edit: I kind of went off on one line because it was a segue for my rambling thoughts, and less as some takedown of Reg or his post. Naturally none of the commentary has any intended implication against the fronkey farming trade.
This is because it has too many definitions and they are all subjective
There are lots of words like that, the best one probably being ‘fuck’. Even the word ‘religion’ itself is not that easy to pin down, but it has its use in a ‘know one when I see one’ sort of way.
In the ‘spiritual atheist’ sense, I tend to assume they are basically saying many of the experiences religious people have that they attribute to their god(s) are things that atheists, as human beings, feel as well and gods just aren’t necessary for it. Or perhaps it’s recognition that some religious approaches to things are useful even in an atheist paradigm or perhaps especially in an atheist paradigm when you strip the parts that work and put them into a vehicle that isn’t shit. Maybe in some cases they’re just saying, “I’m not the emotionless sin-bot you seem to think I am; I can relate to some of the things you religious lot praise (though often don’t exhibit) because I, too, am a fucking human being.)
If I were to ever refer to myself as ‘spiritual’ I think it would probably be a big ‘fuck you’ to all the religious people who have camped out on the finer aspects of human experience (love, hope, a desire for peace, ‘morality’, etc.) thinking they own them. Why use the word ‘spiritual’? Vague as it is, people have a sense of what it means enough so to know if the conversation is pointing north or south. It ties to some intuitive aspect of human existence with regard to meaning and connection. In harkens to some facet of processing our experience of the universe different than, perhaps the scientific method which in practice doesn’t always have what we need in the moment.
When atheists suggest alternatives, some are workable, but they often have no poetry to them, or they are words few know unless they happen to be Sagan fans (looking at you, numinous). From a cultural and linguistic perspective, I find ‘spiritual’ acceptable. Not every word is meant or precision or clear meaning. That just isn’t English. I’d wager most languages have some words like that where you just sort of have to grasp the meaning based on a feeling rather than a clearly articulated definition.
Of course, there are problems with the word. When someone uses it, you never know where they are in the spectrum of new-agey beliefs that specifically rely on lack of critical analysis to survive, or if they are just saying, “Yeah, looking at the stars at night gives me the special feels too”. In that regard though, I also never know what the fuck people mean when they say they like film.
But from that linguistic angle, I feel like every time this conversation happens it pushes me one step closer to being a ‘spiritual atheist’ out of pure stubbornness about language. And that will be a sad day for me, because I don’t have so much money floating around that I can just hand it over to Gwyneth Paltrow all so I can detoxify my liver. I send all my toxicity to my liver for a reason: so when world order collapses and people turn to cannibalism, the bastard who eats my liver can choke to death on my bitterness and ennui.
Simon Paynton 9 months, 2 weeks ago.
Belle Rose.
