So I've been thinking about atheism and spirituality and the nature of reality in general a whole lot lately. I recently finished reading "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins which is a well thought-out, expertly written argument for atheism and against religion. I have never been a religious person and was pleased to read Dawkins who managed to say - in an organized and succinct way - pretty much exactly what I've been thinking all these years. The fact that I don't believe in a Christian god is pretty much obvious to anyone who knows me. It was my thoughts on some of the subtler nuances of faith and spirituality that confounded me.
I think lots of people apply the blanket label "spiritual" to experiences and feelings that they have in their lives that don't seem to fit the norm of the physical reality in which we find ourselves from moment to moment. For example, I've heard a friend describe what to them was a religious experience in the following way (paraphrased):
"I found myself out in the woods alone late at night on a clear day, and I looked up into the sky and found that without the lights of the city to obscure them, I could see the untold billions of stars in the sky. And all at once, I felt all together small yet strangely connected to everything, and a profound sense of peace and tranquility descended upon me and I really felt the presence of the eternal - what most people would call 'god'."
The person who uttered that tale (or something very similar) is someone who I care for and respect. However, I couldn't help but cringe a little when while I listened to their story. I'm sure that anyone with any amount of sense has had a similar experience; one where they are humbled by the magnitude of the universe or reality or even just the planet. Many things can trigger those feelings, from staring up into a starry sky and realizing how insignificant you (and really, the whole of humanity) truly are, to watching the launch of a space-shuttle, to wandering around a huge city marveling at the sheer scale of everything. It's a natural response to being faced with a sudden shift of scale. We spend most of our lives dealing with things that are on the same scale as we are - what Dawkins refers to as "middle-world" (not to be confused with Middle-Earth, land of elves and hobbits). Middle-world is somewhere between the microscopic (and downright weird) world of subatomic particles and quantum mechanics and the macroscopic realm of cosmological phenomenon like supernova and black-holes. Everything we deal with from cars to cell-phones are "our sized". So it's not really a surprise that, when you shift your mind's eye toward something much larger (or smaller, though I think this happens only to quantum physicists) you're going to feel a bit funny. "A bit funny" is easily mistaken for "the presence of the divine" unfortunately. I think it's just the way our brains evolved.
Of course, there are plenty of reasons why people believe in God and in their own spirituality in general. And don't get me wrong - I'm not suggesting that people should just abandon that sense of spirituality that they carry with them. I'm only suggesting that they make an attempt to recognize where it comes from and what it really means. The universe is a profound and wonderful place that need not have any imagined supernatural essence or forces to make it an interesting place to live. Religion, like a superfluous appendage, needs to be evolved out of our species so that we can concentrate our energies on unveiling the true wonders of the reality in which we live.
"The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins. Read it. If nothing else, it contains a decent amount of Douglas Adams (who had been a good friend of Dawkins before his death) and will give you a chuckle.
I think lots of people apply the blanket label "spiritual" to experiences and feelings that they have in their lives that don't seem to fit the norm of the physical reality in which we find ourselves from moment to moment. For example, I've heard a friend describe what to them was a religious experience in the following way (paraphrased):
"I found myself out in the woods alone late at night on a clear day, and I looked up into the sky and found that without the lights of the city to obscure them, I could see the untold billions of stars in the sky. And all at once, I felt all together small yet strangely connected to everything, and a profound sense of peace and tranquility descended upon me and I really felt the presence of the eternal - what most people would call 'god'."
The person who uttered that tale (or something very similar) is someone who I care for and respect. However, I couldn't help but cringe a little when while I listened to their story. I'm sure that anyone with any amount of sense has had a similar experience; one where they are humbled by the magnitude of the universe or reality or even just the planet. Many things can trigger those feelings, from staring up into a starry sky and realizing how insignificant you (and really, the whole of humanity) truly are, to watching the launch of a space-shuttle, to wandering around a huge city marveling at the sheer scale of everything. It's a natural response to being faced with a sudden shift of scale. We spend most of our lives dealing with things that are on the same scale as we are - what Dawkins refers to as "middle-world" (not to be confused with Middle-Earth, land of elves and hobbits). Middle-world is somewhere between the microscopic (and downright weird) world of subatomic particles and quantum mechanics and the macroscopic realm of cosmological phenomenon like supernova and black-holes. Everything we deal with from cars to cell-phones are "our sized". So it's not really a surprise that, when you shift your mind's eye toward something much larger (or smaller, though I think this happens only to quantum physicists) you're going to feel a bit funny. "A bit funny" is easily mistaken for "the presence of the divine" unfortunately. I think it's just the way our brains evolved.
Of course, there are plenty of reasons why people believe in God and in their own spirituality in general. And don't get me wrong - I'm not suggesting that people should just abandon that sense of spirituality that they carry with them. I'm only suggesting that they make an attempt to recognize where it comes from and what it really means. The universe is a profound and wonderful place that need not have any imagined supernatural essence or forces to make it an interesting place to live. Religion, like a superfluous appendage, needs to be evolved out of our species so that we can concentrate our energies on unveiling the true wonders of the reality in which we live.
"The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins. Read it. If nothing else, it contains a decent amount of Douglas Adams (who had been a good friend of Dawkins before his death) and will give you a chuckle.