# Are atheists who aren’t materialists truly atheists? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 19, 2026, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-atheists-who-aren-t-materialists-truly-atheists/1030197 "2026-05-19T00:20:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 14
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2026, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-atheists-who-aren-t-materialists-truly-atheists/1030197/261 "2026-06-28T18:54:52Z")
Actually there is a conflict in Christian theology where they haven’t quite fully purged all the old testament competing Gods stuff, so you get a weird conflict where modern Christianity says God is the source of everything and therefore of course there are no other gods and no sources of magic power, but then you go back to the historical old testament stuff and every town has their own god and they all fight it out ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2026, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-atheists-who-aren-t-materialists-truly-atheists/1030197/262 "2026-06-28T19:03:00Z")
Yeah, even the first commandment kind of implies that there are other gods, but disallows to follow them. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2026, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-atheists-who-aren-t-materialists-truly-atheists/1030197/263 "2026-06-28T21:04:08Z")
> [@Leaper](#): > > My basic instinct is indeed to question the atheism of someone who doesn’t believe in gods, but does believe in other (apparently) non scientific things. The stereotype of the athiest who adheres to physicalism, rationalism, and scientific skepticism is just that: a stereotype. It would be like questioning whether someone eating rice with a fork is really Chinese. Not necessarily wrong or unreasonable, but not necessarily right. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2026, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-atheists-who-aren-t-materialists-truly-atheists/1030197/264 "2026-06-29T01:21:58Z")
I gotta say, I thought your analogy was pretty damn good. How long did it take you to come up with it? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2026, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-atheists-who-aren-t-materialists-truly-atheists/1030197/265 "2026-06-29T12:08:15Z")
> [@eburacum45](#): > > There are plenty of people who think Bigfoot and the Yeti are extradimensional, and wander from reality to reality like Scott Bakula. They are almost certainly wrong. > > But if they were right, and there really are other dimensions or manifolds that can be accessed via some sort of supernatural ability, would that be a ‘non-materialist’ phenomenon? And if so, do you have to be a theist, or a deist, to believe in extradimensionality? > > Not at all. Belief in extra-dimensional yetis is orthogonal to belief in gods. And to materialism. Materialism isn’t about believing in things according to reason and evidence (although materialism is what reason and evidence appear to support) it’s about believing that everything is wholly physical in nature (thus the alternative term of “physicalism”). One can theoretically believe in all sorts of crazy things and still be a materialist, so long as all of those things _are_ entirely material. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2026, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-atheists-who-aren-t-materialists-truly-atheists/1030197/266 "2026-06-30T23:49:18Z")
> [@Leaper](#): > > I gotta say, I thought your analogy was pretty damn good. How long did it take you to come up with it? The topic was fresh on my mind. Last week, at a family dim sum, my cousin’s kid used a fork to eat rice off a flat plate. ~Max [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-atheists-who-aren-t-materialists-truly-atheists/1030197.md?page=13)