Atheists don't exist

[Mudhammam]

According to scientists, apparently:
http://www.science20.com/writer_on_the_e...oke-139982

[atheist04330]

pfffffhhhhh next....

[Mudhammam]

There seems to be some hedging on the terms "atheist" and "spirituality," though the issue of choice involved (or lack thereof) is interesting.

[ignoramus]

Disagree with all of it completely...

[atheist04330]

yeah.. bet if you look deeper into this you will find some church funded the research.. and this will no be used as propaganda to discredit atheist...

[Baqal]

And what scientists have discovered this? Citation needed.

[Fidel_Castronaut]

Article claims we are born believers and not atheists. I believe this is a mis/erroneous quotation.

I believe the article meant to say that we are born with the propensity to believe which is what current scientific literature would suggest, not that we are born actually believing in a god or gods which is not only absurd, it's also demosntrably false (I use myself as evidence).

Articles also appears to suffer from an inherent bias about 'god' . Notice it's entirely singular and only referes to a 'god', not deities, which would be more accurate as there is no definition of god. I haven't looked into the article's author(s) but to me this reeks of an agenda.

Finally, it's based seemingly on a personal incredulity fallacy, using examples where people can't come to terms with a given issue and thus automatically conclude a god (or simply 'god', as the article says).

What I will say however is that the artcile is based on the notion of 'belief' and not the validity of god claims. If it were the latter, it would fall entirely into an argumentum ad populum fallacy as that appears to be all it utilises to suggest a 'god' is real.

[ManMachine]

According to scientists, apparently:
http://www.science20.com/writer_on_the_e...oke-139982

The studies referenced in the early part of this article are valid studies, some of the more significant studies have been carried out by psychologist Dr Justin Barrett at Oxford University starting back in 2008.

The question I find interesting is this. Why is it that some people are ready to dismiss scientific theory that happens not to fit their ideology, and accept others which do? That does not sound very rational to me.

You can reject these studies if you like but they are peer reviewed and published by well respected scientists. Ignoring them is no better than the distortions imagined by the religious zealots intent on dismembering the body of knowledge that is science.

Having said all that the article does used some very imprecise language to represent the arguments in an effort, it would seem, to foster misinterpretation.

MM

[Fidel_Castronaut]

Having said all that the article does used some very imprecise language to represent the arguments in an effort, it would seem, to foster misinterpretation.

MM

Making it a poor article, IMHO.

I (for one) am not dismissing the studies, I'm dismissing the presumption based on faulty reasoning (as above - stating that we are born 'believers' - This is demonstrably false and I chalk it up to imprecise langauge, as you say).

Another example: when the article says that people have spirituality. Well, fine. That has nothing to do with atheism, and as the article seems to focus on this one possiblity, it makes the header of the article moot.

IT also juxtaposes well researched, valid journal articles with suspect, arguably bogus claims. It cites Theos:

"Theos, a think tank, found that very few people—only 13 per cent of adults—agreed with the statement “humans are purely material beings with no spiritual element”. For the vast majority of us, unseen realities are very present."

What it doesn't tell you is that Theos is a christian religious/theological think tank that promotes articles based on their proclivity to support religion in the public sphere in the UK (I've written about many of them in my PhD thesis so I know a couple of them and the authors). Indeed it doesn't even cite the research the author refers to in the article. I had to try and dig it up:

http://www.newstatesman.com/religion/201...al-instead
http://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/publicat...us-britain

Again, this would be a blow to critical thinking, not 'atheism'.

[Ben Davis]

Cogito atheos ergo ego sum?

I am an atheist. I exist. Debunked.