Tuesday 4 June 2019

Most Atheists Believe in The Supernatural, Despite Trusting Science, Says New Scientist

Image courtesy of: Zoe Margolis, CC BY 2.0.



Joel Kontinen

Do atheist belief in science that always shows what’s right. A recent New Scientist article might cause them harm.

Belief in the supernatural is still alive and kicking, even among people who don’t believe in a god. Research on atheists and agnostics around the world has revealed that almost nobody can claim to completely reject irrational beliefs such as life after death, astrology, and the existence of a universal life-force.

The UK-based Understanding Unbelief project interviewed thousands of self-identified atheists and agnostics from six countries – Brazil, China, Denmark, Japan, US and UK. It found that despite their godlessness, a majority believe in at least one supernatural phenomenon or entity.


As David F. Coppedge writes in creation evolution headlines New Scientist asked for the opinions of two atheists: Marjaana Lindeman of the University of Helsinki in Finland, was surprised by the findings. The other one, Jonathan Lanman, an anthropologist at Queen’s University Belfast and one of the leaders of the Understanding Unbelief project said that Humans are not rational.

The study concluded that some believed in life after death; others believed in underlying forces of good and evil; and some believed in other non-physical influences.

For instance, Richard Dawkins says that in a debate with Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, he described himself as an agnostic instead of an atheist. He said that the probability of God’s non-existence is 6.9 on a 7-point scale.

That would be 98.57 per cent. Expressed as a probability it would be 0.985714285.

The probability for winning the Finnish lottery this is 0.0000065. Thus, according to Dawkins’ logic, the probability that God exists is by far much greater that winning a few million euros in the lottery.

Moreover, even atheist believe that they are have lower morals than other people.

Could they also be wrong about the existence of God?

Source:

2019. Most atheists believe in the supernatural, despite trusting science. New Scientist (30 May).