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Can psychics be atheists?

sg1985

Thinker
sg1985
Joined
Sep 18, 2008
Messages
162
I recently heard someone say that religion has nothing to do with physic powers and psychics can be atheists. It got me thinking...

A lot of psychics claim that their "powers" come from God and their Christian faith. There are others that credit another God or being for their "abilities".

Most atheists I know link their beliefs with science and psychic abilities are not science. But just because something isn't science doesn't automatically make it religion. But wouldn't believing in some kind of supernatural ability infer that there's something above and beyond normal human capabilities?

I'm confused. Any thoughts?

:boxedin:
 
Sure. I know atheists that believe in all kinds of weird stuff, even the supernatural. Just no gods. I know atheists that are into homeopathy, reiki, and some that think they have psychic superpowers. Superman has his powers due to being an alien, right? Superpowers do not need a god origin.
 
An extremely strong strand in British contemporary Spiritualism is vehemently Atheist. I seem to recall that Michaeal Rolls makes Dawkins look like a devout choir boy -- I could be wrong. Look up Arthur Findlay for an awful lot of the inspiration for this.

Another thing to consider is that while many Atheist Spiritualists exist, and atheists who countenance the possibility of Life After Death or reincarnation (Sam Harris being the most prominent example) we may need to distinguish between a psychic and a spiritualist.

Psychism does not necessarily even predicate life after death or disembodied spirits. A psychic could hold to the psi hypotheis, and see all their powers as being explicable in the Super-ESP/psi models which are common among parapsychologists, the vast majority of whom in my experience are fairly vocal atheists. After all once you allow for a strong psi hypothesis all claims of evidence for life after death or theistic miracles can be explained away in entirely naturalistic terms. I certainly know a few atheist psychics, yes.

Hope that helps!
cj x
 
Setting aside the question of whether there are any psychic powers whatsoever, you have four possible classes of people. Those who say they are psychic and religious, psychic and nonreligious, not psychic and religious and not psychic and not religious.
I think there are people in all categories. What they really belive is another story.
 
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I worked in a Holistic healing centre for nearly a year.

The mish-mash of beliefs (often clearly contradictory) that was displayed by the customers and some of the staff was quite amazing.

Beliefs do not have to be logical or sensble or even have internal consistency.
 
sg1985 said:
I recently heard someone say that religion has nothing to do with physic powers and psychics can be atheists. It got me thinking...

A lot of psychics claim that their "powers" come from God and their Christian faith. There are others that credit another God or being for their "abilities".

Most atheists I know link their beliefs with science and psychic abilities are not science. But just because something isn't science doesn't automatically make it religion. But wouldn't believing in some kind of supernatural ability infer that there's something above and beyond normal human capabilities?

I'm confused. Any thoughts?

:boxedin:
Click to expand...

Athiest does not equal skeptic. It expresses the disbelief in a god, but as psi is often mixed up in pseudo science it is not contradictory to athiesm.

Of course many people do hold beliefs that on contradictory as well. Say both a belief in homeopathy and chiropracty.
 
I guess if a Psychic claims that their powers come from God.
Religion is involved...to that individual anyways.
Self proclaimed on the Psychic's part, I guess they anointed
themselves a psychic, so why not bring God into it.
Do they not have a standard rule, kinda like the Cardinal Rules.
Like All Psychics shall have common ground.
Shall be void of vagueness and false prediction... so on

Our seers of Modern Day I assume
 
I wonder if some psychics make the claim that their "powers" come from God to counteract the notion common among fundamentalists that such things would necessarily be from the Devil.

There are varieties of fundamentalists who think that divining, fortune-telling, and the like are all related to "witchcraft" and to be shunned.
 
sg1985 said:
I recently heard someone say that religion has nothing to do with physic powers and psychics can be atheists. It got me thinking...

A lot of psychics claim that their "powers" come from God and their Christian faith. There are others that credit another God or being for their "abilities".

Most atheists I know link their beliefs with science and psychic abilities are not science. But just because something isn't science doesn't automatically make it religion. But wouldn't believing in some kind of supernatural ability infer that there's something above and beyond normal human capabilities?

I'm confused. Any thoughts?

:boxedin:
Click to expand...
Sure again! The problem they have is they can't be xtians.. The Bible refers to that as witchcraft so......
 
Bikewer said:
I wonder if some psychics make the claim that their "powers" come from God to counteract the notion common among fundamentalists that such things would necessarily be from the Devil.

There are varieties of fundamentalists who think that divining, fortune-telling, and the like are all related to "witchcraft" and to be shunned.
Click to expand...

Do we need a Inquisition, or would that be too harsh
 
sg1985 said:
I recently heard someone say that religion has nothing to do with physic powers and psychics can be atheists. It got me thinking...

A lot of psychics claim that their "powers" come from God and their Christian faith. There are others that credit another God or being for their "abilities".

Most atheists I know link their beliefs with science and psychic abilities are not science. But just because something isn't science doesn't automatically make it religion. But wouldn't believing in some kind of supernatural ability infer that there's something above and beyond normal human capabilities?

I'm confused. Any thoughts?

:boxedin:
Click to expand...

Of course you can an atheist and a psychic. You don't have to believe in God/Gods in order to believe in the paranormal, but it does help. That is why some psychics, such as Sylvia Browne, market themselves with Christianity in conjunction with paranormal beliefs.

In fact, I think there is a fair amount of psychics, faith healers, astrologers, and the like that are atheists. Check out Dan Barker's book "Losing Faith in Faith" about atheistic preachers.

For many its a job and not about theism. It only becomes a contradiction when they chose to stop deceiving people, sometimes including themselves, with regard to a certain belief.
 
Responding to OP: In my personal experience (FWIW) people who thought they had psychic abilities were more likely to be atheist, pagan, or pantheist (in that they thought "god" was a vast cosmic Consciousness of which all living things are part) than religious in one of the major religions. (That is, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Islam, and Hinduism.) I haven't known enough Shintoists to make an assessment.

MK
 
sg1985 said:
A lot of psychics claim that their "powers" come from God and their Christian faith. There are others that credit another God or being for their "abilities".
Click to expand...

That's actually news to me - all of the psychics I've had anything to do with have been atheists that "don't know" where their powers come from.

sg1985 said:
But wouldn't believing in some kind of supernatural ability infer that there's something above and beyond normal human capabilities?
Click to expand...

Yeah, this is the best bit of all!

I certainly believe that any type of psychic powers being real would indicate the christian god exists. It's the only thing I agree with Tommy Aquinas on.
 
If you are a "real" Christian then you can't be a Psychic because the Christian religion looks down upon speaking to the dead it is a work of the Devil.
A lot of the believers of psychics believe in some sort of miss mash of beliefs that anyway are just as credible as Christianity, Islam etc..
A lot of Psychics and their believers do talk of a god. Frequent the believer forums like I do and you will see some pretty crazy beliefs, but then again just as credible as any other belief.
 
Apparent Christian psychics like Slyvia Browne practice an unorthodox version of Christianity, to put it mildly. Most of the people I know who believe in "magick" are neopagan.

I think that religious faith is in part responsible for the acceptance of psychic powers and/or magic, because it opwns the door to "knowing" without proof or evidence. Once a person is open to the idea of accepting a claim uncritically, then they are open to all kinds of stuff.

Religion is a "gateway woo".
 
The Atheist said:
That's the second time I've seen that recently. Might have been you saying it twice!

I'm not sure it's true. Seems the official position is that the jury is out. Some correlation, but whether the chicken laid the egg or not is debatable.
Click to expand...
Well, I'm pretty sure it wasn't me, but I haven't seen the other one, so I can't tell. It may have been me.

But you're right, and religion -> woo is neither inevitable, nor is it a one way street. To address the OP, yes. Psychics can be atheists. It's not only religion that causes one to believe one has psychic powers. Religion does not have a monopoly on idiocy.
 
"Psychics" can be atheist, but many "psychics" claim to be of Christian faith. One should consider that a key reason why they spout religion- could be to gain credibility or acceptance (among those who are religious) by using religion as a cover, or front.

Consider this, if the "psychic" were to bundle their purported paranormal powers with religion, and you were to attack the "psychic" on the grounds that they don't have any power, you not only attack them as a person, but you also attack God.

Example: when asked to take the $1 Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge and the "psychic" declines:
How often do you hear a "psychic" resort to citing something like, "I don't have to prove to anyone other than to myself, my client(s) and God, that I have psychic ability."

Note: There has not been one person who has been proven to possess "psychic" powers. There is only the belief that "psychic" powers might exist.
 
It's probably partly a cultural issue. In a society where religion is common or required, more of the psychics will claim their ability emanates from God, whereas in a society where religion is not so important, it is more decoupled from religion. Although I'm sure there are some, I can't recall any Swedish psychics who claim their abilities come from God, but they still claim to be psychics. The word "spiritual" ("andlig" in Swedish) seems to be used a lot, but not in a religious meaning.
 
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