Inconsistently Skeptical...

[Brian37]

Not even atheists are immune to buying bullshit. I run into atheists sometimes who really don't educate themselves past "that makes no sense", but ask them about Dawkins or Harris, never read anything, they say "I don't care as long as they don't harm me." I also run into others that rightfully jump on standard religions and the scientific absurdities, but buy into new age woo, or conspiracies like 9/11 and JFK.

"Atheist" does not describe education level nor does it mean the individual is right about everything all the time.

[The Reality Salesman01]

Agreed, the word "atheist" describes ones attitude toward the word "g/God(s)",and the word alone is not enough to infer anything about their methods of epistemology.

[Minimalist]

At the end of the day you always get down to the realization that a lot of people are just fucking dumb.

[Dystopia]

Not even atheists are immune to buying bullshit. I run into atheists sometimes who really don't educate themselves past "that makes no sense", but ask them about Dawkins or Harris, never read anything, they say "I don't care as long as they don't harm me." I also run into others that rightfully jump on standard religions and the scientific absurdities, but buy into new age woo, or conspiracies like 9/11 and JFK.

"Atheist" does not describe education level nor does it mean the individual is right about everything all the time.

I fail to see the need for an atheist to read books from those authors. Not all of us love Hitchens, Dawkins and Harris enough to read all their books.

[robvalue]

Here's a true story about me, involving the word sceptical. And it's about brains.

I'd had an operation, I had just woke up and I was on really heavy pain killers. Morphine probably. I was so completely off my head that I could barely talk. People would ask me a question, and it would take about 20 seconds to bounce it around my head, and then sort of slur out a really stupid answer.

My brother thought he would entertain me by playing our favourite game at the time, tekken tag tournament. He was sceptical that I'd even be able to play at all, but he didn't mind. The weird thing is, I could play that bad boy. And I was winning too. My brother was good at the game, usually a bit better than me, and I was holding my own and even defeating him. Somehow that part of my brain was absolutely on point, while my ability to deal with mundane reality was next to zero. My brother complained, "Even someone who just had stomach surgery can win with Devil!"

I find this often; with my chronic fatigue my brain gets addled, I can't think properly, I can't answer simple questions sometimes. But give me a maths problem, or hand me a controller, and I can still do stuff almost as well as when I'm with it. It's like I have a second nature for purely logical things.

Weird hey? Anyone ever had a similar experience?

[Exian]

My related experience is a little more common maybe. I do my best creating when I stay up into the wee hours of the morning. The only exception being wood work, but not carving. Then, when I go to get a coffee at a shop, I can barely order the damn thing and my public etiquette is out the window.

[Whateverist]

Not even atheists are immune to buying bullshit. I run into atheists sometimes who really don't educate themselves past "that makes no sense", but ask them about Dawkins or Harris, never read anything, they say "I don't care as long as they don't harm me." I also run into others that rightfully jump on standard religions and the scientific absurdities, but buy into new age woo, or conspiracies like 9/11 and JFK.

"Atheist" does not describe education level nor does it mean the individual is right about everything all the time.

I fail to see the need for an atheist to read books from those authors. Not all of us love Hitchens, Dawkins and Harris enough to read all their books.

Totally agree.  It just lends credence to the idea that atheism is a belief system with an orthodoxy, creed and honored elite.

[SteelCurtain]

Sometimes prior knowledge isn't actual knowledge. A very religous person accepts a variety of things as true, almost a priori, and from their point of view, an extraordinary claim is one that doesn't fit their religious beliefs. However, they also have ordinary prior knowledge, and a claim has to be consistent with that as well...unless it fits with their religious beliefs.

(bold mine)

Exactly.

My mother does the same thing, TRS. She is fully on board with Jonah and the Whale being a literal story, then will lecture me about how I don't know the long term effects of a topical medication that I am taking. "It could cause cancer!" she says. There are no known side effects. It's fucking prescription anti-perspirant. I have hyperhidrosis.

Things like this, all the time.

That being said, there is the other side of the coin, too. I think I can be annoyingly skeptical, at times.

[The Reality Salesman01]

My wife thinks the same thing about me.