Atheism in Five Minutes - Teemu Taira
54. Do Atheists Have Beliefs in Supernatural Phenomena?
Atheism in Five Minutes - Teemu Taira
Jonathan Andrew Lanman [+]
Queen's University Belfast
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Jonathan Lanman is Acting Director of the Institute of Cognition & Culture, and Senior Lecturer in Anthropology at Queen’s University Belfast. His research aims to utilize the tools of both cognitive and social anthropology to examine religion, atheism, morality, and intergroup relations.
Description
While we can examine survey and interview data to discern whether or not atheists have beliefs in other supernatural phenomena, we should also be aware of how some interested parties frame the answers to suit their own interests. As part of the Understanding Unbelief programme, we found that most (though not all) atheists and agnostics had beliefs in some mix of supernatural phenomena. Our findings problematize common explanations by religious individuals that atheists reject belief in God because of a desire to engage in immorality and by atheists that their atheism is solely a result of rational thinking.