Why I Am Not Spiritual

7/28/2019 Why I Am Not Spiritual

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Why I Am Not SpiritualSpirituality as the Alienation of

Humanity

ByDavid Eller

If there is one thing that Atheists agree on (and there may only be

one thing), it is that there is no good reason to believe in god(s). It is not

impossible, however, that one can be an Atheist and still believe in other

'spiritual' things. In fact, we know that there are people who call

themselves 'spiritual atheists.' Indeed, it is possible that, even if there is

no such thing as god(s), there might still be other lesser spiritual beingsor forcesangels, souls, nymphs, fairies, and genies, or karma, mana,

auras, and so on. Atheism, in the strict interpretation, refers only to 'no

god(s),' not to 'no spiritual/non-material things.' So, when Atheists or

other humanists talk about spirit and spiritual experiences, they might

literally mean that they believe in and experience non-god spiritual

beings or forces.

I certainly think and hope that this is not so. Atheism is not

identical to thorough materialism and rationalism, but rationalism is

definitely the firmest philosophical underpinning for Atheism, and

materialism is surely the most compatible view of the universe. There is

no more evidence for other non-material and 'spiritual' beings or forces

than there is for god(s), so there is no more reason to accept their

existence than that of god(s). But likelier than this interpretation is the

chance that 'spiritual' Atheists and humanists mean something different

when they use the word 'spirit' or 'spiritual.' In this article I will explore

what they probably mean with such talk, show why it is still false talk,

and argue that, even more than false, it is anti-human talkthe kind of

talk that degrades and diminishes humans and the natural world.

What is Spirit?Obviously enough, spiritual is 'of or pertaining to spirit.' When one

is having a spiritual experience, one is experiencing spirit in some way.

Ordinarily, we use spirit in two different senses. The first is as a generalname for a class of allegedly real beings that have specific qualities
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unique to the class; in particular, they are usually invisible, immaterial,

and often powerful. Gods are spirits, as are lower (but 'higher-than-

human') beings like angels and cherubs and ascended masters, etc. The

second is a name for a disposition or feeling or essence, such as 'the spirit

of '76' or 'the spirit of the law.' Whether these latter spirits exist

independently of 1776 or the law is dubious and probably not evenclaimed; we can have the spirit of '76 in us today, but we do not (I think)

believe that this spirit resides in some spirit-world waiting to possess us.

But, at a deeper level, both of these usages of spirit share a common

root. The derivation of the word is from the Latin spiritus, which literally

means breath, and further from spirare for to blow or to breathe. We can see

this in other familiar English words that share the same root as spirit:

Expire (ex- 'out' + -spire 'breathe')to breathe out, sometimes forthe last time;

Conspire (con- 'with' + -spire 'breathe')to breathe with or close to(as in secrecy);

Perspire (per- 'through' + -spire 'breathe')to breathe through, aswhen your body breathes through your pores;

Inspire (in- 'in' + -spire 'breathe') to breathe in or take in morebreath;

Aspire (ad- 'at' or 'upon' + -spire 'breathe')to breathe at or upon,to focus your breath on;

Respire/respiration (re- 'again' + -spire 'breathe')to breathe again,to repeatedly breathe in and out;

Dispirit (dis- 'from' or 'apart' + -spire 'breathe')to deprive ofbreath;

Spiritedfull of breath.All of these words have something to do with breath, quite

obviously, but breath not in the literal sense: when we 'aspire' toward

something or are 'inspired' by something, we are not literally breathing

toward it or being breathed into by it. Rather, breath here is metaphorical,

an image or representation of something other than our actual breathing

process. Webster's in fact defines spirit, as the first entry, as "an animating

or vital principle held to give life to physical organisms." Let us look at

the same words again, in their metaphorical and everyday meanings.

Expireto lose or end one's energy or vitality, sometimes even todie.

Conspireto ally one's energy or vitality with another, as in aconspiracy.


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Perspireto give off one's energy or vitality through the skin.Inspireto take in more energy or vitality from some external

source.

Aspireto focus or direct one's energy or vitality on some goal.Respire/respirationto continue to get and lose energy or vitality,

in other words, to stay alive.Dispiritto take away the energy or vitality of another.Spiritedfull of energy or vitality.

Breath in all of these words is a metaphor or analogy for energy,

vitality, or what we might call life-force or even life itself; having a lot of

it means lots of energy and vitality, and having little of it means being

relativelyor absolutelylifeless.

Breath, in many languages and cultures, is the manifestation or the

representation of the force that animates (literally, makes us move) andgives us life. After all, when a body is alive, you can see it breathing, and

when it dies, it stops breathing. Breath is motion and life. In ancient

Greek,pneuma is the word for air or breath, from pnein for 'to breathe'; it

gives us words likepneumatic (full of air) andpneumonia (a disease of our

air/lung organs). In ancient Hebrew ruah also means both breath and

spirit, and it is commonly used in the Old Testament to refer to the

power of its god that brings life out of matter and order out of chaos.

Recall that, in Judeo-Christian theology, the universe was created by thespeech of a god (the out-rush of air in verbal form) and that Adam was

created by Yahweh breathing into earth.

Most if not all religious traditions recognize some life-force like

this, whether or not they represent it as breath. Blood is another possible

and potent metaphor for life; when we get agitated our 'blood boils,' and

when we have no feeling we are 'bloodless.' Heart is still another

common metaphor; someone with 'a lot of heart' has great courage and

strength, and someone who is 'heartless' lacks either fortitude or

compassion. Finally, movement itself is a sign and metaphor of life and

life-force; if something packs a lot of emotion punch we call it 'moving,'

but if it does not change our life we are 'unmoved.' Most if not all

traditions also distinguish between the life-force and the substrate that

carries it, at least for a time. When or while a body 'has' this life-force it is

active, vibrant, alive. When that force departs, a body is dead.

This can and almost necessarily does lead to a profound dualism:

live force or spirit versus non-live matter. Philosophers from Socrates and

Plato to Descartes to modern-day mind-body dualists repeat the same


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distinction, and Christianity and Judaism certainly depend on it as well.

Matter is inert, passive, dead on its own; only when it is infused with

spirit is it mobile, active, and most importantly alive. But then, in a way,

it never is alive, since it is only the 'ghost in the machine' that makes the

machinedead matterjump and dance for a time. Matter, including

the human body, is only (and this attitude is quite explicit in manytraditions) a shell, a suit of clothing that the 'living' aspect wears for a

time. There is no natural or necessary connection between life and its

clothing; reincarnation or soul-immortality equally attest to this fact.

What is Spiritual?What do people mean when they say they are 'spiritual'? What

kinds of things do people, including some Atheists, point to when they

describe a 'spiritual' experience? More critically, what do these

experiences have in common? Most often, people describe a sunset, a

work of art, a great love, or some similar experience as an instance of the

spiritual. Scholars too have studied the spiritual and (as many lay people

have learned and say themselves) related it to feelings of awe and

wonder. It is the majestic things (like mountains and sunsets), the

immense things (distant galaxies or the universe itself), the exquisite

things (like music), the precious things (like love and babies) that present

us with the spiritual. These are the things that give us that feeling of

rapture (a term that Christianity has hijacked), of being rapt, from the

Latin rapere, 'to seize' or 'to sweep away.' We are literally seized by the

power of the experience or the view.

And therein lies the clue. What 'spiritual'

experienceswhether they are religious or

artistic or whateverhave in common is their

power, their capacity to grab us and sweep usaway emotionally in ways that ordinary life cannot or does not. They are

vibrant (from the Latin vibrare 'to shake'), vital (from the Latin vita 'life'),

lively (from the Old English lif 'life'), vivacious (from the Latin vivere 'to

live'). These are the moments of ecstasy, from the Greek ex-histanai, 'to

cause to stand out of itself or oneself.' They feel like more than life, like

extra lifemore energetic, vibrant, and alive than normal lifeand they

feel like they come from outside of us.

Spiritual experiences are those that seem to have more of thatanimating or vital stuff or force than mundane experiences do. They are

"It is funny, though, how it is

nature and humanity that

give us most of our

'supernatural experiences'."


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a 'higher dose' of life-forceone that we do not routinely encounter and

one that we could not perhaps sustain for long without damaging

ourselves. They speed up our breath, make it more rapid (also from the

Latin root rapere), and that is one overt sign of the enhancement of our

life-force.

The problem is that, within the dualistic view, this life-force is'other' than us, outside of us, foreign to us. Where then could such a

spiritual experience, such spiritual power, originate from? It cannot be

from us, because we are just inert matter. It must be from wherever that

first spirit originated, the one that gave us life in the first place. It must

be from heaven, from the spirits, from god(s).

That is the great mistake. It is the confusion of 'more life' with

'other life.' It is the attribution of life itself to another reality, another

dimension, than the one in which we live every day

and, even morecrucially, to a reality or dimension to which we do not have access. These

profound, rapturous experiences depend on some other force coming

and carrying us away. We are passive in the process. It is funny, though,

how it is nature and humanity that give us most of our 'supernatural

experiences.'

Spirituality as AlienationSpiritual experiences are those that make us feel 'more alive.' It is

like we tap into an additional fountain of life or energy, one that could

only arise from the source of all life or energyoutside of ourselves. It is

a 'gift' in the true sense of the word: something given, something not

truly our own.

Yet it is weweak puny material beings that we

arewho have these experiences. They are

merely experiences that are livelier, moreforceful, more animated and animating than our

run-of-the-mill experiences. It is our emotions

that are moved, our awe and wonder that are

peaked, our life that is enhanced. It might be an

external objecta mountain or a Mozartthat 'inspires' us to this

feeling, but it is our feeling. What is usually described as spiritual is

really life, really human.

This talk of spiritual and spirituality perpetuates a profoundmistake and constitutes a profound betrayalperhaps the most

"The spiritual is experienced

as getting 'extra life' from

somewhere outside of

ourselves; in reality, it isdiscovering deeper or better

levels inside of ourselves. It

is encountering humanness

at its fullest."


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profound that humans have ever committed against themselves. The

mistake is the prejudice or belief or 'faith' that life and its finer aspects,

and our ability to appreciate those aspects, are not 'natural' but must be

supernaturalthat beauty, awe, wonder, love are not things 'of this

world.' No, they must belong to a better world, a higher world, and they

are only 'revealed' to us for a brief time. These finer, more powerfulaspects of life are seen as separate from us, other than us, better than us,

outside of us. Surely weweak puny material beingscould not be

capable of them on our own.

But the things that we call spiritual are precisely of this world.

They are natural, and they are social. They are not 'other life' but simply

'more life.' They are not 'other than human,' they are 'more human.' They

are the best of human. The spiritual is experienced as getting 'extra life'

from somewhere outside of ourselves; in reality, it is discovering deeperor better levels inside of ourselves. It is encountering humanness at its

fullest.

Hence, spirituality is the greatest possible betrayal of humanity.

Talk of spirit and the spiritual alienates the very best part of

humannessliterally, in the sense of making it alien to or other than our

own selves. It says, "This is the very best, the very most, that I can feel

and beand it is not me." Therefore, it minimizes or denigrates the

human or the natural (as all dualism does) and gives away the greatestthings of which we are capable to some other realm or reality. It deprives

us not only of part of our humanity but the best part of our humanity

and ascribes it to some supernaturaland therefore non-naturalworld.

In the process, we are lessened. We are alienated from ourselves and

made to believe that no mere human could be the source of such

wonder.

But we are the source. 'Spiritual' experiences are in fact human

experiences

the best, the strongest, the most profound human

experiences, but human nonetheless. They are not a kind of non-

humanness but a kind of ultra-humanness. We are richer by and for

them, but we impoverish ourselves when we denyor allow ourselves

to be deniedour own finest nature and assign those feelings and

capacities to the non-human, the unknown, and almost certainly the

imaginary and unreal. There are, of course, religious traditions that do

not want humans to feel that good, that powerful, that wonderful. Some,

like Christianity, depend on the worthlessness of humanity; why else

would we need salvation and a religious structure to provide it? The


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biggest fear of such traditions is the possibility that we will discover that

we are just finenot perfect, but pretty goodand that all of the best

things in life are human. Thus, by rejecting spirit and the spiritual, we

reclaim the wholeness of human experience and human being.

Conclusion: A Positive Message for AtheismCritics often condemn Atheism for having nothing positive to

offer. Sometimes they are correct, in terms of how Atheists represent

Atheism. It is the rejection of god(s) and I would add, the rejection of

all non-material beings and forces for which there is no evidenceand

that is a negative message. But it is a negative message that makes way

for a positive message. Sometimes, as Nietzsche stated, one must say no

before one can say yes.

Over one hundred and fifty years ago, Ludwig Feuerbach

described Christianity in roughly the terms that I am suggesting here. He

argued that the 'essence of Christianity' is humanity's awareness of our

own traits and our own greatness. This is not hubris, not sheer pride and

arrogance. As he said:Religion is the consciousness of the infinite; hence it is, and cannot be

anything other than, man's consciousness of his own essential nature,

understood not as a finite or limited, but as an infinite nature. A really finite

being has not even the slightest inkling, let alone consciousness, of what aninfinite being is, for the mode of consciousness is limited by the mode of

being. In keeping with this, if you think the infinite, you think and confirm the

infinity of the power of thought; if you feel the infinite, you feel and confirm

the infinity of the power of feeling. The object of reason is reason as its own

object; the object of feeling is feeling as its own object.

In other words, humans could not know or feel anything as great

as what we ordinarily call 'the spiritual' unless humanity was itself

equally great. In fact, as I have tried to express above, what we ordinarily

call the spiritual is nothing more than a misnamed part of ourselves, and

the best part at that.

So the positive message of Atheismafter

the air is cleared of god(s) and spirits and the

spiritualbecomes a message of anthropology.

By this I do not mean the academic discipline of

anthropology but rather, as its roots suggest, the

'study or knowledge of humanity.' Spirituality is

the opposite of humanity, but it is at once the same thing. It is humanity

objectified and alienated, and as such perhaps more easily knowable.

"What we once called

spiritual we should now call

human. Spirituality is the

human expressed in terms of

the non-human. That is

unacceptable and self-

deprecating."


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However, now we know something elsethat what we once called

spiritual we should now call human. Spirituality is the human expressed

in terms of the non-human. That is unacceptable and self-deprecating. I

urgently recommend, therefore, that we stop using the term spiritual

altogether and replace it with the term that means what we really mean.

Atheists are not spiritual and do not have spiritual experiences. Neveragain should we say, "I had a spiritual experience." Instead, the next time

you see a particularly beautiful sunset or cute baby, simply say, "I had a

life experience"or better yet, "I had a human experience"and

encourage others to do the same.

Author: Dr. David Eller is an anthropologist who serves as the

American Atheists director for the state of Colorado.
http://www.atheists.org/co/http://www.atheists.org/co/http://www.atheists.org/co/

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