Can an atheist be spiritual?

I see it being possible. You could believe in energy rather than a deity, for example.

I believe that spirituality and religion are different things, so yes I think that an atheist can be spiritual, and I might join your secular ‘religion’, though I guess it might be silly from my point of view to call it that based on what my definitions are. But by your description, I probably would, yes.

Can an atheist be spiritual? Absolutely. And relatively. God-believers have no exclusive option on spirituality.

Your proposed new secular religion sounds a lot like the nature-based practices such as Wicca. You might want to check and see if there are any circles in your area before you go to the trouble of applying for your own nonprofit status.

While I don’t know if atheists believe in spirits enough to be spirit-ual, you don’t need religion to have morals. And I think that what you’re calling spiritual issues, I would call moral issues.

Different words, similar ideas, vastly different in practice.

Note to Jeruba: Wiccans are spiritual, but they aren’t Atheists.

Ah, yes, @laureth, you are right. Their gentler notion of deity does seem compatible to me with what’s being described in the question, but it is not atheism.

Title question: yes.
Last question you asked: No thank you. I have lots of Faith, but not much faith in Religion (with a capital R).

(And I wasn’t thinking of believers in spirits but rather of believers in spirit—as in a quality of humanness. I believe in this, and I am an atheist. I don’t believe in “spirits.”)

I think you can be, for example, an atheist who practices Zen and be very spiritual without believing in supernatural entities.

Yeah, definitely. What you described is something I believe in already, but when I hear the word “religion”, I think of an institution that closes itself to outside thoughts (and outsiders). Should just go the Buddhism route; can be considered a philosophy or a religion (with all of its rituals, rankings, etc). I think most people go with philosophy.

‘I would describe the context of this question as being moral or ethical or reflective, but not spiritual.

Buddhism is atheistic and spiritual.

But can one believe that no such thing as “supernatural forces,” exist, and still be spiritual? No, I don’t think that’s possible. Spirituality seems intertwined with some sort of shared, supernatural phenomenon. You can use “atheism” to mean two things, though. (1) An individual who does not believe in a big, old white man who created everything in 7 days, or (2) someone who believes that physics is everything. The former can be spiritual, the latter can’t, I don’t think.

”I believe there is something beyond our individual selves that we have lost contact with. Call it humanity or perhaps Nature, but there is something that we have alienated ourselves from that traditional religions do not address.”

There’s a sense of connection that people feel from time to time. For some people, it’s when they are out in nature. They see such beauty, and in the awe they feel, they also feel connected to it, and through it, to everyone else who connects with nature. For others, it comes from human rituals. These can be religious or secular (personally, I prefer the secular), and they facilitate access to the mystical side of spirituality. Dance, music, meditation, and many other techniques provide access to this kind of connecting with something larger that ourselves.

What is that larger thing? I think it is this sense that we are all in this together. That’s why environmentalists, people who spend a lot of time in nature, and people who spend a lot of time with the poor often seem to be in the ranks of known wise people.

Behind that notion of being in it together is the reality that gets popularized in chaos theory: the butterfly across the planet flapping its wings and setting in motion a stream of events that result in a hurricane ravaging New Orleans. For me, I see this in economics and politics and any discipline that tries to model the world.

At some point you begin to realize that everything affects everything else. That using less gasoline today can result in a lush planet decades or centuries in the future.

Spirituality is about long term consequences; the kind you can’t really know. There are many people who can’t focus past tomorrow. They do only what is expedient right now. They never try to see down the road to where things fall apart, or come together. They leave that to chance. They leave that to god.

Spirituality is felt through many practices. The thing linking all these practices is that they help you connect to something larger than yourself. Based on this definition, it is obvious that an atheist can be spiritual. I’m sure there are many here who could fall under that rubric. I’m yet another.

I’m an atheist, and I’m spiritual.

As to the religion – no thanks. I believe in ad hoc organizations that exist for one purpose, and whent that purpose is achieved, they disappear. I hate dogma. I hate people telling me what to think. It’s hard not to fall into these things as organizations age. There are many good reasons for that, but that’s for another question. Anyway, the religion I start would be totally fun, and have no dogma whatsoever!

I’m going to go through your points one by one, as best I can.

First off, you set up industrialized nations as monolithic entities full of robotic people who have lost all individuality, when this is obviously not the case. Some people certainly define themselves through the consumer goods they can purchase, but how many people have you honestly met who are slaves to advertising and who care about nothing but buying the next big thing? Maybe I’m special, but these people seem to be in the minority within my experience.

And even if this is the case, is “spirituality” really the answer? What about friendship? Or romance? Or community? Or intellectual stimulation and education? I believe in nothing supernatural and would not call myself a “spiritual” person, but I’m not a mindless consumer, and I recognize the problems you describe.

Second, while electronic gadgets do take up a large portion of the time of a large section of the population, I don’t think it’s fair to say that they’ve isolated us. What they have done is changed the way we interact with each other. In some ways, we are more connected to one another than ever before, and friendships, though different from those twenty years ago, still blossom.

Also – when was there a time at which we were both more “spiritual” and took better care of the environment? Three hundred years ago, religion was more widespread, but the Industrial Revolution was taking off. Even in early tribal societies, who were steeped in mysticism and “spirituality”, practiced slash-and-burn agriculture, and animals were hunted to extinction long before modern technology and western colonialism. Terrorism has been a time-honored tradition among people for centuries. Much of Medieval warfare utilized terror tactics, such as tossing the severed heads of enemies into their own castle during a siege, and people have been blowing things up for as long as there has been gunpowder.

Islamic Terrorism is not linked, as far as I can tell, to a “spiritual vacuum”. Palestinian Terrorists commit atrocities for a variety of reasons, most of which are linked to national identity and personal hatred. Iraqi insurgents attack American soldiers because they feel their country is being invaded unjustly, and the attacks of 9/11 came as a result of a very “spiritual” conviction felt by the perpetrators.

What “distinctions” between natural and man-made do you believe exist that we didn’t create ourselves? We are the only ones who have decided that robots are unnatural, despite the fact that they are composed of materials just as natural as carbon. And even if these distinctions do exist, why is it so important that we not ignore them, other than your own gut reaction?

And finally, why do you feel the need to develop a religion? Why not a philosophy, or a set of principles? Most of your points are political and social, so why not just tell people what you think in conversations on that topic?

I think one can be spiritual without being religious. Taoism and Buddhism are examples of spiritual paths that can be followed without professing a belief in God. Personally, I have found after much searching that the Baha’i’ Faith fits perfectly with my belief system and spirituality so no, I would not join your new religion.

As many other people have already said, yes you absolutely can be spiritual without being religious.

I’m anti organized religion though, so no thanks.

@Drastic, that wasn’t really the question. The question was, can you not believe in god and still be spiritual.

Many buddhists are atheists (Including Sidhartha Gautama himself). Obviously that doesn’t stop them from being spiritual.

I’m an atheist and I would consider myself spiritual person, i dont believe in “supernatural forces” either.
dont have much else to add, daloon said it so perfectly.

daloon, I very much appreciate your answer and because it is so well thought out I feel compelled to discuss its various points.

The problem is not one of people losing their identity, but one of people so wrapped up in their individuality that they have lost their connection to everything else. I am certainly not the first or only person to recognize this problem. A frequently cited book is Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam. There are also several who contend that the dramatic rise in clinical depression is a direct result of increasing isolation: http://www.zmag.org/zmag/viewArticle/13901

As to your alternatives to spirituality like friendship, romance and community, these are all ways a person has of transcending the individual self and are enhanced by a sense of spirituality, particularly at the level of community.

You correctly point out that our ancestors have at times done serious environmental damage. The difference is that now we are acutely aware of the damage that we are doing and yet continue to do so and that we are now capable of doing damage on a far greater scale than ever before.

My point about Islamic terrorism is that the alternative presented by modern societies is not seen as very attractive due in part to the lack of spirituality in developed countries.

I find that in obliterating the distinction between natural and man made, we enter a scary territory. I shudder at the prospect of selecting and manufacturing our own genetic inheritance and that of other plants and animals.

Finally, I probably could have used the word philosophy instead of religion, but the term philosophy has an academic ring to it and I am more concerned with a way of living. What is needed is an alternative to the worship of science of and technology. I have nothing against these in the proper context, but it must always be kept in mind that science answers different questions from religion and philosophy. Science tells why things happen and how things can be done. It does not answer the question of just what it is that our goals should be.

@Hobbes: You say, ”...why do you feel the need to develop a religion?”

I’m being only a little snarky here when I say it’s the religions that rake in the cash – much moreso than Philosophies or Sets Of Principles do.

“Can an atheist be spiritual?”

Absolutely. We are all part of a social meta-organism which has a collective intelligence and a life that transcends our own. As individuals, we draw language, meaning, knowledge and values—and life—from this collective fund of humanity. We are individual incarnations of this collective human Spirit, we are bound together in this by the moral claims of our fellow man, and we actively participate the realization of this Spirit through collective deliberation. Whenever we do what we think is best for the common good, we actively participate in the evolution of the human Spirit.

Humanity is inextricably bound to the ecology of the planet, and to Gaia, which has an intelligence all its own. I think that meditation on these collective forms of intelligence may be a worthwhile thing to do, and that there are even possibilities for communion, fellowship, and moral improvement. And I think that all of this can be done within the bounds of reason and without positing a theistic god.

The mathematician Ian Stewart and the biologist Jack Cohen have written a fascinating science fiction story called Heaven in which they portray religion as a kind of meme-plex which infects populations somewhat like a virus. This is an excellent book to get your head unstuck from received notions theistic notions of religion, by getting you to think of religion in terms of meta-organisms, distributed intelligence, viral propagation and other recent developments in biology and mathematics. Its just the thing for those contemplating the possibilities of religion in a world where genetic re-engineering and cyborgs are commonplace.

@LIP, I’m glad you appreciated my answer. It chrystalizes one particular issue that I’ve been thinking about for years. It’s nice to get it out of my head and before a few other folks.

I don’t know why people have lost their connection to everything else, or never gained it in the first place. It could be being wrapped up in their individuality. I guess you mean that in a “me generation,” far too wealthy, narcissistic way?

However I think that you are closer to the mark when you bring up the issue of social capital, popularized by Putnam. I think the idea is important, but it is used by so many different researchers in so many different disciplines, with so many different definitions of the term has become a catchall for too much. No one knows what anyone else means when they say “social capital.”

That having been said, the notion of social capital—porch culture in one visage—is an important component of my own thinking, and is related to many other…. what? Peeves? Issues? Problems? Suburban “culture,” for example. City life allows people to live close enough to know their neighbors fairly well. My block, for example, closes off once or twice a year for block parties. My house has a porch, as do all the houses on my block, and we sit out there sometimes, chatting with whoever comes by. Strangers will come up and talk to us about various things.

The architecture and street design of suburbs, for the most part, is aimed at the feeling of spaciousness and isolation. Everyone is the ruler of their own domain, as far as the eye can see. I’ve talked elsewhere about the consequences of this, especially in terms of energy use. You are correct in noting that it also has severe, but hidden social costs.

Now, as to “natural,” we have a parting of the ways. I don’t know how to distinguish between natural and unnatural. In my mind, man is natural, and therefore everything we do is natural. We use our brains to help us be more competitive in terms of survival.

For the moment, we have been too successful. I have faith, though, that eventually our brains will help us achieve a proper balance with all the other creatures in our environment, so as to assure our long term survival. Still, at this moment, it is still difficult to get many people to see there is a problem.

I have no problem whatsoever with us using technology to be more selective about our genetic makeup, or that of the animals and plants we farm. Why? Because we have always done this. What do you think the courtship process is all about? That’s where we make decisions about whether we want children with this other person. There are billions of people we can choose (theoretically), and we make a selection. Women are often looking for brains in a mate. Men are looking, often, for beauty. Both of these things signify likelihood of evolutionary success.

To become more precise in enhancing our success is the same as building machines that allow us to make more precise cuts moldings, or make machines that produce extraordinary amounts of power. We’ll apply this to plants, in an effort to grow food more efficiently.

Then some of these man-induced mutations will spread into the wild population (human or animal or plant), and we’ll see how they fare. I have faith that the process of competition will enable us to have only a momentary advantage in anything. As soon as one plant, or human gets ahead, another will come along to surpass it. We are, after all, a part of nature, not separate from it, and nature’s processes will be a force in our development for as long as there is humanity.

As to what our goals should be… again, I believe we must learn from our biology and history. There is one goal that is built into humanity, and that is to become ever better at survival. We can’t be immortal. Our best chance at immortality is to pass on, either to our own kids, or to children in general, that which we know will help them do better than we have.

Inside that, of course, are intermediate goals. Some folks want to drill, drill, drill, and burn, burn, burn. Others of us want to conserve, conserve, conserve, and become more efficient. Some folks want to build more suburbs, and make people ever more isolated. Others want to bring us together, and let us have these spiritual experiences.

What this is is an evolutionary competition. We think we have the best ideas. They are convinced they do. We’ll see who wins. Personally, I trust the process, because I think I’ve got the better solutions. Forces of exploitation and ignorance may win a victory here or there, but they can’t win over the long term. If they do, humanity will die out.

Can I just say that Buddhism =/= atheism? You can follow it without believing in a god, yes, but the Siddartha Guatama, the Buddha himself, said that there are gods that may be worshipped, and this will go to your good merit if you worship them correctly, it’s just that they are just trapped on the wheel of Samsara as much as we are.