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{"id":388,"date":"2009-06-18T22:08:00","date_gmt":"2009-06-18T21:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/epiphenom\/2009\/06\/atheists-also-have-a-sense-of-awe-and-wonder.html"},"modified":"2014-11-13T18:18:47","modified_gmt":"2014-11-13T17:18:47","slug":"atheists-also-have-sense-of-awe-and","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/epiphenom\/2009\/06\/atheists-also-have-sense-of-awe-and.html","title":{"rendered":"Atheists also have a sense of awe and wonder"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

But do atheists also lack more common human emotions, like a sense of awe and wonder? After all, these emotions are also irrational \u2013 they depend upon imbuing a quality to objects that isn\u2019t intrinsic to them. The sense of awe exists only in the eye (or rather, mind) of the beholder.<\/p>\n

Catherine Caldwell-Harris<\/a>, a psychologist at Boston University, ran a small study<\/a> that compared the spiritual beliefs of atheists with Christians and Buddhists. The unsurprising news was that they all scored equally on values like whether they find meaning in their life experiences, and whether they thought their life had a sense of purpose.<\/p>\n

The atheists were also given a free-response question, which asked them \u201cHave you ever felt wonderment or felt as if you were part of something greater than yourself?\u201d<\/p>\n

71% of them answered \u201cyes\u201d. Of these, half felt this way about nature, and nearly a third about science. When asked, 46% attributed these feelings to \u2018science\u2019, and 17% to the universe, or a feeling of something greater than themselves. A third left that one blank though.<\/p>\n

Why don\u2019t the atheists believe in gods? Overwhelmingly, they said it was due to a preference for logic and rationality. Which brings us back to Cardinal O\u2019Connor. Yes, atheists are not transcendental. But they\u2019re no less human for all that.<\/p>\n

And, for those who missed it, here\u2019s Cardinal O\u2019Connor explaining why he thinks atheists are less than human\u2026<\/p>\n http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Xbrfz1DIq9Q<\/a>\n

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$\"Creative$ <\/a><\/span>This work by Tom Rees<\/a> is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales License<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"