I do believe in spooks, I do believe in spooks

There's an ongoing discussion about whether one believes in evolution or creationism.  Every time I run into the argument I twitch a little, less because of the ardent creationists than because of the ardent evolutionists.  Personally I find the arguments put forth by a scientific discussion of evolution as the means by which species change over time and possibly give rise to new species over even longer periods of time to be compelling.  When someone asks me if I believe in evolution however, I'm being asked a religious question, not a question about science and understanding.

In the context of the discussion a creationist will use the term belief to mean roughly the same thing as belief in God or Republicanism.  It's a statement of faith of trust in the unseen and unknowable.  For those that think I'm being too snarky about Republicans, I'll point out that I can show you a Republican and even offer reasonable, scientific evidence of their existence.  I can't show you God and I can't show you Republicanism in a laboratory setting.

Belief is a loaded term.  If I shout, "I Believe!" spontaneously in the street, the assumption is that I'm talking about something religious, not about the accuracy of signposts or the efficacy of crosswalks.  Evolution the theory is a testable, scientific approach to certain kinds of information and even allows for some amount of testable prediction.  Evolution the belief is simply a rejection of the beliefs of a subsect of certain Children of Abraham and is no more based on a scientific evaluation of evidence than the argument it rejects is.

Here's why I think it matters:  We live in a country where the right to practice, and by extension, believe what you will and to pass those beliefs on to your children is protected by law and by common practice.  So when the vast majority of the people making the case for teaching children about the theory of evolution treat evolution as a belief, as a set of facts that are written down and immutable they play right into the hands of the folks in the opposite camp. 

We as a society have always protected the right to teach whatever the prevailing belief in a localized society is.  For anyone who doesn't believe me ask someone from north of the country about the civil war and then ask someone from the south.  Their history books aren't quite the same.  Belief is protected territory in the US.  You can make the argument that it shouldn't be and you will almost certainly lose.

Spiritual atheism?

So, yeah, I get all thinkin' about religion and spirituality sometimes.  This one apparently interested me...


Kayti: There's a discussion on *atheism on my favorite MOO, LambdaMOO, about whether it's possible to be simultaneously spiritual and an atheist. They're looking for a good working definition of spirituality from someone who's actually spiritual. I'm an atheist, but I don't consider myself to be particularly spiritual, so I can't really help them directly. However, I'm pretty sure that among my friends I have at least a couple who are spiritual atheists who can help with this definition. Failing that, I'd like to here from theists who nonetheless think atheists can be spiritual and have a definition for spirituality that supports that view.

Anyone?

****: Not a definition, but what immediately comes to mind is that atheism seems to accept the rigid idea of what religion or being religious means that comes from the rigid religious zealotry itself, i.e., that either you believe in God as a man in the sky, or you believe in absolutely nothing. IMO, "religion" and "spirituality" are not necessarily ... See Moretotally separate-- actually, it seems like if you are religious, a lack of spirituality would make that religion pretty empty. I guess what I'm kind of saying is maybe it's not that we need a separate definition for "spiritual", but that we need to expand what "religious" means to encompass more than big-man-in-the-sky-type beliefs.

****: My opinion? In the traditional sense, no. But if you focus in on the qualia of the "religious experience", the experience transcends the choice to believe in any invisible friends.

There is a shared sensation that we monkeys can feel, some sort of feeling of combined awe, connection, humbleness, alone-yet-comforted. It's the glimpse of infinity. Frequently associated with religion, but it doesn't have to be.

I happen to get it occasionally on mountaintops or while stargazing in the desert or occasionally through really deep introspection.... See More

I don't call that experience "spirituality", but I don't really name it, either.

Ian Hawkins: Wow. There is no short answer to this. Mostly it's a semantic trap as stated. One would need to define atheist and then define spiritual before even tackling it. So I won't even try to answer it, but I'll throw some ketchup on the bun...

Atheism seems to mean at least two very different things in the modern day with a lot of shades of grey. ... See MoreOne side is the outright and utter rejection of Godlike or mythical entities as well as in some cases everything outside the immediately experienced, phenomenal world. The "if science can't detect it, it ain't there" model. For my purposes I call that religious atheism, as it entails the belief that one can prove a negative.

The second form of atheism is a rejection of organized religion and pretty much all forms of deity. It verges on agnosticism but differs in the somewhat strong view that personalized deities do not exist. Faeries, mystical energy, chakras, honest politicians maybe even ghosts, but God, and most specifically the Sky God of the Children of Abraham sects is a boogieman that doesn't exist.

Ian Hawkins: Spiritual is even harder. Some people mean very specifically a belief in mystical energy or at the minimum a kind of collective consciousness model that means that all life is at some root level connected. This doesn't require a Sky God at all, but the first form of atheist is unlikely to believe in anything that isn't laboratory tested. Tim ... See MoreMinchin comes to mind here.

But the word spiritual really has no requirement that spirit have a mystical underpinning. If one thinks of spirit as a psychological sense of connectedness with the world or other people or perhaps even just a very zenlike sense of oneself as a point of conscious awareness, one can still lay claim to the idea of being 'spiritual'.

Ian Hawkins: Personally I think there's truth in all of it with the exception of the most extreme forms of religious atheism. To claim that you know absolutely that God doesn't exist is to claim knowledge beyond the scope of science and is a religious claim from someone specifically stating that they are a-theist and generally one could say a-religious.

But then I'm averse to extremists.


I blocked out the names of the two folks I didn't know.  The rest is reposted with permission.

And then in a follow up where I was chatting with Ashley:

Ian: I think admitting ignorance is the beginning and middle of knowledge.  There really isn't an end.

Ashley: I'd hate to think that learning comes to an end.  What would be the point of living?

Ian: Pretty much where I'm at.  Which is really where the difference between what I consider 'religious' and what I consider to be 'spiritual' lies.

Strange weekend, strange week, strange year.

I spent this past weekend somewhere between wonder and terror. Or at least wonder and acute discomfort. On the one hand I experienced something completely new in the form of Valley View Hot Springs, a place of warm water, beautiful views of the Sangre de Cristos, snow on the ground and lots of people occasionally wearing no clothes. I've been naked before so joining them was easy.



What was hard was talking to them. Especially hard was talking to the people I'd actually traveled with. I'm not generally the person someone goes to for pleasant conversation. I have been known to fascinate people, but that requires I'm not so lost in my head as to think I'm actually fascinating. And it requires that I do a lot of shutting up. That got driven home when a rather harsh but deadly acurate comment to that effect was made. It shut me up. For a little while. It also reminded me to stay conscious and not just babble.

The funny thing about that is that the folks I was with were some of the noisiest people I've been around in months. They chatter. It's delightful in its way to be surrounded by three intelligent, highly conversational people. It's not so delightful to be asked to shut up under the circumstances.

Thing is, I really was probably talking too much, but more than that I wasn't managing to integrate my conversation into the already existing structure that the three friends had. I think some people are naturally good at this, maybe they listen better or there's a cultural rhythm that I lack the skills to see, I have no idea, but I've seen some people slip into a group conversational dynamic like the most graceful, naked fat man into the delightful, warm water of a mountain hot spring where I cannonball like a deranged twelve year old on too many pixie sticks.

And then I get truly nervous which makes me talk even more.

And I think, I hope I didn't do any lasting damage to my ability to interact with these three wonderful people.

And I think and I hope that they also haven't left marks that will make me even more skittish around them.


And for all that it was an amazing weekend and I am very grateful that I was offered the chance to join them and will almost certainly go again, especially if invited to join them and others and maybe again still on my own sometime to be even quieter than anyone who has ever seen me nervous could possibly imagine my being.

I'm made of fear sometimes, from toenails to slightly chewed fingernails.

But this weekend, in some of the quieter moments, drifting in the water I felt like some things started to unclench, to let go a little. Late at night when all the pools were empty, and really it was too cold to want to step out of the warm water and into the sharp night air and I was by myself, that was nice too. A balance really, of trying to interact with the people around me, the ones who'd put the effort out to meet me and get to know me... and the quiet where maybe I can actually relax in a way that sitting in my apartment never does.


I saw a bald eagle on the way there, and the way the mountains were swallowed by clouds and released again. When I was falling asleep on Sunday night, in my own bed I dreamed I could still feel the slow movement of the soaking pond as I hung there, just drifting. On Monday I noticed that I had been naked long enough during the weekend that I felt my clothing as a physical, palpable sensation.

Perhaps if I can find that quiet and connect even more with my own self I might find the words and the silences to connect better with the people around me.

If not, there's still the sensation of warm water, the blue and bluer sky and the frost riming the perpetual fall leaves.

It's just nicer to share.