Spiritual Life of An Atheist: No Grand Watchmaker Need Apply

Bill Maher is probably the most well-known anti-religionist.  A celebrity atheist activist.  (http://www.religulousmovie.net/index2.html)  I’m a fan–with just a few caveats.  One night on his weekly show, Real Time (http://www.hbo.com/real-time-with-bill-maher), in dissing religion, Bill said something like, “And I don’t know what it means when someone says I’m spiritual, not religious.”  Well, I don’t think I know what each person who says that means, either.  I’m not quite sure what I mean, and that’s how I feel.

I am an unrepentant atheist.  Give me a definition or description of “God” and I can assure you that I do not believe in he/she/it, and that’s been true since I was a child.  I was 8 when I refused to go to church anymore and 11 when I announced to my mother that I didn’t believe in God.  Whatever “faith” is, I do not have it.

At the same time, except for jihadists, creationists, rapturists, and other haters, unlike my more famous co-anti-religionists (Mr. Maher, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens), I am not particularly hostile to “belief” or those who do “believe.”  I understand and respect the better impulses than can be manifested in belief.  Inspiration, joy, compassion, a sense of the sacred, comfort in the face of harsh realities.   A commitment to experiencing and cultivating these positive feelings is part of what I mean by “spiritual.”

Belief in a Grand Watchmaker beyond space/time and the laws of physics is not a prerequisite for devotion to transcendent values.  Buddhism, often identified as one of the world’s great religions, provides an example of such a possible practice.  The Buddha did not preach idolization of a god, but dedication to the practice of wisdom and compassion.  The Buddha also urged his fellow-travelers to reject blind faith.  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism (fn 68) )  That does not mean that Buddhism as practiced around the world has not developed aspects of religion, such as faith in some supernatural power(s).  The impulse to religious belief is deep in human nature.  Those of us who do not share in it are the outliers.

But resort to magical thinking is not necessary to commit oneself to experience awe or to practice transcendent values.  Empirical inquiry is itself a firm foundation for a spiritual, and wholly secular, practice.  In this blog, I intend to explore how that is done in my own spiritual life as an atheist.

Other References:

Sam Harris, The End of Faith, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. (2004); http://www.samharris.org/

Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, Houghton Mifflin (2006); http://www.richarddawkins.net/

Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great, Twelve Books (2007)

Pascal Boyer, Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought, Basic Books (2001)

copyright 2010 S. Anne Johnson