Are Atheists Mostly Left Brained?

I usually try to stay as far from religion as possible. Because to me, like politics, religion just turns into arguments and fighting.

I think atheists are predominantly left brained, and any right brain intuitions they probably dismiss as coincidence. However, the deeper cause could be either something as esoteric as an emotional lack of development at the soul level (I throw this in as hypothesis) or something like a chakra imbalance in the energy being (closed heart chakra cutting them off from cosmic awareness).

But to be honest I really don't know. What I do find amusing about atheists is how they almost all fail to realise that atheism is nothing but the mirror image of religion, a childish emotional "there is no god, waaaaa" which is logically untennable, because to say that there is no god from our current level of civilizational awareness is trying to understand the whole from a selection of the parts, which if not impossible is highly difficult.

Atheism is emo anti religion, based on fear, on negation, on closed mindedness. There is nothing in individual or human history that forces atheism and materialism as a logical conclusion for a cosmology.

Agnosticism is a much more intelligent option for those that feel they have not (yet?) experienced the divine.

As for me... well that's another thread.

www.testcafe.com...

Quiz to see what you are

I'm

Your percentage score for the right brain is 71%.
Your percentage score for the left brain is 29%.

I thought of myself as atheist for a long time but have developed my own forms of what I believe to be true and it adopts many aspects of different religions.

im atheist, i think with the right side of my brain when it comes to thinking. Look it up and you will see what im on about. i have to break things down, go over and over them. i also have to be shown things, and them do them my self.

= Right side of brain.

Obviously you have to use both side of your brains to be mentally stable lol, but i use my right more.

i haven't seen no divine thing - i might do, so im not been ignorant or anything. i dont diss your beliefs i merely dont thing that if god was real, he would want us to worship him like we do.

Nothing but wars, genocide and much much more has been brought on by the belief of god.

reply to post by n000b


By your own post you might want to reclassify yourself as agnostic. Having a right brain thought process and leaving the option open for experiencing divine circumstances are agnostic markers, not atheist. Most not so well read agnostics think they are atheists, because they don't realise atheism is a rejection of God, not just a lack of belief or experience, which is agnosticism.

An agnostic knows that he dosen't know, even though he dosen't believe, an atheist dosen't believe so he thinks he knows.

Hope I wasn't pedantic here.

[edit on 18-5-2009 by Mindmelding]

Religions right now only manipulate and control people.

But I don't think you need to follow a religion to believe in God.

I believe in God but I don't follow any religions.

reply to post by whoshotJR


Although I am always skeptical of the validity of any form of test, here we go:

Your percentage score for the right brain is 51%.
Your percentage score for the left brain is 50%.

It does more or less confirm my own view of how my brain fires off I guess, I have always thought myself balanced in the attic. Hard to excel when you do it all though.

Thanks for the link.

reply to post by MatrixProphet


I was not even aware that Atheists even had a Brain. I though they were powered by electrical autonomic impulses to just eat, sleep and make babies, much like a snail. KMG

I tried to make a case for the bible for years but the torrents and pressure of logic just kept beating and eroding away at the bastions of denial I was erecting. Aside from the silliness, vast contradictions, and assault on logic, I also started noting the personal (and even moral) failures of so called religious folks. It was like being in a huge dysfunctional family where everyone must blind themselves and suffocate their own feelings and thoughts (and hide their own atrocious behavior .

I laughed the other day when I heard a fundamentalist friend say that many problems in society were the result of taking prayer out of schools, gay rights, abortion, yada yada. And here I live in a city with one of the highest murder rates, drug problems, and school drop outs anywhere, and paradoxically one of the most religious with churches on almost every corner!

Atheists are portrayed by religious as being the spawn of satan, and yet overall they are one of the most peaceable, law abiding, decent folks you could ever meet. The crime element among atheists is almost non existent. This ought to tell you something! Dosen't your own bible tell you that you will know them by their fruits?? Learn to start questioning folks. It's good for you. Oh, and if you think that applied logic towards belief is not a good approach, I suggest you once again re-adopt your childish beliefs in the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus.

gads, how could i not be right-brained! i'm a singer, musician, author, poet, and artist LOL! i'm also a christian!

however, it appears i'm also lefty.
56 righty
44 lefty

are they sure ? i mean, i can see science one day deciding it has no need for singers, musicians, poets, artists or spiritual people who believe in something they can't see everyday, and growing new babies with only left hemispheres!

Saint Augustine (354-430) once characterized existence as an ontological set of stairs leading to God. He maintains in his writing that God exists outside of time, and that the universe was created with time and not in time. Saint Thomas (1225-74) later put forth the argument for the existence of God by asserting that every event is caused by a prior event which leads back to the first cause which is God. But the argument falls down for the reason that causality is strictly a temporal concept and, by definition, has no meaning outside of time.

I think people are so set in on disproving one another that they forget to find a common ground. In past arguments I have come off a little strong for religion but would at least try to find common ground eventually. OP I believe you are correct in your way of thinking. The way of education is so left brained these days we forget about those who are right brained. I went to a community college in Colorado and was very disappointed at what they offered for music, I left and went to Wyoming of all places lol.
I wish I was more left brained at times but being right brained is what gives me creativity and innovation, a great gift for a music major.

reply to post by aeroslag

dumbs people down and has them accept anything because "it's Gods will

Now you know there are Dr.s, lawyers, teachers, scientists, and on and on that believe in god, they are not dumb.



[edit on 043131p://bMonday2009 by Stormdancer777]

reply to post by whoshotJR


Your percentage score for the right brain is 59%.
Your percentage score for the left brain is 41%.

You are more right-brained than left-brained. The right side of your brain controls the left side of your body. In addition to being known as right-brained, you are also known as a creative thinker who uses feeling and intuition to gather information. You retain this information through the use of images and patterns. You are able to visualize the "whole" picture first, and then work backwards to put the pieces together to create the "whole" picture. Your thought process can appear quite illogical and meandering. The problem-solving techniques that you use involve free association, which is often very innovative and creative. The routes taken to arrive at your conclusions are completely opposite to what a left-brained person would be accustomed. You probably find it easy to express yourself using art, dance, or music. Some occupations usually held by a right-brained person are forest ranger, athlete, beautician, actor/actress, craftsman, and artist.

Your left brain/right brain percentage was calculated by combining the individual scores of each half's sub-categories. They are as follows:

Well this test fit me I am an artist.

Originally posted by ravenshadow13
I'm an atheist and I'm also more right-brained than left-brained.

Coincidentally, I ardently believe in God and am far more left-brained than right-brained.

reply to post by MatrixProphet


Atheists left brained? I guess its possible, but we'd definitely need to conduct some sort of a massive study to figure out conclusively.

The God Spot dilemma is an interesting one, but it reminds me of some of the older religions, specifically those who used drugs to send their shaman's to the spirit world and such, they induced these spiritual experiences through the use of drugs and I've heard of similar experiences through the use of mushrooms... The God Spot also reminds me of the "Splinter in the mind" from the Matrix, that feeling that no matter how much we think we know we truly know nothing and for every answer found a dozen new questions arise...

In truth I think the decision of whether or not to believe in God is more complex than just left-right, we as humans have a tendency to simplify and condense, left-right, good-evil, republican-democrat, we're always forgetting about the subtle shades of gray and the uniqueness of every individual...

bah delete this, why do I even post on things like this...

[edit on 5/18/09 by MoothyKnight]

Originally posted by MatrixProphet
reply to post by Welfhard

 

You misrepresentation and misunderstanding of neuropsychology bugs me.

Buy some "Black Flag" and get over it!!

What experience do you have in addictionology?

Yea, because the study of addiction is more relevant than neurology considering that we are dealing directly with brain hemispheres.

yup, hurr.

reply to post by badmedia

It will forever and always be a realm of action and reaction, repeating patterns and so forth and will lack understanding or what it means "to be". Can't program these things in, they are well beyond the realm of logic. In the end, I realized that consciousness(what I could never give the AI) is that which creates logic, can't use logic to create consciousness. But I learned alot in terms of the real world and how our bodies behave and so forth just from thinking about it.

I cannot imagine attempting to create intelligence, because then you would have to create consciousness to make intelligence - work! I admire you for trying.

Consciousness is the #1 proof or evidence in a power with consciousness that created it.

All work that is done in labs are done by sentient beings (I assume). Some more conscious than others, hehe.

Is your exercise not a perfect example of divine order and intelligence?

But I was more looking at how to put those things we "feel" are right or wrong into logic. Which means, a bunch of if this, then do that, while this is happening, do this, etc.

Isn't this where good writing or authorship comes in? HOW TO APPLY WHAT WE LEARN! Many of us are sort of specialists in our fields. Some of us are given the ability to translate something very difficult into easy to understand language.

You certainly do this being a technological genius. A field where I am a babe. In my field, I am not.

For example, lets say we want to use the method of accepting things. Which we all do. We come into this world and we rely on our parents to tell us the truth. So how do we come up with the logic for determing right from wrong?

Sometimes this comes from a school of hard knocks. The police become suddenly our higher power, the judge or even our teacher.

Our conscience is made up of our left and right brain. Here is how it works (simply):

Our left brain takes in information/data. It is our computer chip without any feelings or judgment.

Our right brain takes this information and decides what to do with it. Am I going to abuse it? Will I take needless chances? Do I need to find out for myself? "I don't care, I'm going to do it anyway!"


A smart person learns from other peoples experiences.
An average person learns from their own.
A stupid person never learns at all.


So...we do something wrong. Our left brain tells us we are guilty - you should go and apologize.

Your right brain "feels" the guilt! "Oh my, I feel so badly about what I did! I need to correct my foolish comment."

So all of this - the left and the right combine to create consciousness. Of course this varies with each person and a persons level of awareness, level of dysfunction, and if addiction is thrown in. All of these add variables to human psychology & behavior.

Now, if you were to add a God element into the picture, then you may be more alert to the red flags (but not necessarily). I believe that part of our consciousness is a connection to this spark - God.

Can't program a "feeling", the best I can do is generate a "random" number and generate a feeling based off that random number, IE: random number between 1-10, if the number is below 4, then 1 feeling, above 4 another feeling which gives you a 40% chance of 1 feeling, or a 60% chance of another. While this would mimic what we do in many ways, it is not actually what we do.

Plus! It didn't happen by accident. No, you used YOUR gray cells to attempt to figure it out. Imagine on the cosmos level!

I'm not so much asking for code or the logic in itself. It's more about a thought experiment which will reveal insights into how we determine fact from fiction and so forth.

This is again a combination of your logic along with your senses. Again (very valuable):

It looks good.
It sounds good.
Does it feel right?

This is an exercise in using both sides of your brain to come up with an answer that seems right to you.

Right, but as I was looking at creating AI, I was looking for a logical way. As I mentioned above, I eventually came to realize it is impossible without consciousness/god. But again the point is the thought experiment which in itself leads to better understanding.

So, are you left with any doubts? If not, then you have your answer.

reply to post by Aakron


Thank you, thank you! Very well said!

Logic is a help, but gut instincts saved my life too many times!