I am devout, born-again atheist but am quite interested in paranormal investigators. I’m not sure that I am interested in what they are investigating so much as “why” they are investigating it. I am planning to put together a book proposal in which I, an atheist, go along with some paranormal investigators on their investigations in an attempt to… well there I’m not sure what I’m doing it for: curiousity, “proof”, debunking or what. So any suggestions on the best approach to this book proposal?
Posted: July 2nd 2010
Eric_PK
You can do a bunch of research on the CSI (committee for scientific inquiry, I think) website or in their “Skeptical inquirer” magazine, and/or on James Randi’s website.
Posted: July 8th 2010
SmartLX www
I think the answers you seek will be fairly straightforward choices between three options. Paranormal investigators do what they do for one of three reasons:
1. to prove what they already think is real,
2. to disprove what they already think is bull or
3. to genuinely find out what’s real and what’s bull.
Nothing stops an atheist from doing this sort of investigation, but generally speaking they’ll approach it from #3 if they’re open-minded and #2 if they’re less so.
If your project goes ahead, you’ll eventually categorise yourself as well as those you accompany. Regardless, if you establish that a large majority of current paranormal investigators are in one of these categories, that will be very interesting.
Posted: July 4th 2010