These articles popped up on my radar today:
http://www.science20.com/writer_on_the_edge/blog/scientists_discover_that_atheists_might_not_exist_and_thats_not_a_joke-139982
http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2014/07/13/confused-science-writer-claims-that-atheists-might-not-exist/
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/08/evolutionary_st088461.html
What makes me care is that my friends constantly accuse me of being an
atheist, despite my claim that I'm agnostic, a word they seem incapable
of parsing. So for about 5 years, now, spurred on in part by Nick's
posts to this list, I've been passively looking out for any hint of an
objective way to diagnose whether someone's a[n] [a]theist. I use
"diagnose" for provocation since I think all claims about metaphysical
truth, including both atheism and theism, are delusional. 8^)
Does anyone here have or know of any diagnostic algorithms that do NOT
rely on self-reporting?
I can easily imagine someone saying they do or don't believe in some
thing but behaving otherwise. So I'd love to find more objective
measures of it... even if they're only informal or N=1. One answer I've
thought of myself is the way we react to particular types of fiction.
For example, I really enjoy horror movies, witches, zombies, demon
possessions, telekinetics who can explode other people's minds --
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081455/ -- and of course the axe murderers
that lurk behind every corner and die over and over again only to come
back to life for the next installment. (But I can't stand those silly
TV shows about serial killers.) Would an atheist enjoy such things that
rely fundamentally on the supernatural? Similarly, I know lots of
self-reported theists who don't enjoy any fiction that relies on
supernatural beings or mechanisms.
Where is the actual line between belief and suspension of disbelief?
(cf http://vimeo.com/12403866)
--
⇔ glen
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