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Just thought I'd ask - any atheists here who accept small g gnosticism?

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dmallind Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-28-11 03:05 PM
Original message
Just thought I'd ask - any atheists here who accept small g gnosticism?
Edited on Thu Jul-28-11 03:08 PM by dmallind
Thought occurred as I was doing the quotidian agnostic/atheist clarification and while I know that logically there is no requisite to deny gnosis to be an atheist I have never met one who did not.

So, forgetting for a moment the original Platonic meaning of experiential knowledge AND the Xian heresy, and keeping only the basic idea of knowledge gained by mystically revealed certainty, any atheists who accept this as valid epistemology? Examples would be the relying on "hunches" and the extrapolation of subjective perception to objectve fact: "the Yankees will win the series this year - I just know so".
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mike_c Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-28-11 03:13 PM
Response to Original message
1. of course!-- we even have a special term to describe it....
Edited on Thu Jul-28-11 03:13 PM by mike_c
Coincidence.
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MineralMan Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-28-11 03:13 PM
Response to Original message
2. I doubt it very much. Certainly it isn't true for this atheist.
:shrug:
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qb Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-28-11 04:25 PM
Response to Original message
3. I am an atheist, but I must say... my partner has uncanny intuition.
Edited on Thu Jul-28-11 04:30 PM by qb
He believes he is psychic. I think he is very adept at perceiving, retaining and evaluating subtle details in people and his surroundings.

As for myself, I have on occasion acted on a hunch, and things turned out very well as a result. I believe hunches and intuition result from organic processes in our subconscious minds.
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laconicsax Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-28-11 04:36 PM
Response to Original message
4. I have a feeling that this is going to be response #4.
Edited on Thu Jul-28-11 04:36 PM by laconicsax
ETA: Wow! I was right!
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dmallind Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-28-11 09:26 PM
Response to Reply #4
5. smartarse. nt
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laconicsax Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-28-11 11:17 PM
Response to Reply #5
6. I knew you were going to say that.
:P
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Odin2005 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-29-11 12:06 AM
Response to Original message
7. I kinda-sorta-maybe do.
I do have a lot of hunches that turn out to be true.
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dmallind Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-29-11 09:37 AM
Response to Reply #7
12. Interesting. Care to speculate on the process? Obviously there are still mysteries re: the brain
So it's possible there is s different way for new information to be received and processed, but not sure what it could be.
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Odin2005 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-29-11 07:04 PM
Response to Reply #12
15. I'll guess it's from the brain making associations with unconscious sensory information and...
half-forgotten memories that are not conscious.
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white_wolf Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-29-11 01:39 AM
Response to Original message
8. This isn't excatly on topic, but it seems some atheists can have very strange belies.
I did a religious studies paper on mystical occult traditions, not (Wicca, but more of the Alister Crowley,Ceremonial Magic stuff) and I went to a board devoted to that kind of stuff and asked a few questions and apparently a few of the occult practitioners/magicians, were atheist. It was a very interesting paper.
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Humanist_Activist Donating Member (603 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-29-11 02:13 AM
Response to Reply #8
9. Being an atheist doesn't mean someone is automatically using critical thinking...
in evaluating their beliefs, nor does it make a person completely rational. Someone can be an atheist by being raised that way, and never learning how to evaluate evidence or using empiricism in their lives, or they could have come about their atheism through completely irrational means.
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dmallind Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-29-11 08:01 AM
Response to Reply #8
10. True enough - one of my old group was a big ghost-believer.
She believed them though because of her experience - eubjective though she admits it was. I don't know how many atheists go beyond that though into believing in anything without such "evidence".
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Humanist_Activist Donating Member (603 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-29-11 09:32 AM
Response to Original message
11. Not really, I have hunches, but then I try to go a step further and test their...
accuracy rather than rely on them alone. As far as making statements with little supporting evidence, such as claiming knowledge on predictions, such as in your example. Not really, I could say I want my favorite sports team to win, but I wouldn't say I know they will win. Seems ridiculous to even make such predictions.

I will say that I'm still human, so sometimes I fail my own test, but one thing to keep in mind is that our perceptions are so subjective, and so flawed, that I find it difficult to even imagine relying on them alone for anything.
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Taverner Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-29-11 01:40 PM
Response to Reply #11
14. Hunches are a by-product of your subconscious mind
While you sit there doing nothing, your subconscious mind is doing cross searches and the equivalent of database queries on all stimuli you are receiving. So when you get a hunch, say you think the Butler did it, it really is because your subconscious mind has cross analyzed the clues, and matched them up against other stored clues, and then offered up the Butler as an explanation.
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Humanist_Activist Donating Member (603 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-29-11 07:13 PM
Response to Reply #14
16. True, but then I would search for supporting evidence of that hunch...
I wouldn't go the the parlor and point fingers at the butler on just a hunch, it may nudge me in the right direction, but it can just as easily lead me astray.
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Taverner Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-29-11 01:38 PM
Response to Original message
13. Funny you mention "hunches"
We think hunches emanate from nowhere - from this ethereal plane where angels and demons fly...

Nothing could be further from the truth. I am reading a book called "Incognito" which deals with the brain. Your conscious mind really doesn't do a whole lot of thinking - most of the time you are on autopilot. This does not mean your brain isn't working, however. It has access to the same stimuli your conscious brain has. So when you get a hunch, it is merely your subconscious offering up a suggestion culled from logical cross searches from visual stimuli.

Yeah, I know, takes the magic out of it doesn't it? But fuck magic. I would rather know than believe.
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frogmarch Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-29-11 07:34 PM
Response to Reply #13
17. Excellent post.
I've always believed that I stopped my car inches from the edge of a cliff one night, and another time, just before I'd have slammed into a black bull crossing a blacktop highway on a moonless night, because of visual stimuli I detected subconsciously. Maybe a faint change in the degree of darkness my eyes perceived at the edge of the cliff and a subtle darkening of the blacktop as the black bull walked across it were enough to send a STOP! message to my conscious brain, even though I still don't recall seeing changes in the darkness on either night.

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