When adult atheists adopt faith?

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This.

I think on the emotional level this is the most important - ie. there's less to be feared from death than there is a life lived off-the-rails with no hope and no future. So many organized religions seem to spring up from needs of the times to suggest that its often humanity trying to justify its own existence.

Where that gets hairy of course is if we should find consciousness to be non-local. If we find atheistic outlook correct about organized religions and faith but theists right about eternal nature of the soul - what a mess!

things like astrology and homeopathy have absolutely nothing to do with faith.... these are olde sciences based on chemical and/or physical observations [tides, 28 womens cycles, improved health]

They are practised by highly intelligent atheistic people of science[the queen mother used homoepathy extensively],,,,, but its convenient to group things we dont understand, with things that are bollocks

Crude empirical "support" is no substitute for careful scientific experiment and observation. Astrology for example is based on the Babylonian ephemeris which as a good 30 degrees off. Astrology is bunk and Homeopathy fails every double blind scientific test used to check it.

Casual and crude empirics is no substitute for science.

ruveyn

Don't lose any sleep over that. Any notion of a disembodied eternal soul runs into trouble before it gets off the ground. If souls are doled out one per person, at what point after conception does this magical event take place? The human population has been been on the increase practically forever, so there's no scope for reincarnation (reusability). So every so often a time comes when a shiny new soul is created. Souls dont get doled out to toasters or stick insects yet this thing thats apparently only capable of riding on a human brain is also supposed to be able to dismount at any time the brain ceases to function and carry on as usual. Unless we have the guts to argue that a sperm and/or egg have souls, we must concede that there is an element of development - a dependence on there beng sufficient cellular structure available. Dependecies such as these totally contradict any notion of disembodiment

That's assuming Earth is the only show in town. Looking at the vastness of the universe that wouldn't make much sense.

Also you'd be surprised, some people would claim that everything has a soul - even your toasters and stick insects. I have no clue what to make of that myself though.

My shoes have got soles.

I started another topic called Can consciousness be non local? to divert very interesting OT discussion from here