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Here's a simple question: Can an atheist consider himself or herself spiritually based? For myself I say "Yes". For example, no matter how life evolves into existence, for me, all life is sacred, and to be cherished. I believe this is a form of spiritual understanding, requires no belief in any god. Also, to practice universal ethics and morality, found in all religions, requires no belief in any god, to be practiced, is spirituality in godless-based expression.

Tomm 5 Mar 14
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I'd like to say that atheists can and should be moral, ethical, good citizens.

There's a book, The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality by Andre Compte-Sponville, which is quite good even if I don't like the word "spiritual". The book doesn't talk about any "spiritual practice" in the sense usually deployed; rather, it suggests that a life worth living by secular lights is dedicated to the pursuit and cultivation of what the book calls "the great virtues". Typically listed among these virtues are things like honor, courage, compassion, respect, loyalty, honesty, prudence and mercy.

These things can be defined and cultivated without resort to religious ideation. These qualities can be argued for based on the benefits they bring to bear on society, and on the harms they prevent. They arise out of a conversation about the kind of society most of us wish to live in: a civil society, where personal safety and private property are respected and personal relationships and positive community relationships are given priority, where people are free within reasonable limits to live by their own lights, yet with respect and consideration for others, etc.

Thanks for the info. I will definitely get that book.

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I find attending church a spiritual experience only in that I need a few brandies before hand to get through it without screaming.

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@LenHazell53 is right, everything hinges on definitions.

Personally I don't like the word "spiritual" because it has been misused, abused, and twisted -- largely by theists and new-age woo-peddlers -- for so long that it's pretty much useless as a descriptor.

There is no "universal ethics and morality" in the sense you probably mean it, and morality is certainly NOT a work product of religion, even collectively. It is a work product of society, and since the religious are part of society they have an incidental role in it just like the non-religious, but if you look to religion to define morality you're going to be sadly mistaken in the long run.

It is unfortunate that "sacred" is another popular signifier of spirituality. I understand the impulse to transcendence of the human condition and the search for meaning, purpose and value, but here is another word freighted with religious baggage. It is as if religion has dominated such conversations for so long, it's hard to frame our thinking in an areligious fashion. Sacred, divine, sanctified, spiritual, universal / catholic ... it goes on and on.

Not that I succeed 100% in avoiding these associations, or that I think none of them can be "taken back" and re-imagined by secularists. I am finding my way here also. I'm just trying to point out what an uphill climb this all is.

Thank you for responding to my post. Your and others have convinced me that it is not appropriate to use the word spiritual when attempting to explain one's view of atheism. So, I have chosen to us the word enlightened. If that word is not appropriate, to connote an atheistic sense of spiritual and enlightened, please, if you can, give me a similar word that would be acceptable to most atheists.
Also, I don't understand why you say there's no secular morality in religion.. In the Ten Commandments there is the commandment "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbors's wife. One does not have to believe in God, to obey that injunction.
Also, I need another word for sacred acceptable to most atheists - perhaps valued? but valued doesn't seem to have the gravitas of expression that sacred has.
Also, why would it be particularly wrong for an atheist to co-op religious words? What about the words heaven and hell, which are used in religions, but they also have secular understandings.
As you infer, finding the appropriate, while not offending someone is very difficult.
Thanks again

@Tomm You aren't offending me, particularly since I didn't offer any brilliant alternatives. It's a hard problem. As @VictoriaNotes points out in quoting Sam Harris, even "spiritual" was at one time a less religiously loaded term, but that was a VERY long time ago.

I did not say there is "no secular morality" in religion, just that religion claims to be the author and protector of morality when morality doesn't originate with religion to begin with, it's a work product of society. Society, via laws, social pressure, taboos, conventions and more, determines what is beneficial or harmful to its continued existence; this is morality. When religion says "do not covet your neighbor's wife" it is parroting something that was already there from the host society (and in this instance, something that is fairly universal in all societies). Everything religion claims is moral is either already present in society or is some religious embellishment on top of that, that society either doesn't care about or is willing to tolerate.

Think about it: if any religion diverges in its moral code significantly from the moral code of its host society, it would be ... immoral and would have to be sanctioned as such. Religion likes to fancy that it is dragging society along with its morality kicking and screaming, when in fact it is society that's dragging religion along. It's society that tells the Roman Catholics to stop molesting children and blaming victims and it's Australian society that put that molesting senior Bishop in prison this week. It's society that tells televangelists you can't bilk people. It's society that shamed that megachurch in Texas into letting flood refugees into their building last year.

As to alternative words, let's have that conversation here. I'm not the arbiter of what should or shouldn't offend or please other unbelievers. It's late and I'm not going to have any good ideas in that regard tonight, but I'll try to pick up this thread tomorrow and offer some ideas.

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I say perhaps. There are some of us that want to purge any religious sounding words from our vocabulary. This word may have a secular basis but it is often seen as having religious connotations. I personally think our vocabulary continues to evolve and new words are found and used to give a different meaning (like gay instead of homosexual). I love to try and think of other words to describe ideas. Perhaps something like inner feelings or moods.

Thanks again for you thoughtful comments. Here's my situation. I've written a book on my atheist understandings and I'm now in the process of editing it. I don't wish to alienate substantial members of the atheist community by any Christian-tainted verbiage I use because that would cloud any consideration, for the understanding and validity of my original ideas. I find atheist apologists woefully deficient in attempting to explain existence, the purpose for existence and how we, as atheists should be able to confidently deal with these ontological questions. I find that atheists, in general, use physical evolution as the answer for human conscious existence. To me, that is absurd as believing a god created us. To me, it's just as logical to believe that we were seeded here, by ancient aliens; but, that wouldn't explain where the aliens came from.
Incidentally, if you think of any non-religious synonyms I could us, I also need a synonym for soul. In my book I refer to the soul of the universe. Also, suppose I had a sick atheist friend, who was hospitalized due to an accident. I send him a get-well card and sign it "With atheist blessings;" do you think that would be inappropriate, for an atheist to say? I sincerely don't know; I am relatively new to the environment of atheism. Also,, based on the feedback to my post,, I have redacted and replaced all references to the words spirituality, spiritual, sacred, hell, and heaven, This stuff can be very confusing.

@Tomm I remember when I was still in the Catholic church, years ago, there was a move to neutralize gender specific words. A group of nuns at my parish got rid of their habits and wore normal clothes. There was on octogenarian who would read from scripture during the mass and I was astounded how quickly she neutralized all the paternalistic words. I strongly believe a language can shape us (this is also a part of our evolution). This is the science of linguistics. I hate the word atheist as this has so many negative connotations and in public I use words as secular, non-religious, free thinker and so on. I also try to make people aware of the negative idea behind the word 'less' (godless or childless). I prefer god free and child free (replace less with free). I have read and heard there are some that don like any religious sounding words and try to find other words (I tried to find a link but it will take some time). Blessings can be replaced with positive thoughts or feelings. There is no such thing as a soul but one can say inner being. Scientists have also discovered there is no such thing a 'race' (we are all basically the same with some cultural and minor cosmetic differences. The proper word is 'tribe'😉. When certain words come up I try to be creative.

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Depends totally on your definition of spirituality.

Thanks again for your input. The general problem is that words mean things, and the they mean have different interpretations to various mental outlooks. The challenge is to create a new meaning for existing words. I like your idea for god free instead of godless. With your permission I'll use it in my writings. Your say there is no such thing as a soul. However, what if I define soul as our individual consciousness.

                                                            Happy trails (in place of blessings)

@Tomm You're welcome and welcome to use anything I have said that may be of use to you. Words like spiritual and soul do carry a lot of baggage and connotation, sometimes you can redefine the word but it takes a lot of time and the godbotherers will always lay claim to "their" words even though often they stole them in the first place and have already redefined by them from elsewhere.
I find it easier as a rule to find an alternate word, what you call soul, as you define it, I recognise as what Aristotle called the essential essence of a person; to him the soul was the life essence or power source of life, spirit was the the cumulative outcome of all your experience and essential essences is what today we would call your genetic predisposition that lays the foundation for your personality and physicality.

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This question is asked often on Agnostic.com. Again:

Yes. Hiking is an uplifting, transcendent experience for me. Mountains are my sanctuary.

A few Christians argued with my use of the word, "transcendent." They claimed "transcendent" refer to their god.

I can use any words I want to describe my experience.

I think "transcend" is a perfectly fine choice. There are no religious connotations to the word itself. You can transcend a bad childhood experience or personal limitations such as physical disability that are commonly thought to prohibit certain activities for example, and there's no religious connotation to that. I am surprised that Christians object to the use of such an areligious word that, ironically, they themselves have hijacked for certain purposes.

"transcendent" has no actual religious meaning at all, it is one of those words hijacked by the church and claimed for their own, to be transcendent is just to have climbed over or surmounted, past participle of the verb to transcend, which no one associates with religion at all.

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Those are admirable traits and certainly worthy of appreciation. I don't particularly see what's spiritual about them.

Can you explain a little further?

Good comment, may have to delete my use of the term spiritual. I use the term spiritual, for myself, based on my ontological beliefs. I believe our true existing reality is immaterial, thus having no physical body, form, or substance and this understanding agrees with Webster's definition of spiritual. However, thus far, it seems most atheists believe that spirituality cannot be associated with each other. I will look for another term to express my ontological understandings, rather than spiritual. Thanks for your comment.

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