Do atheists have a lack of imagination?

deanlandon

Do atheists have a lack of imagination?

MagicMarker

Nope, but if this is the best topic you can come up with then I think you might.

deanlandon

You know what, I think it is a legitimate question!

Nervous Wreck

deanlandon wrote: »

You know what, I think it is a legitimate question!

It's legitimately a question but a legitimate question? I dunno...

Maire2009

I have a great imagination - I imagine lands of unicorns and ice-cream rivers and gum drop smiles, I'm just not delusional enough to believe they are real.

Nodin

deanlandon wrote: »

Do atheists have a lack of imagination?

No, but certainly troll college needs to take a long hard look at the graduates its sending out into the world.

deanlandon

Nodin wrote: »

No, but certainly troll college needs to take a long hard look at the graduates its sending out into the world.

Good one

TokenWhite

No more than a theist. After all it's the Bible, Qur'an, <insert other ancient religious text here> that basically provides the framework for any theist imaginations. If anything it's those that wrote the books that might be said to have been imaginative, not those that read it. It's a bit like saying that someone who's read a Stephen King novel somehow has a better imagination than someone who hasn't.

Turtwig

deanlandon wrote: »

Do atheists have a lack of imagination?

'A lack' would imply a quantity being in comparison with something else, to what are you comparing atheists with? Rocks? Cows? Dogs?

Sarky

What was the question again? I'm busy writing an RPG scenario for Gaelcon in which a bunch of Ork space pirates travel round a corner of the galaxy I made up, beating up people and taking their ships (I've won awards for those, you know). Well, in between writing a retrospective look at the UFO series of games and why they captured my heart for over 20 years. That's when I'm not making up an article about DayZ in the form of a diary entry, or about the minority of video games with well-written characters, recording a podcast, or painting my Warmachine miniatures in a colour scheme I made up. Or... Well, I think you get the picture.

deanlandon

Jernal wrote: »

'A lack' would imply a quantity being in comparison with something else, to what are you comparing atheists with? Rocks? Cows? Dogs?

Wrong! Imagination is a continuous abstraction - a lack signifies a low level!

deanlandon

deanlandon wrote: »

Do atheists have a lack of imagination?

That's an interesting question. My knee-jerk reaction is to say that atheists, on average, have no less imagination than theists. I think the question boils down to more fundamental questions: does the presence of an active imagination predispose one towards belief in god (or the supernatural, or other fantastical ideas)? If fantastical things and beings and scenarios can easily be imagined by a person, are they more likely to believe that such fantastical things and beings and scenarios can, indeed, be real, and not just products of fancy? Does an inclination towards scepticism, rationality, naturalism and atheism indicate one might have less of an imaginative faculty? I've no idea, and I've no idea how a correlation would even be measured, let alone causation determined, but it's food for thought, nonetheless.

Corkfeen

deanlandon wrote: »

Do atheists have a lack of imagination?

Terry Pratchett springs to mind and he has created one of the most imaginative worlds in recent years. Religion doesn't define ones imagination, it may influence it but not believing in a deity doesn't destroy it.

keelanj69

Sarky wrote: »

What was the question again? I'm busy writing an RPG scenario for Gaelcon in which a bunch of Ork space pirates travel round a corner of the galaxy I made up, beating up people and taking their ships (I've won awards for those, you know). Well, in between writing a retrospective look at the UFO series of games and why they captured my heart for over 20 years. That's when I'm not making up an article about DayZ in the form of a diary entry, or about the minority of video games with well-written characters, recording a podcast, or painting my Warmachine miniatures in a colour scheme I made up. Or... Well, I think you get the picture.

I feel like ive heard of that ork pirate thing somewhere recently. WARPS perchance?

jill_valentine

Why would an atheist have less imagination than somebody who adopted a story they were told as a child and never looked beyond it?

keelanj69

I can imagine middle earth, the far future and dungeon crawling. I cant imagine subscribing to one of those things as the absolute truth over other peoples preferred fairytale. So id say we atheists are ok.

Sarky

keelanj69 wrote: »

I feel like ive heard of that ork pirate thing somewhere recently. WARPS perchance?

Crivins, another Cork feen! They're multiplying!


Ahem. Quite possibly, although I haven't actually been at WARPS myself in ages.

Corkfeen

Sarky wrote: »

Crivins, another Cork feen! They're multiplying!


Ahem. Quite possibly, although I haven't actually been at WARPS myself in ages.

I regret that username to this day, I was a foolish young douche........ Probably was lacking in imagination though. :pac:

Dades

deanlandon - make a point or, well, you can imagine what might happen.

deanlandon

Dades wrote: »

deanlandon - make a point or, well, you can imagine what might happen.

I think that is quite a heavy-handed approach, mr moderator. I intend to weigh in once I have had some time to reflect upon the nice fodder that the good people of this thread have provided. Thank you for your intervention - however, your input may be best served elsewhere!

Daftendirekt

Sarky wrote: »

What was the question again? I'm busy writing an RPG scenario for Gaelcon in which a bunch of Ork space pirates travel round a corner of the galaxy I made up, beating up people and taking their ships (I've won awards for those, you know). Well, in between writing a retrospective look at the UFO series of games and why they captured my heart for over 20 years. That's when I'm not making up an article about DayZ in the form of a diary entry, or about the minority of video games with well-written characters, recording a podcast, or painting my Warmachine miniatures in a colour scheme I made up. Or... Well, I think you get the picture.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRsPheErBj8

Sarky

Jealousy tbh

eyescreamcone

Some atheists lack imagination, while others don't.
Some theists lack imagination, while others don't.

Imagination is not related to ones belief in deities - I would imagine

sink

H G Wells, Douglas Adams, George R R Martin to name three out of thousands of great atheist novelists with great imagination.

Bannasidhe

I can't imagine what on Earth this thread is about.














:pac:

Sarky

Neither can I tbh.

Thread is now about Snape doing Caramelldansen.

BOOSH!

Knasher

A rephrasing of the question would be, does having an imagination predispose you towards theism. I don't think so, if anything I'd argue the opposite, that being able to lose yourself in your own head and generate elaborate tales and stories predisposes you towards atheism, that you'd be far less able to accept the tales in the bible as truth when you can come up with far more realistic tales on your own. Just speaking from personal experience, a large part of the reason I'm an atheist is because it was far easier (by which I mean I had to make less leaps) for me to imagine situations where the bible could be built from folklore than accept the bibles claims as truth. Perhaps that is entirely subjective though.

pauldla

I don't get the question, either, tbh, but I can imagine there's no heaven, if that's what the OP means.

mikhail

deanlandon wrote: »

I think that is quite a heavy-handed approach, mr moderator. I intend to weigh in once I have had some time to reflect upon the nice fodder that the good people of this thread have provided. Thank you for your intervention - however, your input may be best served elsewhere!

If you haven't given your own question some consideration, what makes you think that we're going to? It's lazy, and it smells of trolling, and that's why the nice mod is shining his second best "close thread" mallet.

magicbastarder

why are people even bothering with this thread?

Tim Robbins

deanlandon wrote: »

Do atheists have a lack of imagination?

What made you imagine that?

Dades

deanlandon wrote: »

your input may be best served elsewhere!

Amazingly, I was thinking the same thing.

CLOSED.