house.
On top of this, we regulary hear odd noises in our house. Strange creaks and taps that appear to have no explanation. It is most obvious when one of us is home alone, and we have no pets we could put it down to.
My Mum, who is a very loose non-practicing Christian and a very rational woman, also claims she had a very strange experience as a teen. She claims she was baby-sitting someone's children and had to stay the night at the house. After both she and the children went to bed, she heard all the furniture in the living room moving around. When she went down to investigate, the children were not there so it wasn't that they had come down, and the family dog was too small to make that kind of noise. The dog apparently was in a state of absolute terror as well. She took the dog back upstairs with her, and continued to hear noises throughout the night.
Is this rational for people with very little/no belief in God? I feel like atheists shouldn't believe in this stuff, but I honestly can't think of a better explanation for this shit other than it being paranormal.
I have had a couple of experiences I can't really explain though, and it's strange to me. I've felt a hand on my shoulder once, I was about 14 years old at the time and it happened in the living room in my house. I'm pretty sure of what I felt, it felt like a hand and was there for about 3 seconds. When I described what I felt to my Mum, she said that my Dad had described exactly the same experience, and in the same part of the house.
On top of this, we regulary hear odd noises in our house. Strange creaks and taps that appear to have no explanation. It is most obvious when one of us is home alone, and we have no pets we could put it down to.
My Mum, who is a very loose non-practicing Christian and a very rational woman, also claims she had a very strange experience as a teen. She claims she was baby-sitting someone's children and had to stay the night at the house. After both she and the children went to bed, she heard all the furniture in the living room moving around. When she went down to investigate, the children were not there so it wasn't that they had come down, and the family dog was too small to make that kind of noise. The dog apparently was in a state of absolute terror as well. She took the dog back upstairs with her, and continued to hear noises throughout the night.
Is this rational for people with very little/no belief in God? I feel like atheists shouldn't believe in this stuff, but I honestly can't think of a better explanation for this shit other than it being paranormal.
"Adulthood is like looking both ways before you cross the road, and then getting hit by an airplane" - sarcasm_only
"Ironically like the nativist far-Right, which despises multiculturalism, but benefits from its ideas of difference to scapegoat the other and to promote its own white identity politics; these postmodernists, leftists, feminists and liberals also use multiculturalism, to side with the oppressor, by demanding respect and tolerance for oppression characterised as 'difference', no matter how intolerable." - Maryam Namazie
"Ironically like the nativist far-Right, which despises multiculturalism, but benefits from its ideas of difference to scapegoat the other and to promote its own white identity politics; these postmodernists, leftists, feminists and liberals also use multiculturalism, to side with the oppressor, by demanding respect and tolerance for oppression characterised as 'difference', no matter how intolerable." - Maryam Namazie
