Can humanists be “spiritual”? The yes camp.
Jeremy Rodell
“Spirituality”: Jeremy Rodell argues that it’s an important facet of our humanity.
As Marilyn says in her piece, there are fewer differences in our views than you might expect. My main concern is that we should not feel so insecure in our own position – that you can lead a good life without belief in the supernatural – nor feel so hostile to religion, that we should be afraid to recognise experiences and use language that are also used by religious people if the experiences are real and important, and the language is useful in communicating what we mean.
In the same discussion on Radio 4’s Today programme that Marilyn referred to, on the well-worn topic of whether atheists should be allowed to contribute to the “Thought for the Day” slot, Christina Rees, a member of the Church of England’s General Synod, argued that:
“Most people, more than 80 percent, understand life as having a spiritual dimension…” whereas atheists are “…coming from a position that denies the spiritual dimension… a partial and diminished perspective…There is more to life than you can see, touch and measure”.
I was insulted. Here was a member of the General Synod telling me that, as an atheist, I’m a sort of Mr Spock – superficially like other people but missing a core part of what it means to be human. And, by implication, telling me that “spiritual” is not a word I’m allowed to use.
Unfortunately, as we’ve heard from Marilyn, many Humanists go along with this point of view, fearing they will somehow get contaminated by religion if they use the word, or admit to having a spiritual dimension in their lives. I think it’s time we moved beyond that.
What is “spirituality”?
It isn’t hard to define a Humanist spirituality that doesn’t imply any supernatural beliefs, yet accepts the reality of a spiritual dimension to being human.
The key is to recognise the reality of personal “spiritual” experience. Some people have this type of experience a lot in their lives, others only rarely. When a religious person has it they attribute it to an external supernatural cause – a deity, saint, or whatever fits with their beliefs. Of course, we think that’s a mistake. But the experience itself is a fact. Neuroscience can now show us what is going on in someone’s brain at the time, and it’s even possible to create the experience artificially in the laboratory. But that doesn’t diminish the power of the experience itself.
Of course, there’s actually a spectrum of experiences here, ranging in intensity from those stimulated by great art or, in particular, great music, to the more profound and unexpected, as described by the former Sorbonne Professor of Philosophy, Andre Compte-Sponville in this extract from his Book of Atheist Spirituality:
“The first time it happened I was in the forest in the north of France. I must have been twenty five or twenty six. I had just been hired to teach high-school philosophy in a school on the edge of a canal, up in the fields near the Belgian border. That particular evening, some friends and I had gone for a walk in the forest we liked so much. Night had fallen. We were walking. Gradually our laughter faded, and the conversation died down. Nothing remained but our friendship, our mutual trust and shared presence, the mildness of the night air and of everything around us…My mind empty of thought, I was simply registering the world around me – the darkness of the undergrowth, the incredible luminosity of the sky, the faint sounds of the forest…only making the silence more palpable. And then, all of a sudden…What? Nothing: everything! No words, no meanings, no questions, only – a surprise. Only – this. A seemingly infinite happiness. A seemingly eternal sense of peace. Above me, the starry sky was immense, luminous and unfathomable, and within me there was nothing but the sky, of which I was a part, and the silence, and the light, like a warm hum, and a sense of joy with neither subject nor object …Yes, in the darkness of that night, I contained only the dazzling presence of the All….
…’This is what Spinoza meant by eternity’, I said to myself – and naturally, that put an end to it.”
Personally, I’ve had a couple of similar experiences, neither of which were in any sense “religious”.
If none of this is meaning anything to you, these two quotes from Albert Einstein may help:
“A human being is part of a whole, called by us the Universe – a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as separate from the rest – a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to the affection for those nearest us.“
And:
“There are moments when one feels free from one’s own identification with human limitations and inadequacies. At such moments one imagines that one stands on some spot of a small planet, gazing in amazement at the cold yet profoundly moving beauty of the eternal, the unfathomable; life and death flow into one, and there is neither evolution nor destiny, only being.”
There are plenty of other examples where people from a wide range of backgrounds and beliefs report similar perspectives and experiences. Whether we’re talking about something as intense as Compte-Sponville describes, or a few seconds of “otherness” brought on by a Beethoven slow movement, spiritual experiences seem to have some common characteristics:
- They are non-intellectual. As Compte-Sponville found, as soon as you start trying to analyse the experience, it disappears.
- There’s a sense of connectedness with a greater whole, other people, wider humanity, the rest of the universe, or simply “something greater” (easy for a deity or two to slip into the religious imagination here!).
- They involve a diminishment of the ego, sometimes to the point where there is no sense of separation between subject and object (not “you” looking at “it”, but simply “looking”).
- They are very individual – others in Compte-Sponville’s party just had a nice walk.
- They are associated with a sense of elation, joy and – often – compassion; they are powerful and positive for the person involved. (And anything that diminishes the ego and increases compassion for humanity is surely a good thing for society.)
- Knowing that they purely subjective does nothing to diminish their power.
And, for most people, intense spiritual experiences are pretty rare.
Whose language it is anyway?
Even if we accept that Humanists have a “spiritual dimension”, it can still be argued that we shouldn’t use the word “spiritual” because of its religious connotations and lack of clear definition.
The snag is that no other word will do as well if we want to communicate what we mean. Terms such as emotion, aesthetic awareness, love of nature, or simply love, goodness or hope simply don’t do the job. Just because it’s used for everything from the experiences of Catholic nuns to New Age gurus, doesn’t mean it’s off-limits to us. In fact atheists are uniquely positioned to understand that all of these people are really talking about the same thing, but they interpret it through the filter of their (to us irrational) beliefs. We shouldn’t allow the religious to ban a useful word from our vocabulary.
Here’s an illustration: that well-known organ of Humanist thought, Photography Monthly magazine, recently carried an article by Joe Cornish – one of the most respected landscape photographers working in the UK today. In it he said:
“For some landscape photographers, Nature’s beauty is all the evidence they need of a Divine Creator. For others, scientific curiosity reveals an alternative explanation, where over unimaginable aeons our plant has evolved into the unique wonder that is our home today. This is a form of “terrestrial theology”, a belief in the fundamental, non-negotiable laws of physics. It’s not by any means depressing, reductionist scientific thinking based on the inevitability of nature’s immutable laws, but a broad church which encourages compassion and wonder in the beauty that we find in landscape, and humility in the face of what the world has to teach us. There is little doubt that for many of us, landscape photography is a spiritual journey.”
What should we say to him? “Sorry Joe, you’re obviously an atheist, so you’re not allowed to use that word”? I’d rather thank him for explaining that you don’t have to be religious to have a spiritual perspective.
The Humanist response
Because many Humanists put so much energy into being against religion, the important and enriching potential of the spiritual part of our lives has been under-developed. Yet, for many people, spiritual experience is a profound part of being human, even if they rarely experience it in their daily lives.
Christina Rees’s opponent in the Today programme discussion was the humanist philosopher A.C.Grayling. Unfortunately, he didn’t pick up the point about spirituality – perhaps because it’s the type of concept philosophers feel uncomfortable with, or more likely, because there was limited time and he had his own points to make about non-religious philosophers. But what he could have said is something like:
“It’s simply untrue to say that humanists are not spiritual, and rather insulting. Spiritual experiences are pretty much universal across cultures and beliefs, and can be shown to be a feature of the way the human brain works. Many Humanists have as profound a spiritual awareness and understanding as you have. The difference is that they know the cause is not any sort of supernatural agent. But the experience is profound and important in helping us understand our place in the world. If humanists have a fault, it’s that we’ve failed to do enough to acknowledge and develop this aspect of our humanity.”
Jeremy Rodell is the Chair of South West London Humanists.
The outcome of the original debate
The final vote in the original SW London Humanists meeting on “Can Humanists be Spiritual?” was 10 for, 9 against and 5 undecided. But that understates the many areas of common ground that emerged during the discussion, including the tendency of humanists to allow the emphasis on logic and rationality to overshadow the importance of feelings and emotions.
As Maslow demonstrated, people are able to have a sense of “self-realisation” and that is what I believe spirituality to be. I remember first being “self-realised”, not dissimilar from Einstein’s feelings of being, a few years before ever hearing about Maslow and other humanist psychologies. I think it is fair to say that these experiences are “spiritual” because “spiritual” can be used as an all encompassing word for “feelings of eternity; knowingness; comfort; joy; at-one” and all of those seemingly untangible things.
Since my first self-realised experience, I have experienced many more; albeit still very rarely – perhaps once a year. I now distance these feelings of “self-realisation” from the “hierarchy of needs” because I have experienced feelings of elation when not everything was fine and dandy.
Other more minor experiences have been due to a mild intake of alcohol and an excess of caffeine, which is interesting.
As a human being I am sensitive to the emotions and experiences that have sometimes been described as ‘spiritual’. I am as deeply affected by the beauty of the universe as I am by the tragic consequences of its indifference.
To be conscious is to experience the universe. Unfortunatey the words at our disposal to describe our experience are seldom if ever adequate. Indeed most seem to originate in the religious or mystical interpretations of our ancestors. Although as a humanist, I struggle with words like ‘spiritual’ to describe my own experience, it seems to me that the only vocabulary available to us is that normally used by the religious, in the absence of a meaningful and attractive secular vocabulary.
The words “spiritual” and “spirituality” should not be used by Humanists for the same reason that “phlogiston” and “caloric” are no longer used by chemists and engineers, that is because they derive from an outdated worldview, in which “spirits” were incorporeal beings like ghosts, angels or demons that could exist independent of a person’s physical form.
I have coined an alternative set of terms that may be acceptable. Namely, “immotion”, “immotional”, “immotionality”, which refer to “inner feelings” or “inward-directed feelings” as contrasted with “emotion” which tends to be thought of as referring to outward-directed feelings. Thus “immotionality” would describe a state of internal stillness, whereas “emotionality” is usually taken to suggest something approaching an hysterical state.
According to my theory, the faculty of reason also depends on inner feelings, in that one accumulates evidence for and against a proposition and one evaluates the evidence by imbuing it with feelings for or against, and one concludes with the side that has the greater strength of positive feeling. It is in this manner that one acquires motivation for action in support of the proposition.
Of course reason also proceeds by logical deduction, but this cannot provide motivation, unless one has a passionate devoton to logic, which many rationalists do have.
This is something I have pondered about quite a bit in the last year or so. I was concerned that it could suggest the idea of some sort of “ghost in the machine” spirit, or the idea (to us false) that this universe we live in and this embodied existence is not enough or is inferior to some other spiritual dimension somewhere else. But I agree with the writer at the moment that there is no better word and we might as well use it, especially if religionists are going to try and imply the non-religious are cold and lacking in some basic humanity (wasn’t it the outgoing Catholic bishop of Westminster who said as much recently – that atheists weren’t fully human or something charming?). I have also read Sponville’s book, which is quite good. Bit long-winded in parts, but worth a read. I also agree that certain experiences traditionally called spiritual are real in themselves, just that the intellectual meanings given to them by religious people may not always in our view, be true. However in rejecting unproved claims about deities and heavens and souls etc in favour of trying to live this life well based on what we know to be true, we should not throw out the baby with the bathwater in the sense of rejecting anything good associated with religions – whether it is so-called spiritual or mystical experiences of (varying degrees of) ecstasy and oneness, living in the moment etc, any more than we would have to reject Bach or Michelangelo. A friend has just recommended I look into Ekhart Tolle, for non-religious spirituality, and I’ve ordered his book The Power of Now, having thought some videos of him on YouTube (there is a three-part interview) were of interest. My thoughts on people like him are that it is worth looking into their teachings as long as one sifts them, tries them out and decides for oneself if they are useful and avoids the trap of thinking such and such a person is some infallible guru. We as Humanists should take the best of human experience wherever we find it and enjoy it and make use of it.
By the way, I think the article is very good and puts the issue really well.
One other reason why IMO it is possible to use “spiritual” as a Humanist is that the dictionary definitions, and they way in which the word has been used , are not all about a literal “spirit” — phrases like “the human spirit” can simply refer to that which is deepest, most beautiful and noble and courageous about human nature, not necessarily some ghostly animating force. And anyway in its actual etymology it refers to neither – it comes from a word meaning breath, in the sense of an animating force — but I would argue that it has been extended from literalist meanings (such as God breathing life into the clay to make Adam) to also mean something like “those things that make life really worth living as opposed to mere existence,” as well.
I can remember an experience several years ago on a skiing holiday that in my opinion came close to or was the equivalent of a spiritual experience. It was mid morning at high altitude in the Alps in a quiet area of the resort. The sun was out and although the air was cold, it was a beautifully clear, cloudless day and I was on a drag lift with the sun behind me.
The only noise to be heard was the faint hiss of the skis over the snow as I was pulled up the slope by the lift. I was enjoying the view when I suddenly noticed how different the sky looked. It wasn’t the light baby blue sky that I was used to at home and took for granted, it was an immense expanse of the most beautiful deep azure infinity blue that was quite awe inspiring. Looking up above me it was hard to focus as there was no point of reference; it was as if the night sky was visible in broad daylight.
Now I know that this effect was due to the position of the sun, the altitude, the contract with the whiteness of the snow all around and the clarity of the air, but none the less it gave me the most profound feeling of awe that I have ever experienced. I have had similar experiences since then but not to the same intensity as that sudden jolt of realisation the first time around.
@George has this for me in his first paragraph. I could not agree more.
In the book On Humanism published by Routledge Richard Norman says of the word, “Spirituality is a word I distrust. It is inherently slippery.” If you try looking at the dictionary you will find a myriad of definitions and you have to pussyfoot about to find one that is remotely acceptable to express a humanist viewpoint.
Trying to focus on any narrow definition of a word in a discussion is always difficult when so much of the definition places the word alongside spirits and other non visible intangible forces similar to your average sky god.
As for the authors quotes from Compte-Sponville and Einstein it seems to me the situations they discuss are largely due to occasionally enabling your mind yo escape from the bondages of your nurture and circumstance to think and feel in a truly uninhibited way. Much as a ‘free spirited’ person.
If I want to get involved in a discussion it will only be if I can move the topic to me/humans possessing a free spirit if only because spirit sounds like spirituality and seems to placate. Alternatively I substitute ‘feelings of great awe for the natural world’. Bring on another picture from the hubble!
I think Spirituality is therefore a word best avoided, particularly without a rigorous definition.
Paul’s third paragraph acknowledges that there is a scientific explanation for what he experienced. That is not to deny the powerfulness of his feelings at the time. Although I used to use the word’ spiritual’ in conjunction with humanism, these days my position is close to Richard’s and Neal’s, in that I think the term is too ambiguous, and to many people does suggest something to do with supernatural, non-corporeal entities. Even the ‘human spirit’ is slightly ambiguous. We need some other term.
Of course the human imagination is very powerful, and gives rise to some overwhelming and sometimes frightening experiences. I get an odd reaction when I see a photograph or film of the earth from outer space – not from far away like the moon, when it just looks like a sphere, but nearer, when you can see the curve of the planet, the black sky, and the blue-and-white of he surface. It looks so much like a home, somehow. When we had the eclipse in 1999, I experienced physical fear even though it wasn’t total where I was, just looked as though something had taken a bite out of the sun and reduced its splendour to pale silver, and even though I was of course fully aware of the scientific explanation and there was nothing whatever to fear. This sort of thing presumably occurs because some parts of the brain are more ‘primitive’ – older in evolutionary terms – than others.
I’ve only recently found out about humanism and I’m still not sure whether it is a good match for my (Non-) Religious views. One of the reasons being that more than ever since I rejected the blatant mis-teachings of Christianity I have experienced these “spiritual” events. More precisely I am frequently enraptured by the thrill of “living” be it the overwhelming feelings of the vastness of space and time, or the joy of doing something simple. My description of these events when I try and explain them to others is “joy juice”. Some rarely get any of it, others like me perhaps create their own good fortune and as a consequence experience the benefts of this “joy juice”. I’m no scientist but I would go along with the concept that these events exist and can be enjoyed by those in deity based religions and those who put their faith solely in science.
As mentioned in other comments these “spiritual” events would have previously have been attributed to the intervention of a deity, but I no longer believe that is the case. But I also marvel at the ability of humanity to seek answers to the world around them whether through science or religion – it’s just another facet of the human state.
It’s good to see our original discussion on this topic extended in HumanistLife. The conclusions from the comments so far seem to be:
a) It’s not that rare to find Humanists who have had what I described as “spiritual experiences”, even quite powerful ones, and therefore know what is meant by the term.
b) Some Humanists don’t like to use the term “spiritual” for the reasons given in Marilyn’s “against” piece.
Reading between the lines, I suspect there may be some correlation between those who feel strongly that the term should be avoided and those who have not had the experience. That’s not surprising. (To take an extreme analogy: if you’d never seen the colour blue, you’d have trouble understanding someone who tried to explain why the word “blue” was required.)
I’m sure that advances in neuoscience will explain why some people are more prone to these experiences than others. And there’s nothing superior or inferior about someone who has had them versus someone who hasn’t. That does nothing to change the reality of the experiences for those who have them and therefore consider them a positive and enhancing part of their humanity.
But there are a couple of points where I’d like to take issue:
a) NealO thinks that “…Spirituality is therefore a word best avoided, particularly without a rigorous definition”. Well, I’d hoped that the “What is Spirituality?” section in my piece gave a pretty clear definition of what I think it means from a Humanist viewpoint. In summary: “spiritual experiences” are subjective human experiences that have most or all of these characteristics:
* They’re non-intellectual.
* There’s a sense of connectedness with a greater whole, other people, wider humanity, the rest of the universe, or simply “something greater”.
* They involve a diminishment of the ego, sometimes to the point where there is no sense of separation between subject and object (not “you” looking at “it”, but simply “looking”).
* They are very individual.
* They are associated with a sense of elation, joy and – often – compassion; they are powerful and positive for the person involved.
* Knowing that they purely subjective does nothing to diminish their power.
b) George Jelliss would go further and ban me and other Humanists from using the word Spiritual at all. Of course, I have a problem with that. But he then illustrates one reason why we need it: no-one can come up with a better word to meet the need. Inventing new terms that no-one else will understand cannot be the answer.
I suspect there’s also a concern here that using a term shared by religious people is somehow “letting the side down”. But in fact that shouldn’t be a problem: when they talk about spiritual experiences and when we do, we probably mean roughly the same thing. The difference is that, as Humanists, we don’t bolt on all sorts of supernatural causes and characteristics.
Why can’t we accept that Humanists can be “spiritual”, and that we know what we mean?
@Jeremy yes you do give your definition. The issue here is not that you have a worthy definition but that it is not one that I believe is widely shared. I therefore think that in general conversation it is best avoided.
I think it’s at best a weasel word which taking the Wikipedia definition is
Why try to highjack a term like spirituality with all its many and varied meanings? I don’t want any of my awesome experiences confused with their mystical forces or gods.
This is a terrific debate, with an important question, and some very good responses.
To date, the answer to the question seems to be: “Humanists can be spiritual in one sense of the word.”
You would then have to discuss the meaning of the word “spiritual”. Otherwise you really do run the risk of meaning the supernatural. Worse still, you might appear to be a believer in denial that his spiritual experiences were evidence of a God (because that’s what these experiences mean to believers).
If one had been in debate on Thought for the Day, it would have been a good idea to have asked what was meant by “spiritual”. Did it include belief in the supernatural (Gods, ghosts, etc) for the 80% sample quoted – and maybe not just in a recognisable Christian God. Why would anyone deny that humanists could have moments of peace and beauty, as well described in Jeremy’s and subsequent pieces, but legitimately prefer not to call these experiences spiritual in the religious sense?
It would be interesting for the camps to swap sides and argue the opposite position!
There is no such thing as spirituality involving anything other than the human ‘spirit’.
Claims to the contrary by those who believe in the supernatural are unfounded and lack evidential proof. Spiritual experiences, I would suggest, are psychological events experienced by almost all human beings who by their very nature through their self-awareness transcend simple existence, in the present , by means of an awareness of the past and an ability to project imaginatively into the future. The everyday transcendent experience is so mundane as to be taken for granted, just referred to as ‘living’, ‘being’ etc. The occasions which cause a heightened perception of this existential phenomenon and may give rise to what is felt as a ‘more real’ experience of living may be induced by artificial or natural drugs or by strong stimuli causing hormonal/neurotransmitter changes – the body’s own ‘drugs’ as it were. Language is capable of much more than merely describing objective changes in brain state and for me the poetic language of ‘spirit’ of being ‘high-spirited’, ‘inspired’ of having a ‘spiritual moment’ are all part of my language and I will not cede my right to use words of my choosing to anyone.