As an atheist my friend doesn’t commit to any religious belief system or institution, yet he considers himself to be spiritual. However, he hasn’t found a way to explain how he is both an atheist and spiritual so, he asked me these two questions. My response follows.
How does an atheist reconcile ‘spirituality’ with a stark rationality-based philosophy? Can an atheist actually be spiritual even though they’ll never be religious?
Although I am not an atheist, but rather a practicing Zen Buddhist, I thought I’d try and make a case for my atheist friend simply because I love to think and write. My short answer is that an atheist can be a stark rationalist and spiritual if their philosophical framework is anchored in reason, the empirical pursuit of knowledge through the sciences, while remaining open to the magic and profundity of the unknown.
Spirituality, as opposed to religion, is rooted in the notion that there is an immaterial reality (e.g. energy) that can be experienced. Spirituality often focuses on discovering the essence of our ‘being,’ and our being’s relationship to the totality of existence, apart from just its material or physical nature. When we become aware of the interconnected nature of our being to a much larger reality beyond ourselves (e.g. nature, the cosmos, or human communities) our experience can be called a spiritual experience. It can be both immanent and transcendental.
It is immanent because it is directly experienced at the precise moment we become conscious of ourselves as a part of a larger whole. It is transcendental because the moment our awareness shifts to our interconnectedness we transcend the solipsistic notion of the self, becoming immanently and transcendently conscious of that which is greater than I.
Atheists, agnostics, or secular humanists reject religious dogma, superstition, as well as the pseudo-sciences that a number of the 4,200 religious traditions in the world practice. Atheists do not reject science. Science has proven without a doubt through disciplines such as biology, ecology and physics that everything is literally connected and exist in one of two forms; matter and energy. Since atheists believe that the basis of human decision-making should be based on reason or science then science is the means for an atheist to reconcile ‘spirituality’ with a stark rationality-based philosophy
Atheism does not negate or reject science, or the possibility of being spiritual. Atheism, however, does reject religious myths, dogmas, and deities, particularly as conceived in Judeo-Christian-Islamic history. I use these globally dominant religious traditions as examples to make clear the difference between being religious and spiritual.
Jews, Christians, and Muslims have one thing in common, they all believe in, and worship, the same god, the God of Abraham. For adherents to each of these religions, the God of Abraham is conceived as both a distinct personal and anthropomorphic god, or god as a noun. Believers in these traditions view god as possessing human traits, emotions, and intentions. They also believe that their god is a masculine god and a transcendent deity who exists outside, and apart from humanity rather than ‘being’ fully imbued in that which exists – the divine spiritual realm, or that which is greater than I. To be succinct, adherents to these religions view God as a noun. God is not a noun.
The origin of the word ‘God’ itself will help to clarify.
God is etymologically rooted in our Proto-Indo-European linguistic heritage. The word god, technically, is a neutered passive perfect participle. Since participles share characteristics of both verbs and adjectives, god, as spoken and known for over 5,000 years, *ǵʰu-tó-m, is both active and descriptive. In other words, god is not a person, a place, or a thing. Instead, god is action, creativity and movement.
Emphatically, god is not a noun.
This is an important distinction. When an atheist conceives of god as originally conceived by our earliest ancestors, as a neutered passive perfect participle over a noun, the path to connecting with god, or that which is greater than I, becomes possible for an atheist.
Rather than asking ‘who is God’ the more appropriate question is ‘what is god?’ When asking ‘who is God’ the question inherently implies that god is a noun since ‘who’ introduces a clause offering information about a person (noun). Since ‘god’ is historically and linguistically a verb and an adjective, ‘what is god?’ is always the more appropriate question.
The answer to the question is elegant; ‘god is simply being’.
Given that the word god itself is a neutered passive perfect participle, ‘being’ is the most literal way to conceive of that which we describe as god, or existence itself. The word ‘is’, the 3rd person singular present indicative of ‘be’, or the verb ‘to be,’ is most appropriate when explaining god as ‘being,’ which means, ‘to exist’. Once atheists conceive of god as that which exists over the concept of god as noun or deity, then the door to a spiritual connection to god opens for an atheist because god is simply that which exist in totality. Buckminster Fuller captured it eloquently in this excerpt from his poem, “God is a Verb.”
Here is God’s purpose-
for God, to me, it seems,
is a verb
not a noun,
proper or improper;
is the articulation
not the art, objective or subjective;
is loving,
not the abstraction “love” commanded or entreated;
is knowledge dynamic,
not legislative code,
not proclamation law.
not academic dogma, not ecclesiastic canon.
Yes, God is a verb,
the most active,
connoting the vast harmonic
reordering of the universe
from unleashed chaos of energy.
And there is born unheralded
a great natural peace,
not out of exclusive
pseudo-static security
but out of including, refining, dynamic balancing.
Naught is lost.
Only the false and nonexistent are dispelled.[1]
Like Buckminster Fuller, atheists would also reject the notion that god is a noun. Atheists also reject the idolization of god as a person or deity. For a stark-rationalist, deifying god is one of the most straight forward examples of an idolatrous act on the part of religious adherents making it impossible for an atheist to have a relationship with that conception of god. This example is particularly clear when pointing toward those who worship god in the image of man, like Jesus Christ, or through patriarchal hierarchies governed by men who control the image and symbol systems of god as man, like the Catholic Church.
In sum, people do not need Christ or the church to have a relationship with god; a message Jesus preached only to have it co-opted by Roman men to achieve their own dogmatic ends – to acquire power, and to control the narrative of one of the most important aspects of human experience – connecting with the spiritual, or that which is greater than I, through love. Jesus’ message, like a secular humanist’s, was akin to the Beetles’ message in the song; “All you need is love.“
In order for atheists to embrace their spiritual connection, they must abandon the Western concept of God (Jehovah, Allah, Elah etc.) as rooted in the Abrahamic religious traditions of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and the Baha’I Faith. The reason is that etymologically and linguistically, the God of Abraham contradicts the concept of god as ‘is’ since they conceive of god as a noun. When an atheist conceives of god as traditional conceived in pre-monotheistic cultures, god immediately becomes characteristically both active and descriptive, or both verb and adjective – existing in and of itself as ‘is’.
One could make the argument that god can be referred to as as noun, if god is referred to as ‘existence,’ which is a noun itself. However, ‘to exist’ (verb) requires ‘being,’ as the meaning of the word existence is the state or fact of existing; being (as conceived in its verb form).
For an atheist it would be illogical, or irrational to view god as a personal, anthropomorphic god who is a transcendent deity that exists outside and apart from ‘existence’, as the Abrahamic traditions do. A spiritual conception of god can only be logical for an atheist with a stark-rationality based philosophy when god is conceived as ‘being’, but not ‘a being,’ since ‘a being’ would refer to an individual aspect of being, or existence, rather than the whole of existence – god.
Once god is understood in this light, an atheist can then rely on science to help explain the nature of existence, or to answer the question; what is existence, or what is god? That which we do not understand about existence through science obviously remains in the realm of the unknown or, what I like to call the realm of magic and spirit. However, it is both the known and the unknown that constitute the spiritual realm. What we actually know about existence is acquired through science. What we do not know about existence, the unknown, may be experienced subjectively. It can never be explained as known until it is revealed through evidence-based approaches, or science.
Since science is the rational basis for understanding the world, it is critical for my friend who seeks to explain how he can be spiritual as an atheist with a stark rationality-based philosophy. Ultimately, science is the means by which my friend must come to know the nature of ‘being’ at all, or the nature of the totality of existence itself – god. Science will help him to understand what is, and why it is what it is through empirical observation (e.g. the Earth nor man is the center of the universe). Once understood, the knowledge acquired can lead my friend to a spiritual experience, like being in awe of our unique place as living beings in the vast expanse of space and time – god – or the cosmos.
When one describes being in ‘awe’ of something, they are talking about experiences that are felt as an “overwhelming feeling of reverence, admiration, fear, etc., produced by that which is grand, sublime, extremely powerful, or the like” – the known and the unknown – god.[1] The experience of awe itself is often equated with having a spiritual experience.
When people use the word ‘awe,’ they are often referring to an inexplicable experience, or an encounter with the realm of the unknown. Science, or the known, can also lead to the experience of awe, and it does as pointed out in the previous example. Science is the means by which we have come to understand how interconnected everything is in existence (e.g. the matter and energy that constitute, and constantly move through, Earth’s ecological systems).
I know that when I first realized the science behind the connection of anything to everything else, particularly the continuous movement of matter and energy through space and time, I was in awe. And, with a scientific understanding, I remain in constant awe even though I may not know the specific science when looking out at the ocean, or sitting on top of a mountain range that’s over 300 million years old. Although I may not know the specific chemistry of the water in the ocean, or the precise geological reasons behind the formation of the mountain; I know that I am connected to both because of science, as are you.
Subsequently, a spiritual experience can result from the acquisition of knowledge through science, or while remaining in awe of that which is unknown when there is no knowledge of how or why something ‘is’, or why it is what it actually is – ‘existence’. Herein lies the basis for an atheist who claims to adhere to a stark-based rational philosophy to also claim to be spiritual.
In sum, being spiritual does not require religious myths nor normative constructs that dogmatically dictate how one ought to live, think or believe. Spirituality is a choice to see the experience of the self in relation to all of existence as a divine experience, or the experience of connecting to that which is greater than I. By doing so, the felt connection is one of belonging to the whole of nature or the cosmos; no deity is needed – perfect for my atheist friend who wants to maintain his stark rationality-based philosophy, while also claiming to be spiritual.
An atheist can experience the spiritual, and even believe in god, if god is conceived simply as existence. Accepting god as existence does not require the deification of that conception of god, which then permits an atheist to remain an atheist while also accepting that god is. Simply put, my atheist friend can understand god as matter and energy. Both matter and energy constitute all of existence. Since we know that existence is being, and ‘being’ is god when conceived as a neutered passive perfect participle then my friend can easily be spiritual and an atheist with a stark rationality-based philosophy.
Even better, this line of thought shows my friend a pathway to accept god as being integral and imbued in his experience of existence, and all of existence itself. The recognition of one’s existence, and their connection to something greater than themselves, such as nature or the cosmos, is perfectly rational and, even spiritual – ecologically, biologically, or through the lens of physics. For these reasons, an atheist can be spiritual and maintain a connection to god without being religious.
In sum, the stark rationalist can choose to have their experience be spiritual in nature, or not. However, the latter choice would be a very solipsistic choice, and an irrational way for an atheist to go through life with their fellow living beings: plants, animals, and other people. In short, it would be an irrational choice for an atheist that wants to maintain a stark rationality-based philosophy and be spiritual, thus the atheist claiming to be a stark rationalist has no choice but to be spiritual, if they wish to remain a stark rationalist.