combining theistic belief and spiritual belief, there's a remarkable consistency, with spirituality seeming to compensate for declining theistic belief in many European nations. In famously nontheistic Denmark, spiritual belief is more common than atheism, agnosticism, or theism. ... This tends to support the idea that spirituality should be understood as an experimental sort of religiosity, rather than a stepping stone away from religion. This is further supported by the fact that even in nations like Denmark with high rates of atheism, many atheists describe themselves as religious.Even if you disagree that the need to believe in God is hard-wired into most humans, it appears that there is substantial evidence that we have a need to believe in something beyond what is material. The fact that even many self-described atheists express a belief in something as nebulous as "spirituality," seems to indicate that the hardwired thesis is at least partially correct.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Spiritual Atheists
As a follow-up to my post, Programmed for Faith, I would recommend reading Josh Rosenau's post, "Scientists and Spirituality." I found these parts especially interesting.
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I think it's a problem of language. Until a vocabulary for addressing the abstract in a secular (or non-religious) fashion becomes common, I expect religious terms to pop up where they don't belong.
ReplyDeleteI believe in justice, even though I can't point to it in nature or design an experiment to test its existence. I wouldn't describe this as religious, I would simply call it an artificial ideal, or something to that effect.
I think the idea of something as complex as religion being "hardwired" is preposterous, especially in light of humanity's monopoly on religion. If someone can find chimps folding their hands and muttering to themselves before eating a banana, you might have something there. Until something of that nature comes along, I assume religion is learned.
"I think it's a problem of language. Until a vocabulary for addressing the abstract in a secular (or non-religious) fashion becomes common, I expect religious terms to pop up where they don't belong."
ReplyDeleteThat's a good point. Something like "spirituality" is so vague that it doesn't necessarily have to imply some sort of belief in the supernatural.
"I assume religion is learned. "
So do I, but an impulse to believe in the supernatural isn't exactly the same thing as religion -- which involves a lot more trappings. In any event, it is very difficult to say one way or another, since belief in gods & the supernatural is so pervasive that almost everyone is exposed from an early age.
When looking through a telescope (or viewing a cosmology edutainment program) I get a sense of awe and euphoria and a small measure of how insignificant I am to the universe, even though there's nothing supernatural about it.
ReplyDeleteI think THAT is where this ill-defined quasi religious term, "spirituality", is being used. As Ginx implied, religious terms are being applied to the non-religious experience. As you stated, it is a problem of language until we invent/evolve sufficient terms.