#4 Spiritual Atheist: Why fear-based "spirituality" fails

Religions like Christianity and Islam are fear-based "spiritual" systems—and I quoted the word 'spiritual' for good reason. Below is a great example to get this discussion started...

Notice the last comment (left by deenznl)... it is a perfect example of what I am talking about. First of all, he believes we possess spirits, which is illogical. Any true spiritual person believes that we ARE spirits and POSSESS bodies. Also notice the fear-mongering—no truly spiritual person believes fear will lead a person to spiritual enlightenment.

"The whole secret of existence is to have no fear. Never fear what will become of you, depend on no one. Only the moment you reject all help are you freed." -Buddha (click for source).


Spiritual truth is not found in a group, it is found in the self. Spiritual truth is not found out of fear, but out of inspiration. Religions like - Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Scientology (lol), and so on - don't inspire people, they use fear to get obedience. Religions like those listed are concerned with their own ends here on earth...not the only end that matters—the individual. Pseudo-spirituality has gotten in the way of true spirituality. True spirituality is only available to those that are not intellectually imprisoned by religion. Religions that peddle fear and call themselves a source of spiritual truth are false. Fear closes us off, inspiration opens us up.

#3 Spiritual Atheist: why atheism is better than theism.

By NASA.gov (http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic1007a/)[see page for license], via Wikimedia Commons

I often would wonder if life would be more enjoyable if I weren't an atheist (I just wrote a post on destiny, so yes, I am a hypocrite). I believe ignorance can be bliss, but it is also soulless for life to exist in such a state (i.e. unaware). I believe the most important aspect of life is our awareness of it. To be an atheist means to reject consoling ideas in the spirit of awareness.

While many atheists do not realize it, being an atheist is highly spiritual. Theism is a highly delusional world-view—theism makes an individual feel comfortably arrogant about the objective truth underlying their world-view. That said, atheists are not free from delusion, but they are much closer to the truth than a theist. Humans feel the need to maintain emotional equilibrium—or rather, it is our nature to feel the urge to maintain such a thing (avoid feeling bad, seek after feeling good). Ideas that influence us emotionally obviously have an emotional effect (consciously or unconsciously), and our world-view is balanced in this way (preservation on one side,  growth on the other). If we come to realize new truths, we must reorganize our emotionally infused thoughts to establish equilibrium—we constantly must restructure our world-view, and this is how a world-view evolves. It is awareness that allows the soul to live through its biological machinery. It is the relationship between awareness and influence that allows us to live the life we often take for granted.

A theistically-based world-view is not open to awareness, it closes off the soul for perceived self-preservation. Fear prevents growth, and we have seen the effect of theism on our growth. The more consolation an individual gains by their world-view, the more they will fear change, a person who is totally open fears nothing. The next time you see an angry person, remember, anger is an expression fear (why theists become very upset with atheists). I occasionally get angry with theists (their perceived ignorance concerns me). It appears theists become angry with atheists more out of fear of being wrong (their position is indefensible), but I would love to see a theist's take on this issue.

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself" -Franklin D. Roosevelt

#2 Spiritual Atheist: destiny is real

This will be another one of those spiritual posts from an atheistic perspective. Destiny is real, and it is delusional to believe in the alternative. Sounds absolutely mad, right?

However, doesn't this seem obvious? That "free-will" (or 'choice') cannot influence the past? Of course it seems logically obvious. While it logically makes sense, we often are not able to accept this obvious truth on a deep level. We feel guilt over the past, and regret certain things, but it is delusional to believe things could be different. The purpose of negative emotions is to motivate action, which cannot be done in the past; this is a true reflection of our shared delusional state that is seemingly impossible to escape. 

We imagine the past from the present moment, a moment where the circumstances can only be explained by imagining the past (which is delusional in itself). Where our imaginations and world-views often fail is in understanding destiny and our own ignorance (we can't know how much we don't know). The way the past has shaped the present is not left up to chance, to believe otherwise is purely delusional. Probability does not exist in the past (what's done is done), but us humans are often not able to accept this. Like when atheists debate theists, probability of a god doing this or that is often interpreted using probability (again, human-ignorance is not a factor). 

Actually reflect on this, is there any actual probability things could have happened differently in the past? Such as that a god could or could not have done something? No, of course not. This is all obvious, and you may be thinking: "duh, of course it's all obvious..". That is the point, it is obvious that this moment is a product of destiny. Probability is a product of ignorance, we only perceive it to exist if certain factors are unknown. All moments are of equal importance for shaping our future, even if we are not aware of each moment's influence. 

Even our science has been corrupted by this. Chance is our imagination's attempt to help us explain our ignorance. Scientists often utilize chance as being a factor, even though chance does not exist.  That said, science is the most useful—albeit delusional in many ways—methodology we posses for understanding cause and effect. 

You reading this is as much a part of your destiny as anything can be. All moments are of equal importance for shaping our future, even if we are not aware of each moment's destined influence. It is delusional to not believe in destiny. Just because we do not understand all factors does not mean that the future is left up to random chance. We will always perceive chance to exist on a deep level because we will always be unable to truly understand all factors (like a dog chasing its tail). One of the most unreachable factors is the self—but just because we cannot view the self does not mean we are not set on a destined path guided by destined circumstances. Magic lies in ignorance, and the concept of chance is magical.

What does this realization give to us? It gives us the ability to step back, to better appreciate the universe as it is, instead of what our imaginations delusionally perceive it could be. All that exists is destined to be. Things happen for a reason if we create reasons for them happening. 

Blog 1: Spiritual atheist.

This is just going to be a quick blog post on some of my views towards spirituality. I expect to do many more following this one.

Atheists are often stereotyped as being nonspiritual. For me, this is a very irritating stereotype. There are many atheists that maintain some spiritual beliefs. To have a sense of spirituality, a person must become aware of what they are. Our spirituality is essentially everything that we are; in other words, all that we cannot lose. A person cannot be what they can lose - flesh, beliefs, inanimate objects, awareness, and so on. Atheists in general have a difficult time comprehending spiritually-oriented topics for the mere fact that atheists are typically more engaged in thinking objectively (which as I have discussed earlier, has its own delusional aspects we cannot avoid). Don't get me wrong, this is not unique to atheists, but that is the audience this blog post is intended for. It seems that theists have a misguided sense of spirituality - their beliefs typically force them to contemplate spituality, but it seems very limiting in itself.

The soul is all we are and all we cannot lose. Many atheists believe we are nothing, but this doesn't seem very convincing (we know we exist, something which exists cannot be nothing). Some atheists believe we are brain cells, I have a difficult time subscribing to this idea because this does not seem to be the role of the brain (at least as we have come to understand it). The brain functions in a way to convert nerve impulse into understandable patterns - light, sound, taste, touch, emotion (I left out smell because that is the same as taste, also we do feel emotions...it is a sense). Our brains convert nerve impulse into understandable patterns for us to observe (parallels can be drawn to how a computer functions, i.e. code being converted into programs with understandable interfaces). The brain can control the body autonomously (autopilot, subconscious, smooth muscle contractions, etc.), which is an interesting area of thought. How much does the soul control? Probably less than we would be comfortable thinking about.

Many people worry about the past and the future, and try to understand spiritual things utilizing these concepts (what happens after death, what happened before birth, etc.). For the soul, things like the past and future are irrelevant because memory is a product of the brain, not the soul. We observe memories, we can  possess memories, but we are not memories. Clear as mud? Well, think of it this way, if you had no memory, no ability to imagine a future, how could you possibly percieve time at all? Time, as far as we are concerned, simply doesn't exist - it is a product of our imagination. In other words, time is a useful delusion (like believing we experience objectivity). Our brains create the universe we live in, all we actually observe is produced inside our heads (nothing outside is actually viewed). Things like time, and objectivity are delusions that are useful for our functioning.

"If it works, it must be true"  

This is the dominate theme within our reasoning as humans. Many things exist in the universe that our scientific instruments cannot detect, I do not believe it is that irrational to suggest that consciousness is one of them. What we are is all we cannot lose, and just because we cannot view ourselves, doesn't mean we don't exist. My hope is that more atheists think about spirituality.