Spirituality without faith

I read this article recently, thought it was worth posting, here. I consider myself ''spiritual,'' but I never gave much thought to how spirituality doesn't need to be relegated by faith. A person can be a naturalist, and through that, be spiritual. This article offers a really interesting perspective. What are your thoughts?

Spirituality Without Faith | Naturalism.org

 

Even one of the Atheist "Four Horsemen" is a proponent of this view. Sam Harris practices meditation and has taken psychedelics, both avenues of transcendental practice. I have yet to read this book but he has even written on the subject.

 

For me, Psychedelics were the avenue where I discovered that "spirituality" can be attained without religion. I still view all these methods from a physical viewpoint, so I'd probably opt for the term transcendent rather than spiritual, if the latter is to connote arising from some immaterial manifestation, but regardless I understand the concept of having experiences well beyond the realm of the "homeostatic" mind that we operate with on the standard day to day.

 

I'm a huge believer of the supernatural stuff mainly because I've witnessed and experienced supernatural things. I suspect one can be a naturalist and still be "spiritual", per se, but for me, spirituality will always have a certain degree of dualism to it. I don't think dualism has to necessarily mean what the author of the article says it does. I suppose he, being a naturalist, sees certain aspects of dualism in spirituality as limiting, but I don't think it has to be. It doesn't even have to mean that you're automatically part of religion even if your spiritual belief contains an element of dualism.

When I think "another entity", I don't necessarily perceive this entity as being superior to us. Maybe they are, maybe they aren't. But as a believer of extraterrestrial intervention during the evolutionary stages of the humans, what is limiting to me is to perceive the all the wonders of the universe solely based on the naturalist interpretation of it all. So, quite naturally(ha! lol), I don't.

 

A spiritualist person believes that we are accountable to some form of a god.
Religions and churches only create a hypothesis on what form their god exists in, so a belief in a single divine entity should unite them all. However due to earthly situations, the reverse often happens.
I see a pure belief, free from these manifestations and the hypocrisy that often surrounds them as a far better option.

 

For me the term spiritual is so broad it's kinda meaningless in a way........I'm just a simple bird-dog.....aware of certain things & blissfully oblivious of other things!

 

I’ve been hearing recommendations about this book so that’s ironic you mention it. I don’t know though if faith and religion are synonymous, or interchangeable. I think you can have faith in a higher power without all the bells and whistles that seem more like obstacles, within religion.

 

Are you a naturalist? I wonder if pantheists are like naturalists? Hmm.

 

I tend not to bother with the label on the box.
I just believe that I am accountable for how I treat people, both on this earth and hopefully somehow in some form beyond.
I also believe that one day, we will unlock the secrets of telepathy, inherited talent and reincarnation. They may all be buried deep within the unknown areas of our brain and associated with our DNA.

 

I tend to agree. But labels can summarize someone’s beliefs but of course there’s still a lot of grey area. Faith and philosophy I don’t think, are cut and dry. Thanks for sharing, I like learning about what others believe when it comes to this stuff.

 

I don't know if Harris makes the distinction in the book. I understand what you are saying, while I'd agree in some sense they are not inherently interchangeable, I'd still probably lump all supernatural faiths in with religion.

In a prior thread, I was asking you what this phrase "higher power" defines? But I never really got a response, so I don't understand what means.

 

What I mean by “higher power” is a more personal God, or personal idea of a god. But a Deist wouldn’t see God in that light, as other faiths and spiritual belief systems might view it entirely different from the next. So to say “higher power” is a broad phrase for me to associate faith with people who believe in some “form” of God. Does that make sense?

 

Ok, so yah I think religion is still an accurate term then, maybe not Organized religion.

 

Yea, that’s probably more accurate, since religion is just a belief really, but organized religion is where all the rules and legalism comes in.

 

Faith is a sticky issue for me. Because what does it really mean? I know that everyone has faith, whether it be in God or it be in one's fellow man. We would be consumed with worry if we didn't have faith that things aren't going to spiral out of control. So spirituality without faith... I don't know. I think spirituality does have faith in something. It implies the existence of a spirit, to begin with, and belief in that is a huge leap of faith.

And then some might say that this underlying spirit itself actually is what God is. Like the spirit itself comes from some kind of force which generates it, call it God.

Spiritualism without a belief in God. Well it depends on what is meant by God, as usual. But it depends on what is meant by "belief in" as well. "People will ask, 'Do you believe in Jesus?'" Well, do I believe he existed? There I'm not sure. But do I believe in him? Like what he stood for? It shouldn't matter if I believe he existed or not if I believe in what he stood for, IMO. That's more of a belief in him than just believing he existed. And it all revolves around faith in the goodness of men's hearts, and some will call this goodness itself "God."

I am spiritual and I have faith in the goodness of men's hearts. I don't need to call it "God," though. "God" is just sort of a label. Call it Rod or Todd, I don't care. Goodness and love prevail in the end. Love is just more significant than hate.

 

All that is important to me, is being able to sleep at night knowing that I have treated other people fairly.
I am sure that you do the same, probably without even realizing it at the time.

 

You’re a good man, wilsjane, and I agree.

 

I feel this way too, like I've had experiences of faith. I think faith should be ''experienced,'' or one's spirituality, however that might look for someone. It's nice to read your take on this. In your own words, how do you define ''dualism?'' I'm always a little confused on that.

You believe that there was extraterrestrial intervention during evolution? That's pretty interesting, I've never heard of this ''theory.''

 

To be honest, I never even thought about this "dualism" aspect of spirituality until the author of that article mentioned it, lol. But when you think about it, we do live in a world where we are invited to appreciate things of both spiritual and scientific origins. Science can't really explain how the supernatural phenomena occur, but many of us have observed that they do occur. Conversely, many of us have also witnessed the great things that science has achieved over the years, decades, centuries, millennia, where what we previously thought was caused by some sort of supernatural entity was in fact caused by something totally explainable via science. And that's kind of where I leave the whole thing. I think the problem starts to emerge when one introduces the monotheist type outlook into this whole picture. Then we'd be like, "okay, so this 'almighty' being created what?!"

I think the "dualism" idea comes mainly from perceiving the philosophical difference between how we look at what we know as proven facts and our beliefs, where the gap between the two aspects is large enough that we can't help but separate the two and place them on either end of the spectrum. We're talking panning hard left, hard right type either end of the spectrum. That's probably what frustrates most people, naturalists included, because it only presents us with two possible answers. Naturalism tries to say that there's the third, but I tend to be inclined to say there are many answers.

That brown shirt you have, maybe you haven't worn it in a little while, maybe you have............ but who even has decided that it's brown in the first place? You've decided to call it a brown shirt based on how it looks to you. But there are those who will call it green. I might as well call it pink. Yesterday's water is today's nothing. Tomorrow, a new life is born.

I'm just a sci-fi nerd in my own way, lol.