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I am atheist and agnostic, but am also a spiritual naturalist (i.e., I don't believe that the supernatural exists, but I do value what are traditionally referred to as "spiritual" experiences - transcendence, awe, elevation, peace, connectedness, etc - I just believe that they are products of natural psychological and physiological processes).
The spiritual experience - the experience of meaning, connection and joy, often informed by philosophy or religion - is, from a naturalistic perspective, a state of the physical person, not evidence for a higher realm or non-physical essence. Nevertheless, this understanding of spirituality doesn’t lessen the attraction of such an experience, or its value for the naturalist. We naturally crave such feelings and so will seek the means to achieve them consistent with our philosophy.
Although naturalism may at first seem an unlikely basis for spirituality, a naturalistic vision of ourselves and the world can inspire and inform spiritual experience. Naturalism understands such experience as psychological states constituted by the activity of our brains, but this doesn't lessen the appeal of such experience, or render it less profound. Appreciating the fact of our complete inclusion in nature can generate feelings of connection and meaning that rival those offered by traditional religions, and those feelings reflect the empirical reality of our being at home in the cosmos.
If you look up the etymology of the word "spiritual," you’ll find that it derives from the Latin "spiritus," meaning "wind" or "breath." Standard dictionary definitions of spiritual contrast it with physical or material, so dualism is more or less built into the ordinary conception of spirituality. But I will argue that just as we can be good without God, we can have spirituality without spirits. Even within the monistic view of the cosmos entailed by a commitment to scientific empiricism, we can avail ourselves of spiritual experience and take an authentically spiritual stance when appreciating our situation as fully physical creatures embedded in a material universe. I hope to show that in its dualism, the traditional notion of spirituality in effect sets up problems of existential alienation and cognitive dissonance that religions have wrestled with, more or less unsuccessfully, for millennia. At a stroke, naturalism cuts these problems off at the root, providing an emotionally satisfying and cognitively unified basis for feeling completely at home in the world.
I normally introduce myself thusly "Hey there, my name is Dusty Rhodes and Yes, I have heard all the jokes." .......................The last new one I've heard was "he's the only man I know who could be laid by a light rain." and that was almost 15 years ago. I do appreciate originality.
I went with spiritual, but not religious. I honestly do not think it really matters whether there is a deity out there or not. On the other hand I find nature and life so infinitely wonderful that, for me, they take on a spiritual aspect.
I said 'spiritual but not religious' because, though I do consider myself Christian, I don't attend any church any more. I consider myself Christian because I do try to live by the teachings of Christ Jesus. I don't consider myself 'religious' because I don't follow the tenets of any particular denomination.
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