I have to admit that over this particular season, I've had a lot more "aha!" moments when pondering the subject and actively looking at other points of view though. It's only been in recent years that I've finally started to self-identify as an atheist ...but only when the topic isn't able to be ducked for the most part. I get a kick out of all the "definition dictators" out there when it comes to atheism, and I guess that after learning that the terms "atheism" and "agnosticism" not only aren't mutually exclusive, but actually come from the root words "theist" and "gnostic," I finally relented and started identifying myself as an atheist if asked. Not that I didn't "know" this before; it was just one of those "aha!" moments I was talking about.
There seems to be a lot of cognitive dissonance out there about what an atheist is, even among other atheists. It actually came as a surprise to me that there were actually atheist's out there that actively believe that there is no god(s); it was even more of a shock to learn that my oldest brother is one of those people. This knowledge was remarkable to me because it legitimized to me that the theist's argument that atheism "can be" (although a theist generally prefers to use the word "is" instead of "can be") an actual belief system in itself. I'm sure it comes as an equal surprise to a strong theist that most atheist's do not actively believe there isn't a god; we merely don't actively believe in any of the various ones that we've been exposed to.
I guess it's like talking about UFO's (as in spacecrafts from other worlds visiting our own, not flying objects that you can't identify); if you ask a person if they "believe in" UFO's, and they say no ...does it make any sense at all to start railing about them about how can they possibly believe that all the people who claim to have seen them are liars or simply delusional? If a person says they don't believe in UFO's, it's probably more a matter of the person never having seen one (or known anyone who has) simply suspends belief until they see something convincing to the contrary. I doubt that very many people would categorically state that there is no such thing as a UFO (and I may well be wrong on this), only that they've never seen anything convincing enough to persuade them to actively believe in them. I don't think it would be too far off to say that the larger number of atheists feel the same way towards theism in general.
I don't think that's really the best analogy, but it's the best I can come up with right off the bat (maybe "Bigfoot" or the "Loch Ness Monster" might have been a little closer to the point I was trying to make than UFO's). I don't believe in ghosts personally, but my best friend claims to have seen one once and I have no reason whatsoever to disbelieve his claim; that doesn't mean by default I suddenly believe in ghosts either though. My friends experience was about as undramatic as it can get; he said that he simply woke up one night and there was a face hovering above him in his bed. He said that once the initial shock wore off, he simply went into a sort of "wow, am I really seeing this?" mode, then the face faded away (never to return). He said he didn't think he was dreaming because he got out of bed and walked around a little bit to see if it would come back. From his experience, he thinks there may be such thing as ghosts, although he still won't categorically state that there was no other possible explanation either. I should state for the record that my friend is 82, and the experience he had took place nearly 30 years ago. He's simply "been around long enough" to know that one instance that never repeated itself doesn't constitute "proof" ...he merely views it as an incident that he can't logically explain.
This is another point of the cognitive dissonance I was speaking of before. I don't actively disbelieve in my best friend's account; it's merely a matter of needing to experience something similar myself and it has absolutely no reflection whatsoever on him at all. We've talked about it on numerous occasions, and I doubt it would even occur to him that it even could be a reflection on what I think of him.
I should mention another anecdotal account of ghosts that I have to grudgingly admit does somewhat reflect on my perception of the person it came from. My sister and brother in law told me of their own supernatural experience, and it wasn't so much the story itself as the parts that got left out in the original telling of it (a problem that I frequently have with his story-telling). Initially, the story was that on their wedding anniversary, they stayed the night in a hotel that it turned out was haunted and so they had to find another hotel. What got left out of the initial telling of the story was that they specifically chose a "haunted" hotel from either a brochure or website, went there and specifically asked for the "most haunted" room there. They went out for dinner, came back and my sister found some items that were in her suitcase in the bathroom and she was absolutely sure that she didn't put them there, so OMG ...GHOSTS!!! They immediately checked out of the hotel given the solid PROOF that the place was actually haunted. This is kind of mean, but I really have to qualify this story; my BIL believes that ghosts are actually demons just pretending to be ghosts (maybe my sister does too ...I've no inclination to even ask).
When they first told the story (sans the fact that they specifically went to a tourist attraction "haunted" hotel), I really had to suppress a giggle. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out why a few things moving from her bag constituted a "paranormal experience" since I know my family a little bit TOO well, and we all have memories like swiss cheese. She and her hubby are extreme-right evangelical Christians though, and I try to make a practice of just keeping my damn mouth shut when they spout off stuff that runs so far off my radar that even remarking about feels beneath me. This was one of those times. Later on (like a year or two later) when they told the same story but admitted it was a "haunted hotel" listed in "most haunted" (whatever the source was), I finally got the context. Their account is the kind of "anecdotal evidence" that I find laughable, whereas at least my best friends account is at the very least plausible. Had I suggested that maybe since they went to a haunted house expecting to be haunted and were actively looking for something to be afraid of (or heaven forbid, the owners of the place might have moved stuff around while they were out to dinner), they would most certainly have taken it as a personal attack. There's certainly something to the old "you can choose your friends, but not your family" adage.
This is a trap that I see a lot of theist's fall into towards the atheist community (if you could even call us a "community"); they perceive our lack of belief as some sort of attack on them personally (or on theism in general). I may address the validity of this somewhere down the line, because from their viewpoint the idea isn't completely out in left field; it's just my belief that they have the cause and effect a little skewed.
I think that's all the patience I have for writing at the moment, so I think it's time to get off the computer and start considering dinner.
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