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.