| Summary. Is this page worth your time? | Biography of the author. Is this writer worth your effort? |
| Introduction to the argument | Narrowing the topic of interest |
| The basis of all spiritual systems... | ...defined... | ...and discussed... | ...from a skeptical point of view |
| An objection to the method used | What I want the reader to do now |
| A personal Apologia for atheism | Conclusion to the argument |
| Links and Communication including guestbook and counter |
Humanity uses a variety of social systems to give order and meaning
to life's problems, pleasures, and discoveries.
Among
those systems
are those built on spirituality, such as religion,
divination,
meditation, and psychic power.
For a spiritualist, their own system is a unique revelation in a world full
of revelations. Other
spiritual systems are
wrong, or wrong for the particular practitioner.
For me the question of finding the spiritual system
that is right, or right for myself, is less important than the question as to
whether any spiritual system is worth the investment of time. To explore that question, I will
discover and discuss the basis of all spiritual systems. Finding the basis
to spirituality is the first step in an honest
investigation into spiritual systems.
Candidates for the foundation to all spiritual systems include angels, prayer,
faith, purposefulness of life and of death, mystical events,
sin and evil , and
others, no doubt.
None of these, however, is the "basis", because all these types of events are
mediated or caused by the "spiritual" state of the practitioner, and their relationship to
their god. At the very base of spirituality are these two things: the practitioner
(more specifically, the part of the practitioner that can contact their god),
and the god. To put it another, more generic, way: spirits and superspirits.
The practice of spirituality is
a quest to reach the individual's spirit to the superspirit, either after
death, or within the lifetime or lifetimes of the spirit. Many spiritual
systems have been constructed to do this.
But if the concepts at the very base of
these practices are not reliable, then the practices themselves are questionable
and the objects of those practices
unreliable also.
Introduction
The Topic of Interest
The "Basis"
The basis of all forms of spirituality, then, are these two concepts: that
spirits are somehow connected to individuals; that there is a superspirit. Sometimes a particular
spiritual system
maintains that spirits are connected to people only, as in the Egypto-Grecian religions; sometimes to all animals;
sometimes that spirits are in rocks and wind in addition to living
things, as in Shinto or Mother-Earth spirituality. The
second common element is a superspirit. Sometimes it is god, or godhead; sometimes
it is a state of supreme spiritual enlightenment, as in Buddhism or Jainism.
Discussions of the Basis of Spirituality from a Skeptical Viewpoint
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"Does it not, then, appear that we are dealing with the laws rather of myth, fairy tales, and legends than of any order of fact yet substantiated for either natural or human history? It is difficult to imagine how tales such as these could have been read even centuries ago as chronicles of fact...th(is) old ritual lore... with its concept of a hidden harmony and equivalence uniting the microcosm and the macrocosm and of a consequent resonance conducive to magical effects."
-Joseph Campbell
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(The Marquis de) Leplace is said to have presented an edition of his seminal mathematical work Mecanique celeste to Napolean aboard ship in the Mediterranean during the Napoleonic expedition to Egypt, 1798 to 1799. A few days later, so the story goes, Napolean complained to Laplace that he found no mention of God in the text. Laplace's response has been recorded: "Sire, I have no need of that hypothesis."
Carl Sagan
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The place to start, according to my objectors, would be an historical analysis. Further, my objectors would start their analysis by taking the story they favor as a given fact not as one story out of several stories to analyze. If we find the birth place, the palace, where the boy who becames the Buddha was born do we automatically believe he was surrounded by demons as he sat under the Tree? That he placed his right hand upon the earth in prayer to be protected so he could continue his redeeming work? If we find the battlefields of the Illiad do we then believe that rivers, of their own accord, leave their riverbanks to chase their enemies?
I'll take present conditions as the operating conditions for life and society unless I see truly extraordinary evidence. By truly extraordinary evidence I mean evidence that cannot be equalled by other naturally occuring events.
It hasn't escaped my attention that those who live in a spirit-filled world have a different view of normal "operating conditions"or that those who view such a world may well see spirits intervening in natural occuring events. I do contend that the supreme spirit in such a spirit-filled world could well make itself known by causing events that were inexplicable without a non-natural causer. As technology and science progress those zones where god alone could be shrink and have fianlly disappeared.
It's not up to me, and if you're comfortable with your spirituality, good.
I, however, am
comfortable with my lack of spirituality, and feel justified in rejecting all spirituality as folklore.
But I can't take an "unholier than thou" attitude. After
all,
I enjoy listening to Led Zep, Alanis Morissette, and Enigma, and read the novels of Lustbader
and Roquelaure,
all of which is very spiritual stuff, albeit a heterodox spirituality.
Nevertheless, if you're serious about investigating spirituality (as I am) you need to clarify in
your mind the central, and unasked, question of spirituality: is there a good objective
reason to believe in spirits and superspirits?
The preceeding arguments attempt to show the unreliablity of spirituality. If the elements common to all of
these systems are unreliable, then all of spirituality:
religion; divination; prayer; angelology; salvation; end-times; is questionable because these secondary items are derived from
the primary items. The secondary items' truth claims are derived from those primary items.
So, having explained how I came to reject the spiritual, I'll exlain why I call myself an atheist.
These reasons, taken individually,or even severally, may well
admit room for one or the other of the bases of spirituality.
Taken as a whole they lend credibility to atheism as a whole
and to atheists, their sensibility and credibility, individually.
It has not escaped my attention that some of these reasons are
currently unsubstantiated (not to say metaphysical), but they are not weak. I am referring
only to the third, fourth, and last points. The rest are not
unsubstantial.
But you also have the right to completely reject spirituality. And that is
really good news.
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