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Comment by TchoBeer | Hacker News Reader

>Atheism is not spiritual and to conflate the two is foolish.

Not necessarily, obviously, but there are spiritual atheists, and if OP asks "what are your spiritual practices" then "I have none" is a valid answer.

>It is clear that atheism and consumerism in modern society do not make people happy.

The least happy people I know are religious, and almost all the Atheists I know are pretty happy with their lives. I don't think Atheism makes people happy, but I don't think Theism makes everyone happy too. It works for some, and doesn't work for others.

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It is a contradiction.

“Spirit”ual. You cannot be Spiritual without belief in Spirit. It is in the word itself.

You can be a good Atheist however that is mostly in line with good spiritual practices.

Atheists seem to want it both ways. To believe in nothing but also define themselves as “Spiritual”

> You cannot be Spiritual without belief in Spirit

How would you define "Spirit"?

Languages evolve over time and I'd argue the word "spirituality" is morphing into something with a very broad definition of "spirit", one where, for example, an atheistic Buddhist can practice and still be considered "spiritual".

You yourself are Spirit now. You just think you are a body.

Buddha was not an atheist.

The belief is the other half of this thing. Your benefits of practice will be very limited if there is no belief in it.

It will be mechanical Buddhism which isnt really Buddhism. It’s just someone making the motions.

There is deep meaning there and I have a feeling that you in particular are closer to it than you think.

Call God an alien if you want. I think many simply take issue with the names and symbols. The word God itself evokes controversy in many.

You touched on a number of interesting topics and I'm sure we could go down a rabbit hole of tangents : ) It sounds like you have come to some sort of understanding of how the world and "God" works.

Myself, I find the concept of an omni-powerful "being", "God", force exceptionally far-fetched, without any concrete scientific evidence that I'm aware of. I'm ok with the understanding that humans are simply animals that evolved exceptionally large brains. It was inevitable that we'd use start using those brains to ask, "Why the fuck are we here?" followed by the birth of thousands of various religions and beliefs over the millennia.

Yes, I could be wrong but this general philosophy makes sense to me at this point in my life. I don't believe there is any objective meaning to life aside from creating my own meaning, and so far it's working out well.

Spirit doesn't necessarily mean God.

It certainly doesnt mean believing in nothing.

One can “believe in nothing” and still have “spiritual” experiences, for example the experience of observing a beautiful sunset… or perhaps the feeling we get when acknowledging that we are made from stars and will one day return to them.

You can argue that this isn’t true spirituality, but I think the way neurons fire during it is the same way a spiritual person’s neurons fire when having their own moments.

This is the meat puppet definition of humanity. We are not the meat puppet.

The experience happens outside of the meat puppet.

It is your belief in the reality of your body and your mind that prevents you from realizing the full potential of those “spiritual” experiences.

Those experiences will have little impact if the belief in them is lacking.

It is not that those experiences are more real, it is that they are no less real than what you call reality.

Also, being an atheist does not mean you lack any belief in the supernatural. For example, if I believed in ghosts but have no belief in god, I could still have spiritual experiences with my ancestors.

So you believe in little green men instead of little blue ones and that makes you an atheist?

If you see the experience as nothing more than a dream then that’s what it will become.

If you see it as something at least as real as this waking reality then the experience has impact.

Without belief in it, your experiences are meaningless. You will learn very little from them.

They are invitations that you have outwardly rejected in labeling yourself an atheist.

Atheists would take a research paper as truth over their own direct experience. They hold Science as most dear and most important and they label faith and beliefs and spiritual experiences as make believe or pretend fantasy.

An atheist has many definitions but one used very commonly is simply the lack of a belief in any gods. So I can believe in those little men (blue or green) and still be an atheist as long as those men are not divinely powerful gods.

I see how you are trying to define atheism: "Atheists would take a research paper as truth over their own direct experience. They hold Science as most dear and most important and they label faith and beliefs and spiritual experiences as make believe or pretend fantasy."

Again I remind you that atheism is a very broad term. As an atheist I follow the most common definition and have no belief in god as I have not seen any evidence they exist yet. If I have some sort of personal supernatural experience and god reveals themself to me, I see no reason why I wouldn't believe in them. Especially over some flimsy piece of paper.

I can also believe in something without evidence and still be an atheist. For example I believe in the supernatural to some extent because it brings me comfort and because there is so much that we still do not understand.

Does belief in nothing equal not believing in something?

No. The answer is in the question.

Reality is subjective, you will get what you believe.

In one sense you are right because ultimately reality can only be expressed in the negative. It is not in the class of perceivable objects.

> Atheists seem to want it both ways

No, they don't. I understand how you'd like to imagine there are a bunch of atheists out there coveting something you have, but that isn't the case. Reread the root comment and try not to take "spirituality" so literally.

It is of no consequence to me what others think or what they covet. They are allowed to their beliefs as I am to mine.

You are the one who thinks that you own the ‘I’ all to yourself. You see yourself as a separate individual. That is clear.

Spiritualism is spiritual of Spirit. You call yourself an atheist. Do I then say that Atheists believe in God or some form of it? Ridiculous. Come off of it.

We can change the words to make it easier on people and stop wasting time with petty semantics.

Lets call it people who believe in nothing and then there are people who believe in something, a higher intelligence or a soul or spirit.

Enough of the semantics.

In my experience it is an attempt to reclaim the word spiritual as it is a useful word for describing certain aspects of the human experience.

For example:

https://web.archive.org/web/20160818051131/https://www.samha...

Etymologically, spirit originally seems to have meant something like breath or life (hence "aspirated"). The reification of that sense into an otherworldly Being is a later development. So maybe there's some room for an atheist to be "spiritual" in the simple sense that one would contemplate the significance or meaning of being or existing. The only assertion that atheism makes is a negative one--namely, that the theists are wrong. That doesn't necessarily preclude one from having some other idea about the nature of being.

They may contemplate as they wish but their minds can only take them so far.

They will remain closed to the possibility of true spirituality because ultimately they believe only in material things and they take themselves to be the real thing, and the Spirit to be more or less a dream.

Sure they may have some interesting experiences but often they turn away from these experiences and dismiss them as no more real than dreams.

If the belief in the heart is absent so to will It be absent. It is a game of hide and seek but you must have the belief in that which is being sought. Otherwise the whole thing falls apart.

Intellect alone is not enough.

Your argument is with materialism or rationalism, not atheism per se. Atheism is the rejection of theism. There are many varieties of theism but they're pretty well defined (by the theists themselves, even painstakingly so).

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