# Are any atheists superstitious? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 25, 2002, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-any-atheists-superstitious/144903 "2002-12-25T23:39:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![il\_Topo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/eb9ed0/32.png) [@il\_Topo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/il_Topo)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2002, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-any-atheists-superstitious/144903/1 "2002-12-25T23:39:07Z")
I’ve had several discussions with theists (specifically, Christians) lately in which they said they have known atheists who claimed to be able to read palms and predict the future, who believed in a higher force, and what have you. This is contrary to my definition of atheism, which has always been “a lack of belief in anything supernatural.” So, my main question is as follows: Are there (contrary to my experience) really any superstitious atheists out there? Moreover, are there any people who stop short of belief in a single God (e.g., the Christian God), but believe in other things supernatural, and who consider themselves to be “atheist” as opposed to, say, pagan or pantheist? Does it make sense for an atheist to throw salt over his/her shoulder, avoid a black cat crossing the path, etc.? ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2002, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-any-atheists-superstitious/144903/2 "2002-12-25T23:43:25Z")
I think it depends on how you define superstitious. Since humans look for casual relationships, an atheist in general is just as likely as a religious person to try and show cause and effect. I’ve known atheists who don’t have an ounce of understanding of probability and statistics, and will wear the same hat when watching a football game, swear that heads is bound to come up after five tails, and whatnot. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2002, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-any-atheists-superstitious/144903/3 "2002-12-26T00:07:29Z")
Well, atheism is extremely widespread in China, and the Chinese are also famously superstitious. So it would amaze me if there were not a large number of superstitious Chinese atheists. I think the problem is your definition of atheism, which is not the definition anyone else uses. Atheism is the lack of a belief in a god or gods. A lack of belief in anything supernatural might be materialism (although, of course, “materialism” has other meanings as well). ---
**Author:** ![Kalt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Kalt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalt)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2002, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-any-atheists-superstitious/144903/4 "2002-12-26T00:10:23Z")
I’ll bet a lot of those “theists” (specifically christians, as you say) you had this discussion with think that any non-christian is an atheist. Either that, or maybe these palm readers are, for example, Wiccans, who don’t believe in “a” god per se, thus confusing the christians and causing them to label the wiccans “atheists.” Always a possibility. ---
**Author:** ![il\_Topo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/eb9ed0/32.png) [@il\_Topo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/il_Topo)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2002, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-any-atheists-superstitious/144903/5 "2002-12-26T00:16:02Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by UDS \* > **Well, atheism is extremely widespread in China, and the Chinese are also famously superstitious. So it would amaze me if there were not a large number of superstitious Chinese atheists.** Don’t you think there are many official atheists in China (e.g., for the benefit of the Communist Party) who privately adhere to native religions and therefore what westerners might consider to be superstitions? > [@](#): > > \*\*I think the problem is your definition of atheism, which is not the definition anyone else uses. Atheism is the lack of a belief in a god or gods. A lack of belief in anything supernatural might be materialism (although, of course, “materialism” has other meanings as well). \*\* But what does it mean to not believe in any gods, but to believe in supernatural things? How do you differentiate between “gods” and, well, “something less than a god”? Seems weird to think that an atheist would believe in a “supernatural something not called a god,” doesn’t it? But I guess that was my original question. It does seem weird to me, and I was wondering if my experience/opinion was unique. ---
**Author:** ![nalex2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/cc9497/32.png) [@nalex2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nalex2)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2002, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-any-atheists-superstitious/144903/6 "2002-12-26T00:35:22Z")
Do you think Christians are superstitous? ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2002, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-any-atheists-superstitious/144903/7 "2002-12-26T00:55:41Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by il Topo \* > **Don’t you think there are many official atheists in China (e.g., for the benefit of the Communist Party) who privately adhere to native religions and therefore what westerners might consider to be superstitions?** I’m not equating native Chinese religions with superstition. Whether many Chinese profess atheism while privately adhering to religious belief I cannot say; I have no reason to suppose so. Chinese superstition (in my not very well-informed opinion) largely revolves around the concept of luck, which is not (necessarily or usually) a religious concept. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by il Topo \* > \*\*But what does it mean to not believe in any gods, but to believe in supernatural things? How do you differentiate between “gods” and, well, “something less than a god”? Seems weird to think that an atheist would believe in a “supernatural something not called a god,” doesn’t it? > > But I guess that was my original question. It does seem weird to me, and I was wondering if my experience/opinion was unique. \*\* You seem to be equating “supernatural” and “divine”, which is not an equation most people would make. It is perfectly possible to be an atheist Buddhist, for example, and Buddhism deals extensively with the supernatural. I am not, please note, suggesting that Buddhism is a superstition; I am merely illustrating that the supernatural extends beyond the divine. It can extend to Buddhist beliefs, and it can extend to superstition too. ---
**Author:** ![whistlepig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/73ab20/32.png) [@whistlepig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whistlepig)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2002, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-any-atheists-superstitious/144903/8 "2002-12-26T00:57:00Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by il Topo \* > \*\* > Does it make sense for an atheist to throw salt over his/her shoulder, avoid a black cat crossing the path, etc.? \*\* Nope But it makes no sense for a practicing Catholic or Presbyterian to do the same, for the same reason. Superstitions are culturally based. Theism, or the lack thereof, has nothing to do with “warding the gods off” behavior. Could you please describe a theologically based “superstition” which most Christians still believe in? (Other than those which make the Baby Jesus cry.) For instance, “God Bless You” when people sneeze once meant, “May the Demons not fly up your nose in this second of inattention.” But who believes THAT will happen? ---
**Author:** ![il\_Topo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/eb9ed0/32.png) [@il\_Topo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/il_Topo)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2002, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-any-atheists-superstitious/144903/9 "2002-12-26T03:14:21Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by nalex2 \* > \*\*Do you think Christians are superstitous? \*\* Why do you ask? Did my use of the term “superstition” offend you? I’d rather not be judgmental of any faith or superstition or whatever, thus my avoidance of an answer. I wasn’t trying to denigrate any belief by differentiating between “belief in God” and “belief in superstition” My use of the term was an attempt to describe “belief in the supernatural just shy of God.” Perhaps it was a poor choice of words. If so, I apologize. I certainly don’t want to get in a fight about what is superstition and what is religion. I just wanted to know if their were atheists who believe in supernatural things. I thought by definition this could not be the case. So let me restate: **Are there atheists that believe in anything supernatural?** ---
**Author:** ![whistlepig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/73ab20/32.png) [@whistlepig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whistlepig)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2002, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-any-atheists-superstitious/144903/10 "2002-12-26T03:47:50Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by il Topo \* > \*\* > **Are there atheists that believe in anything supernatural?** \*\* Nope. Good night. ---
**Author:** ![loinburger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/db5fbb/32.png) [@loinburger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/loinburger)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2002, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-any-atheists-superstitious/144903/11 "2002-12-26T04:03:42Z")
Atheism technically refers only to disbelief in or denial of gods, but the problem is that “god” is itself a bit of a fudge term. If a god is a “perfect, omnipotent, omniscient creator of the universe” (or some approximation of this definition), then it’s entirely possible to disbelieve in or deny the existence of a god, while at the same time believe in lesser supernatural entities (spirits, demons, ghosts, monsters under the bed, etc.), and so the answer to your question would be “yes”. If a god is simply a “being or force possessing supernatural powers or attributes,” then an atheist would be one who disbelieved in or denied the existence of all supernatural phenomena (since such a broad definition of “god” could be applied to pretty much any supernatural phenomenon regardless of how trivial or mundane), meaning the answer to your question would then be “no”. So, to answer your question, you’ll need to first define “god”. ---
**Author:** ![il\_Topo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/eb9ed0/32.png) [@il\_Topo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/il_Topo)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2002, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-any-atheists-superstitious/144903/12 "2002-12-26T04:09:36Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by whistlepig \* > \*\*Nope But it makes no sense for a practicing Catholic or Presbyterian to do the same, for the same reason. [Rest of post addressing an unasked, off-topic question regarding superstitious _theists_ deleted.] > \*\* I agree fully with the quoted statement. And yet…I do know members of mainstream religions who are superstitious, and I don’t know any atheists who are. Why is that? Perhaps it is merely a quantitative change for someone who already believes in the supernatural (e.g., a Catholic or a Presbyterian) to stretch a little to make room for a little extra-religious supernatural in their life, whereas it seems a qualitative and catagorical shift, one totally against a philosphical inclination to disbelieve, for an atheist to adopt any supernatural position. Then again, perhaps it is merely because I don’t know enough atheists. Thus, my question. ---
**Author:** ![presidebt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c37758/32.png) [@presidebt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/presidebt)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2002, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-any-atheists-superstitious/144903/13 "2002-12-26T04:18:01Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by il Topo \* > \*\* I’d rather not be judgmental of any faith or superstition or whatever, thus my avoidance of an answer. \*\* Maybe I’m playing to semantics here, but any deifinition of an aithiest that includes “lack of belief” is a bit offensive. The reason is that the definition offered is predicated on the word “belief”, which clearly has no place in an athiests view. As an athiests I do not “lack belief”, rather I accept that others also inhabiting the planet “have belief” in a system built around what they call a “being”, but which they have no way of proving to themselves or others, insofar as we understand “proof” in today’s world. I do not accept _their beliefs_, however. Your definition of “athiest” presumes I exist in a state of privation and that is simply not the case. That said, and speaking for myself (which is really _all_ I can do), no- I do not have any superstitious beliefs. This is based on the definition of superstition as offered by Merriam-Webster’s, which is: \*a belief or practice resulting from ignorance, fear of the unknown, trust in magic or chance, or a false conception of causation. \* This definition should help answer **nalex2’s** question as well. ---
**Author:** ![il\_Topo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/eb9ed0/32.png) [@il\_Topo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/il_Topo)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2002, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-any-atheists-superstitious/144903/14 "2002-12-26T04:22:29Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by loinburger \* > \*\*So, to answer your question, you’ll need to first define “god”. \*\* I agree with your (unquoted) analysis. Yet atheists rarely get into the game of defining the term “god.” They allow the person who believes in the god to define the supernatural entity (“supernatural” typically [uniformly?] being the only consistent trait of “gods” across the board), then they deny the entity’s existence if they are unconvinced. I find it hard to conceive of an intellectually honest atheist who would believe in a supernatural being, and say, well, I’m an atheist because I don’t call him/her/it “god,” he/she/it is just a “demi-god.” After all, if I say “the tree in my back yard is God and the shrub next to it is the Pope, and I’m a Catholic,” can you go around with a straight face saying you know a Catholic who worships a tree? Or do you know right then and there that I’m not really a Catholic? It’s one thing to call someone what they want to be called out of politeness (and out of a hope that they don’t hurt you 😉 ). It’s another thing to let them redefine terms to have inconsistent definitions. ---
**Author:** ![presidebt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c37758/32.png) [@presidebt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/presidebt)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2002, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-any-atheists-superstitious/144903/15 "2002-12-26T04:22:31Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by presidebt \* > \*\* > That said, and speaking for myself (which is really _all_ I can do), no- I do not have any superstitious beliefs. This is based on the definition of superstition as offered by Merriam-Webster’s, which is: \*a belief or practice resulting from ignorance, fear of the unknown, trust in magic or chance, or a false conception of causation. \* \*\* Almost forgot- nor do participate in superstitious practices. ---
**Author:** ![whistlepig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/73ab20/32.png) [@whistlepig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whistlepig)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2002, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-any-atheists-superstitious/144903/16 "2002-12-26T04:24:45Z")
Good luck and I mean that sincerely. This thread has now entered the stage of: “When I use a word, it means exactly what I want it to mean.” “No, when _I_ use the same word, it means exactly what _I_ want it to mean.” ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2002, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-any-atheists-superstitious/144903/17 "2002-12-26T04:27:11Z")
—Then again, perhaps it is merely because I don’t know enough atheists.— Yep, it is. I’ve met plenty of people that don’t believe in gods, but believe all sorts of strange things. Even if there weren’t such people, you have to at least admit that there is no necessary bar to such beliefs simply because someone happens to lack a _particular_ belief in god. —Maybe I’m playing to semantics here, but any deifinition of an athiest that includes “lack of belief” is a bit offensive.— I don’t. I DO lack belief. That’s not a positive or negative thing. It IS a definition of privation. But privation is not a necessarily bad thing. I lack an extra butt cheek. I lack typhoid. I lack a million dollars. —The reason is that the definition offered is predicated on the word “belief”, which clearly has no place in an athiests view.— So says you! In my mind, there is no “atheists view” common to all atheists. And even if there was, it’s still fine to predicate the definition on belief in god, because we are describing people by what they lack, not what they have. We CAN’T describe them by what they have, because they don’t necessarily share anything else in common. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2002, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-any-atheists-superstitious/144903/18 "2002-12-26T04:33:21Z")
I am probably best described as an atheist, but I do believe in the supernatural to an extent. I have never suffered from (or enjoyed, as the case may be) hallucinations, I have never been a drinker and other than the pre-req college pot experience I’ve never done drunks, but I’ve definitely had experiences I can’t explain. The house in which I grew up (this was on a farm 2 miles from the nearest neighbor, incidentally) was one in which doors opened and closed for no apparent reason on still days, cakes would fall off of tables when neither a person nor animal was in the room, and a constant sense of peripheral “spotting” or goosebum “I’m being watched” feeling was reported by many calm and rational people who visited over the years. I have a very vivid memory from when I was a small child (about 5) of seeing two small black children playing in our driveway (there were no black people for miles) and can still describe their clothes (a little boy wearing a man’s shirt like a gown and a little girl wearing a flour sack) and when I ran to play with them they looked up and quickly vanished (and I wet my pants and remained non-verbal til shortly after puberty- well, alright, that part’s an exaggeration by a few months). Melodramatically and expositionally enough, I later learned from a 90something relative that there had once been sharecropper’s cabins in our driveway and that one had burned in the early 20th century, killing two small black children. I’ve had other strange and almost too conveniently coincidental experiences (dreams that came true, accurate premonitions, etc.), and while I’m well aware of the human tendency to find patterns and “remember the hits while forgetting the misses” there are some things I am just not willing to dismiss as total chance or imagination. At one point in the not very distant past the existence of organisms too tiny to see yet powerful enough to cause disease, or that every blood cell that spilled out when you cut your finger contained the blueprints necessary to replicate your entire body, or that we’d one day be able to sit in our living rooms and both see and hear the president speak in D.C., would have seemed insane or asinine, but now they fit within the ever expanding logical theories of existence, and I honestly think that some (though far from all- in fact, probably just mine 🙂 ) “supernatural” phenomena are in fact manifestations of some branch of biology or chemistry or physics or space-time not deciphered yet, and that among these may be the ubiquity of “ghosts” and the paranormal. Meanwhile, they’re “supernatural”, which to me is not so much synonymous with “superstitious” as with “not yet explicable or attribituble to means not yet proven possible”, so to make a long and pointless dispatch end, yes, I’m an atheist who believes in the supernatural. ---
**Author:** ![presidebt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c37758/32.png) [@presidebt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/presidebt)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2002, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-any-atheists-superstitious/144903/19 "2002-12-26T04:38:33Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Apos \* > \*\*So says you! \*\* :rolleyes: I should have said: In _this_ athiests view. Consider my mistake corrected. ---
**Author:** ![il\_Topo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/eb9ed0/32.png) [@il\_Topo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/il_Topo)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2002, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-any-atheists-superstitious/144903/20 "2002-12-26T04:44:52Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Sampiro \* > \*\*yes, I’m an atheist who believes in the supernatural. \*\* From what you said, I’m forced to disagree. Again, _from what you said_, you are a person who believes in occurrences which, while commonly described as supernatural, are actually natural occurrences, just not yet explained. You believe in the “misdescribed-natural,” not the “supernatural.” [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-any-atheists-superstitious/144903.md?page=2)