Spirituality for Atheists
When I became an atheist, I felt like I was losing more than just my faith… I was also losing my ability to claim any interest in spirituality or spiritual practice. Among atheists, even use of the word “spirituality” can be met with derision – how could a rational person be so naïve or believe such nonsense? If spirituality is about oneness, transcending physical reality, or a quest for fundamental truths, can it be rational? I say yes. Even atheists fall prey to irrational thinking (sports superstitions come immediately to mind), but spirituality does not need to be unreasonable or supernatural.
In fact, in some ways I think spirituality is the most natural thing about us.
Toward oneness – spirituality as connectedness
Humans are the most social species on the planet. Even when compared to other primates, humans are more social and more collaborative. This likely yielded many benefits among early humans, in hunting, foraging, migrating, and child-rearing (allomaternal care). In short, connectedness has probably been an existential concern for millions of years, as critical to survival as food or water – isolation and separateness as lethal as illness or predation. It’s probably natural that hominids hardwired for belonging would extend that to the natural world and to the cosmos… entirely natural that feelings of comfort, warmth, and security would arise from the contemplation of our place in the universe, of our oneness with everything. And what’s irrational about that? We are part of everything. As the physicists have told us, every atom in our body came from the heart of an exploding star. Many scientists have delighted in this poetic naturalism, like astronomer Rebecca Elson who wrote:
“Sometimes, instead, I stir myself
Into a universe still young,
Still warm as blood:
No outer space, just space,
The light of all the not yet stars
Drifting like a bright mist,
And all of us, and everything
Already there.”
The desire to be part of something beyond ourselves could simply be our natural affinity for connection, and it does not need a supernatural component to be sensical. Why can’t the spiritual experience of oneness be an expanded sociobiology of belonging?
Toward immortality – spirituality as death transcendence
Of course, as a death blogger, my favourite way to approach the question of spirituality is through the lens of mortality. A well-evidenced theory within psychology is Terror Management Theory (TMT), which posits that our advanced intelligence and self-awareness come with a steep cost: the realization that death is inevitable. While a gazelle or other prey animal is primed to respond to intermittent threat, mortality salience presents a constant, inescapable threat. We must have developed a buffer that helped us cope with this knowledge, lest we be forever beset by anxiety and existential dread. According to TMT, the buffer is our belief in symbolic immortality (achieved through cultural participation). There are several symbolic ways to “live on” within a cultural framework: through our children, our good deeds, our work, our charity, our art/music/writing, our scientific discoveries, etc. Cultural constructs like your family, community, or nation will outlast you, as will organizations, political causes, and social movements. These cultural creations are not eternal, but they are more long-lasting than our individual lives.
If spirituality is the desire to transcend physical reality, it probably comes from death anxiety (our fragile physicality being the problem). Wanting to be part of something bigger than you, some bigger story, is wanting to be part of something more enduring and permanent. But we needn’t turn to magical thinking. Culture has always provided the bigger story, the symbolic layer on top of physical reality, with social causes, roles, and enterprises that are more enduring than our limited lifespans. Humans are the only animal capable of full self-awareness, but wanting there to be more to life than death would probably be normal for any self-reflective animal and identifying how to transcend finitude an important component of psychological security. Atheists may like to scoff that belief in anything beyond the physical world is nonsense, but we mostly do live in a symbolic world (after all, can you touch a moral or value? Are roles like motherhood or concepts like justice physical things?). So, yes, the desire to transcend physical reality and for there to be more to life than our finite lifespans is rational and tied to our most fundamental biological function: perpetuation into the future. There is nothing irrational about living within this world of symbols and seeking out enduring causes, dedicating yourself to spiritual projects like charity, advancing important social justice issues, or performing good deeds – things that feel meaningful and whose effects ripple out beyond your finite influence.
Toward fundamental truths – spirituality as self-inquiry and self-transcendence
We have already explored two ways to comprehend spirituality: as a biosocial need for belonging, and as an extension of our biological will to persist (the only way being transcending our physical reality). These natural impulses are already there, spirituality is just an extrapolation, and it needn’t be supernatural. But let’s get super-rational, with spirituality as the experiential endeavour to understand our consciousness.
This naturalistic view of spirituality as self-transcendence has most fully been explored in Sam Harris’s book Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion. For Harris, transcendence is not about actually merging into some greater whole (though that certainly may be the quality of the experience), but rather about dispelling the illusions of our separateness.
If you haven’t practiced meditation, you may be under the impression that you are the thinker of your thoughts, that there is some separate self that exists behind your eyes and looks out into the world. But meditation can quickly reveal the illusiveness of this separate “self.” Thoughts simply arise in awareness, there is no you who “thinks” them. The self is a cognitive construct (no doubt useful), and an illusion that can be dispelled through careful contemplation and insight. This is spirituality and meditation as the rational (one might say scientific) endeavour to uncover the truth about consciousness, to cut through the illusion of the self. Spirituality, seen this way, is not about discovering religious or other supernatural truths, but rather waking up to the true nature of our consciousness – experiencing the world in a more honest way. It requires no religious belief or supernatural leanings. It’s just the opposite, a rational and methodical pursuit of honest inquiry, an attempt to dispel illusions.
I have always liked this approach to spirituality. If I can get softhearted about it, it suggests that the things we’re after we’ve already achieved. You are already one with everything because there is no separate you that exists (even though the hologram is convincing). And you are already part of a bigger and more enduring story, the arising of consciousness in the universe – a fleeting and near impossible arrangement of atoms that allows the cosmos to contemplate itself.
Conclusion
The above represents three ways to think about spirituality for atheists. The first is as the expanded sociobiology of belonging – a desire for connectedness that extends to the natural world and the cosmos (oneness). The second is as our yearning for there to be more to life than death, more to life than our lifespan (transcending physical reality). The last is as the rational pursuit of an honest worldview, which includes cutting through the illusion of a separate “self” (a quest for fundamental truths). Spirituality for atheists, then, can be about connection, continuity, and contemplation without chafing against reason or requiring belief in souls, destiny, “energy,” or other dubious concepts. You can also see why we shouldn’t discard spirituality as supernatural absurdity, as unessential or unimportant. Belonging and mortality are existential concerns, and most atheists are already persuaded of the vitalness of truth and analytic inquiry. Skeptics shouldn’t dismiss spirituality as nonsense, for it needn’t be irrational nor religious. Instead, spirituality may be the most natural thing about us, the thing that truly does connect us to the cosmos, to the world, and to each other.
(Like this? Check out Books about Spirituality for Atheists)