This is the way I understood the question, but I am often wrong. A greater awareness of reality is my interpretation.

True, we are not distracted from learning to appreciate the natural world.

Perhaps just, we are not distracted from learning to appreciate the natural world.

@Fernapple well, i do not see that as a function of atheism. they can coexist but they're not necessarily related and they're certainly not related causally.

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@genessa No, but my point is, which I could perhaps have made more plain. That if you are not distracted by religion and woo, then you can give more of your attention to the natural material world, and the gifts that it has to offer. If I go down the garden and look for fairies, then I miss the chance to look into the heart of the flowers and appreciate the elegant beautiful structures of their sexual organs for example. It is perhaps not atheism in a possitive sense but the distractions you leave behind.

@Fernapple lol look around this site. there are plenty of extremely distracted atheists here. it's only one distraction of many that gets dropped. i hear ya, but i really wouldn't put that much stock in it. i say this as an atheist of more than half a century (and not planning to start believing in any gods, either).

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I'm not sure why I'm defending this post, but here goes. A higher consciousness simply means more aware than you were before. Different levels for different people. And by being atheist one isn't blocked from seeing (more) of the truth (if one looks).

@AstralSmoke okay, so that one thing is unblocked, but it can't guarantee that anything else will be. that's my only point. not actually attacking the post but i think it's an example of overreach -- like promising that if you lose weight you will get a better lover. it might represent one hurdle down but it doesn't touch any of the others, right?

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@genessa I totally agree with what you are saying. Poorly worded questions can create some interesting spurs. Her question suggested it was possible to achieve a greater awareness of yourself and 'everything' if one was an atheist.

I just found the intensity entertaining.

@genessa Yes it is true that unblocking does not mean that you will follow the unblocked path. But the original post that we were asked to vote on, did say "can" not "does". However I do agree with you that, having seen a good sample of atheist opinion on this site especially, it does not seem by any means that there is an exceptional lot of higher level appreciation going on. I am easily set going on this issue mainly because I have had a couple of runs in with a woo pedlar/peddler on this site, over this point. So I will leave it at saying that while atheism may not lead to more appreciation of the natural world, religion certainly is a bar to it. RSVP since your comments are always interesting.

@Fernapple lol okay... thanks for saying so! i will quibble minorly with even the "can" but because it's not the atheism that leads to higher consciousness even if the latter occurs; the same thing may have caused both, but it's not a chain, right?

now i've been up since 4:20 this morning, having gone to bed at 2:30, and it's just after 11 now, so i think i want to indulge in some UNconsciousness now!

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@genessa Good night.

which nine?

@Beowulfsfriend Darn it all