"Spirituality is a broad concept with room for many perspectives. In general, it includes a sense of connection to something bigger than ourselves, and it typically involves a search for meaning in life. As such, it is a universal human experience—something that touches us all. People may describe a spiritual experience as sacred or transcendent or simply a deep sense of aliveness and interconnectedness."
Defining oneself an a-theist, without god, or ag-nostic, without knowing, is risky business when working in a deeply religious community. I have been defined by others as "a materialist" (...and also a "High Priest of Marduk" by COG types. lol). I define "materialism" as a lack of belief in magic.
In my therapeutic massage practice in South Carolina, it was very common within the first few minutes to be asked by a new client, "So where do you go to church?" Uh oh.... It went like this...
Client:: "So where do YOU go to church?" (The assumption was all do)
Me early in the game: "I don't attend"
Client: "Then you can go with us. We'll pick you up"
Me: ..chuckle, "That's ok but thanks"
Client: "You believe in God don't you?"
Me: "Let's relax, take a deep breath and enjoy your session"
Client: "What did you do before you went into massage?"
HERE IT COMES!
Me: sigh..."I was a church pastor for 26 years in 5 states and 14 congregations"
Client: "What do you mean you used to be? You still believe in Jesus don't you?"
Me....."Well, I've learned a lot about Biblical origins and the story since then...."
Client: "Like what?"
.....and I had to reign it in and try to get them to back off and just relax. Not uncommon for a client to hand me a list of scriptures when they came out after the session to read and "we'll discuss these next time". I would look at them and ask if they'd like me to recite the now to get out of next time. "OH...you know these?" LOL.
Realizing I can't do this with new clients I finally opted for the following....
Client: "So what church do you go to?"
Me: "Oh...I'm Non-Condemnational" (It was a close fit with Non-Denominational)
Client: "........oh great! They have those here in town"
THE END
But personally, and while agnostic/atheist to the literalism of scripture and more the fan of good science done well, and no, Bible literalism is NOT compatible with actual science, the following is every bit my view and sense of being on the planet as an atheist/agnostic now on the topic of a personal "spirituality"
5 Ways Atheism Can Be Spiritual
It is often thought that atheists have no spirituality. That all atheists care about is making religious people feel stupid, and that there is no more to life than understanding complex interactions between matter. That feeling connected or involved in the universe is solely the privilege of the faithful. I disagree with this.
Though I dislike the word spirituality itself, mainly due to all its religious connotations, I understand the word’s significance. Spirituality is simply an adjective that is used to describe the search for one’s place in the universe.
No one wants to feel alone in life, and even if you are alone, being spiritual makes you feel connected to the world and other people in it. Atheists get that, and it is important, maybe even essential, to our species’ psychological makeup to feel this way. There are ways to feel involved with the world that do not involve mystic mumbo-jumbo however.
1. Understanding Life
Science as a whole is a woefully-neglected subject in public schools, and it is a shame, because of all disciplines, it can be the most spiritual, especially the study of biology.
All species on earth were at one time connected, we all share certain common characteristics passed on through eons in our DNA strands, and we are just one link in a chain whose future is uncertain. Think of how mind boggling it is that for about 150,000 years human beings, no different than you and me, walked the Earth with other human-like species. Or how incredible it is that we share a common ancestor with both a dragonfly and a grapefruit.
To know evolution is to know the story of life on earth, and to know the scientific story of life is to feel connected to the world as you never have before.
2. Understanding the Stars
There are more stars in the universe than grains of sand on Earth. That is a stupefying number of stars. The size and scale of the universe are unfathomable, and the age is beyond comprehension. There are stars in the universe whose size is a million times bigger than our sun, which is the size of about a million earths. If the study of biology makes us feel connected to the world, the universe reminds us of our place in it, and our past in the stars.
Everything that exists was forged in the furnace of a star, which is the only place hot enough for atoms to merge and combine to form new elements. All the elements that make up your body came from a supernova, which means you, and everyone you love, and everything you see is connected not only with each other, but with the entire universe as well.
3. Death
Most people live their entire lives trying to deny that they will die. Some people don’t really live their entire lives trying to avoid their ultimate fate. Death is the great equalizer, and it will come to us all one day. There is no escaping it, and really, very little that can be done to postpone it.
When you die, your body decomposes back into various elements which are consumed and used and put back into the earth, which will be blown up eventually by the sun, and scattered across the universe. Embracing the idea that you will die also becomes liberating. Once someone accepts that their death is inevitable, they begin to lose tolerance for doing something they hate doing.
Frederick Douglass wrote in his memoirs that when he was a slave he was terrified of being whipped, until one day he struck a white man. Knowing the penalty for hitting a white person was death, Douglass spent a few days living in terror of what would happen next. While he wasn’t killed, his brush with death changed him forever. He realized that as a slave his days were numbered anyway, and that one day soon, he would probably die a violent death. Once he accepted this his condition became intolerable. He lost the fear of dying in pursuit of living.
Accepting that one day you will die is a key factor in deciding to really live. To grab your life, and decide, this is what I am going to do, is the key to happiness.
4. Embracing Freedom
Once one acknowledges that death is inevitable, there are only two choices. Live life as you want to, or just wait it out. I think the most spiritual way someone can spend their life is embracing all the challenges of pursuing your dreams, not kneeling in front of some altar. The freedom to use the brief time you have to exist is a freedom that no one can deny you.
Whether you want to be a chef, a doctor, or a pornographic film maker, the choices you make are entirely yours, and you have all the power to create make your life into a work of art, unique and totally yours.
5. Lack of Control
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Paradoxically, the more control one gains over one’s life, the more one realizes the less control one has over events. True spirituality with the universe recognizes that randomness plays a large part in our day to day lives.
Being spiritual means not fighting these changes that cannot be fought, such as a relative dying in a freak accident, losing one’s job because of the economy, having your face ripped off by an angry chimp.
Change is the only constant in life, and it is embedded in the laws of physics. To be a part of change is to be a part of the world, being changed is existing. Struggling against change is struggling against the will of the universe.
21 comments:
This Ben Atwood person is terribly naive. If "your own path" is to be the next Ted Bundy or Herbert Armstrong, Atwood would apparently tell you to go ahead and follow that path, no matter how many people you might hurt. My right to happiness ends where your experience of suffering at my hand begins. "Do no harm" or "Don't treat others in ways you wouldn't want to be treated" aren't just religious cliches.
To make matters worse, Atwood stupidly tells us that certain knowledge (the stars, evolution) is vital, seemingly unaware that this means most human beings who lived before we had that knowledge couldn't live fulfilled lives.
No, Ben (and Dennis), the key isn't having the right knowledge. That "right knowledge" idea is straight out of Armstrongism.
The key to a happy and fulfilled human life is to be OK with NOT KNOWING. Trust that you are here for a purpose beyond your understanding, and all will be well. Maybe you'll never understand that purpose. Maybe that purpose is purely biochemical, having to do with exploding universes, and has nothing to do with you as an eternal individual soul. But if you can learn to TRUST instead of KNOW, you'll have a good life. It doesn't matter whether your life is random chance or was planned in advance by a hidden deity. Just let go and ACCEPT WHAT IS. Once you've done that, you can try to change any unacceptable circumstances that are within your control.
Dennis, you like to look at the stars. Can you accept that, while you know a lot more about them than people did a thousand years ago, science in another 100 or 500 years might leave your understanding behind? You know less than you think you do. The best lesson in looking at the stars isn't the KNOWLEDGE of your kinship with stardust; it's the AWE you can and should feel when you look up and contemplate the vastness of the universe, and you realize that you are the CENTER of your own universe, possessing this mysterious thing called consciousness, yet you are barely even a speck on the pale blue dot where you live.
CURIOSITY, along with TRUST and AWE, will make your life something it could never be if you spent it trying to do what men tell you you must do to please a minor member of the Canaanite Council of Seventy Gods.
Dennis,
Great post! While most Fundamentalists will not appreciate it, I see it as an acknowledgment of the spiritual longing which God or the Universe has placed within every human heart. Moreover, as a theist, I can happily embrace all five of these ways to be spiritual. And, finally, I would say that there is a high degree of "magic" inherent in our universe, and it is encouraging to see that at least some atheists have found a way to embrace it. As sapient beings, I would say that curiosity and awe are both hardwired into our species.
DENNIS WROTE:
"Paradoxically, the more control one gains over one’s life, the more one realizes the less control one has over events. True spirituality with the universe recognizes that randomness plays a large part in our day to day lives."
MY COMMENT:
I now observe that in life, there is a whole lot of time dedicated to just "maintenance" of what is already here. I would estimate that 80% or more of our life is dedicated to "just taking care of what we already have". Cleaning, trimming, replacing, rebuilding, both our surroundings and body, or even human structures and endeavors like a business and its clients.
Alas , like Solomon observed in Ecclesiastes, entropy rules and all is vanity. Life is a curious thing!
I Dont agree with you but at least you are honest with others Dennis. Many are not.
729 said: The key to a happy and fulfilled human life is to be OK with NOT KNOWING...."
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What would make you think I'd disagree with most of you're point? I believe you missed the point, are reading into or over analyzed what you think I, or the author believes , understands, doesn't understand and states. The observations are rather straightforward and simple.
Following one's "own path" does not imply your ridiculous Ted Bundy analogy. It simply means not following the dreams, demands or expectations of others if they don't serve one's own understanding and perspectives. Many if not most folk do this early in their lives and around age 40 the "why am I doing this" strikes them and may even gift them with a "dark night of the soul" experience as they transition to a more authentic life based on their own experiences, personality and interests and not those of others.
You know...going along to get along which eventually eats one up and provokes necessary and liberating change however painful in transitions.
PS Your analysis reminds me of the guy that accused me of "just using human reasoning". I asked him "What kind of reasoning do you do?" He knew better than to inform me he reasoned like God, which is kinda what he meant and he breezed right over the question and changed the topic.
Atwood extensively redefines the term "spiritual" so his essay does not resolve anything. I can win any argument if I can redefine at will the topic in contention.
There is an argument, among others, at the center of this debate that is prominent. The human mind is simply non-reductive to materialistic processes. Atwood and Diehl are circling around the periphery. I won't rehash.
There are two approaches to the "science versus the Bible" question. Either you fix science as a reference point or you fix the Bible as a reference point. The latter typically involves a belief in Biblical literalism. I have fixed science as a reference point although I well know that science is a human endeavor and is plagued by human flaws in applying experimental design and interpreting the results of the scientific method. The history of science is the history of human tenacity in falling back and regrouping. I have other fixed reference points such as ontology - like where did "being" come from. Materialistic science will never be equipped to answer that question. For materialists it is a part of the presumed baseline.
This means that I must then see the Bible differently. I cannot see it as literal. I do see it as literary. I believe the Bible powerfully conveys principle without necessarily being rigorous in detail. When the authors of the Bible wrote, they did not generally see themselves as writing allegory. They felt they were writing the hard, technical truth in most cases. It is the ministry of the Holy Spirit that deepens the meaning of the Bible and extends it beyond the original intent to produce reliable narrative prose. This is something that one can never convince an atheist/agnostic of and I accept that fact.
So is there a spiritual dimension to atheism/agnosticism? Hardly. Unless spirituality is maybe redefined as puzzlement.
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When I have been asked in the past about what church I attend, I reply that I go to the Church of the Damned. That is usually followed by a puzzled look and a question asking what I mean. I tell them that if I answer a church that they don't go to, that in their mind I am already damned, so I just cut to the chase right away. Religion never gets brought up again.
Dennis wrote:
"PS Your analysis reminds me of the guy that accused me of "just using human reasoning". I asked him "What kind of reasoning do you do?" He knew better than to inform me he reasoned like God"
Sounds like something I'd have said back in the day (as an avid WCG believer).
Not to use "human reasoning". For sure, the goal was to "reason like God".
But, funny thing, "God" always and very consistently failed to ever personally make his reasoning known. The only thing you could ever absolutely count on 100% was that God would not be directly contacting you to tell you how you should reason. So "reasoning like God" necessarily translated into taking the view of his self-appointed representatives (apostle, evangelist, pastor, ministerial trainee).
One of the interesting aspects of living in a largely non-religious country, as I do, is that nobody ever asks you, or even cares, about your religion lol. Just not a part of life here.
I get what Atwood is saying about wanting to find your place in the universe. We all want that. Though I don't know that I'd use the term spirituality, because it connotes (at least to me) some sort of soul, a dualistic nature, and of course the religious undertones attached to it.
Maybe "connectivity" or "deep satisfaction", of realizing that we're lucky enough to know our place in the universe in a way that generations past have not been able to, thanks to scientific advances.
Anon 7:29 above said that this unfairly implies previous human beings would have been less fulfilled, and to that I would say, well, yeah they kind of would be less fulfilled (meaning satisfied), if they were honest to themselves about their lack of knowledge of the natural world. We're not superior, just luckier to understand a little better what's actually going on. Just like we're luckier to be able to just turn a knob rather than have to go pump water from the well each morning.
Well said Dennis. I wholeheartedly agree with you. Far too many jump to the conclusions of what others are supposed to think. It is ludricous and a highway to tomfoolery.
NEO, I bet myself you'd come up with a post that indicating you were not pleased with the wording or simplicity of the concept. lol
This will be a few comments dealing with God and the existence of such a Being. I believe that such a Being needs to exist for human beings to have the strongest support for building a life that would worth living.
The Christian faith is built on a Being that had a life that would have the supreme features a perfect human being should have. Like I pointed out I will not go into a lot of details but will point out that all human beings need capabilities to a love that is in revealed in many ways, communicate in mutual language's and many internal emotions that can be defined.
Like I mentioned there no need to go into a lot of details, but to spend a lot of time reducing the human being to an evolutional process would do more damage to the human race than all of the people trying to prove what religious people are right or wrong.
Of course that is just my opinion.
11.28 AM
Many ministers used the word "God" as a standin for themselves. Hence "obeying God" meant blindly obeying your minister. I recall an article in church literature telling newlyweds that it's God who created their mate and marital sex. As well as being a killjoy comment considering the context, they only mentioned it in the hope of it reflecting on the ministry. If that's not the case, why didn't they give sermons or publish articles on the titles and accompanying traits of God?
My first minister mentioned HWA more times than God. And I don't recall him ever mentioning Christ.
Dennis:
The wording seems to be English. The simplicity is fine. The concept is philosphically deficient.
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So much reasoning and parsing amongst the 'dytes, the atheists or antitheists, the independents, etc. At some point, you just have to move beyond all the regurgitation and just live your life!
Dennis, Mr. Atwood states: "Struggling against change is struggling against the will of the universe."
This statement has pantheistic underpinning. The Universe is seen as god, albeit an impersonal god. And as god it has some kind of will - maybe expressed in order. Maybe Atwood is a closet pantheist. Atwood states:
"To know evolution is to know the story of life on earth, and to know the scientific story of life is to feel connected to the world as you never have before."
Wikipedia states in its article titled "Modern Paganism":
"A key part of most Pagan worldviews is the holistic concept of a universe that is interconnected. This is connected with a belief in either pantheism or panentheism. In both beliefs, divinity and the material or spiritual universe are one. For pagans, pantheism means that "divinity is inseparable from nature and that deity is immanent in nature"."
Dennis, you may need to reflect on this. You might not be an atheist at all. You might be a pantheist. A little New Age music, some incense, a hot tub and joint might be your liturgy.
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1.47 PM
Who said that we are not living our lives??
Why do you think that people who post on a blog, any blog, are not living their lives?
NEO said: "Dennis, you may need to reflect on this. You might not be an atheist at all. You might be a pantheist. A little New Age music, some incense, a hot tub and joint might be your liturgy.
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Well, aside from dragging the gods into this, a little relaxing music and a hot tub is great. I don't smoke but tried the edibles and was a bust so saving money right there! :)
"Pantheism is the belief that reality is identical with divinity, or that all-things compose an all-encompassing, immanent god. Pantheist belief does not recognize a distinct personal god, anthropomorphic or otherwise, but instead characterizes a broad range of doctrines differing in forms of relationships between reality and divinity. Pantheistic concepts date back thousands of years, and pantheistic elements have been identified in various religious traditions.'
526 asked: "Anonymous Anonymous said...
1.47 PM
Who said that we are not living our lives??
Why do you think that people who post on a blog, any blog, are not living their lives?
These perspectives resonated with me as a non-faith based human being. No one thinks you are not living your life. The point of the post is to address that non-belivers in the gods and magic can find a contemplative life in what actually is demonstrable in our world, it's actual origins and history and the Universe as we are lucky enough in our day to see it better than ever before. That's it. Now we return you to our regularly scheduled program... :)
I've read the works of many of the top atheists of the day, Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, etc. and my perspective is that their main beef is not necessarily with God but with "religion" and its false presentation of Him. I think most of us on this site can identify with that!
Really BP8? Baptised elite going full circle.
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