Can an atheist experience 'the spiritual'.

[Vraith]

[adj. 1. relating to the spirit or soul and not to physical nature or matter; intangible.]

V. - In no way do I suggest the 'absence of the hand' reduces the 'wonder' of the butterfly, but how does the atheist account for the 1 + 1 = 5 aspect.

Another question. How does an atheist give thanks?

Heh...obviously I think that definition, while true"by definition," isn't correct in reality. A "squircle" is a square circle. True, I've made the definition, and labeled it. False, cuz a square circle is not a possible thing.

Which may relate to the 1+1 "problem." Do you mean "why does 1+1 not=5, but always 2? Because of what 1 IS and what "plus" and "equal" MEAN.
There might BE a math where 1+1=5. There are all kinds of bizarre maths out there...and a fair number of them have some features that are pretty useful for us. It seems unlikely that the 1+1=5 math exists, or is useful, but it might be.
It's necessary, for us-like things to exist, that where we exist, 1+1=2 is true.
It may not be necessary for non-us-like things, where they exist, that that is true---but it is/was/will be necessary that SOME simple, fundamental, math-like things be true. Your house doesn't HAVE to have a foundation that is square, or stone...but it does have to have SOME stable structure. And in any universe where it does have some stable structure, there will be mathematical ways to describe it.
It might be that most [if not all] particular maths/logics are more or less "local," but mathness, as a concept---or maybe some doubly abstract "meta-math"---is multi-versal.
[[I suspect in all, or most, instantiated places, 1+1=2 will be true. Because it seems like the simplest...but that may just be the
physio-neuro-cultural bias of this kind of universe]].

I don't know how atheists give thanks...I've never asked anyone, never occurred to me to do so. I can only speak for myself. [heh...anecdotal! I've only witnessed/experienced it from myself, does it count as evidence. ]
I don't "give thanks" in any targeted/directed way.
I feel grateful FOR my existence...just not grateful TO anyone/thing for it.
I WOULD feel grateful to the universe...if I thought it could hear me and made me on purpose.

Anyway, I was sipping my coffee in my quiet time this morning, and suddenly thought "Is that question backwards? Should the question be 'Can any believer in a particular god, really experience "the spiritual?'

Only a very small portion of them...did I already say something like this? Probably--it is at least implied...an atheist can only be in error generically or by omission [roughly]...but a believer in error about the particular god is much worse off than that.

[aliantha]

Anyway, I was sipping my coffee in my quiet time this morning, and suddenly thought "Is that question backwards? Should the question be 'Can any believer in a particular god, really experience "the spiritual?'

Now that's an interesting question. If your automatic response to the ineffable is "God's grace," you may be closing yourself off to the possibility that any other answer could be true -- and in fact could be true concurrently. Not "science or spirituality", but "science *and* spirituality". Or even "immanent deity *and* transcendent deity *and* brain interpreting the event to the best of its closed-system understanding *and* science". All of those could potentially be true at once.

[Vraith]

Anyway, I was sipping my coffee in my quiet time this morning, and suddenly thought "Is that question backwards? Should the question be 'Can any believer in a particular god, really experience "the spiritual?'

Now that's an interesting question.

I was hoping at least SOMEONE would think so. And much of the rest you said seems to align fairly well with things I consider all the time. There are always ANDS. And they're prolific/exponential. Like bunnies...if ya got 2, you end up with billions.
I just don't think the ANDS were "made by" or "put in" our realm. I think they rise with and from it.

[aliantha]

Anyway, I was sipping my coffee in my quiet time this morning, and suddenly thought "Is that question backwards? Should the question be 'Can any believer in a particular god, really experience "the spiritual?'

Now that's an interesting question.

I was hoping at least SOMEONE would think so. And much of the rest you said seems to align fairly well with things I consider all the time. There are always ANDS. And they're prolific/exponential. Like bunnies...if ya got 2, you end up with billions.
I just don't think the ANDS were "made by" or "put in" our realm. I think they rise with and from it.

Part of the fabric of the place. Yup.

[peter]

I think V., the honest answer to my question [and I in no way acuse you of dishoninsty in your answer I promise you] is unpalatable, but remains, that in the absence of any Creator or directing force in the Universe, the need for generalised gratitude is superfluous. So when your cat that you thought lost returns, or your loved-one survives a brush with death that should have killed them, gladness and gratitude need not be co-mingled. The requirement to experience gratitude [of this type] is entierly in the domain of the 'believer' and has no place in the experience or thought gamut' of the atheist. If it does so he or she should question the foundations of their reasoning.

[Vraith]

Well the NEED for "generalized gratitude," and the EXISTENCE of it in an atheist may be some kind curious thing to examine. But you can't say I don't [or shouldn't] have it cuz it "belongs" to some other kind of people.
Religious folk have been trying to keep atheists' dirty grubby hands off morality forever [or denying they can even have/understand it].
Yet I [and other atheists] DO have moral faculties, and positions and opinions...and we can and do behave more morally than several billions of believers.
And, hey, just cuz something is superfluous in some sense doesn't mean it's not cool or valuable in another. The previous owners of my house painted over the solid oak double door and brass hardware cuz it was superfluous in some way for them. I stripped that paint right the hell off. [a helluva project...much harder than I anticipated when I decided to do it.]
Painted or un- is mostly superfluous to its primary function.

[[as if a believer has any generalized gratitude, anyway....a believer is very specifically grateful]]

Sure, gladness and gratitude are connected, or at least overlap a bit...somehow. But possibly more oxytocin in the gratitude...it does seem related to bonding.
Why can a believer be bonded in gratitude to some being they really can't comprehend, but I can't be bonded to the simple fact and existence of the universe?
What makes you think that my experience of "generalized gratitude" has to have something to do with the foundations of my reasoning, anyway?
And why wouldn't the reverse apply? If I have to give up gratitude because reason, so I should shut up and stop feeling it, why don't believers have to give up reason because faith, and shut up about and stop pretending they make sense?
See the problem?
Peeps NEED both faith and reason...
But both are [and have to be] contingent, dependent, correctable
The problem is it is much simpler to test/fact-check/correct reason
than faith.
I think there are many reasons for that---but one of the most powerful is emotional/faith-based in itself.
Because we don't FEEL like the facts we collect/learn are part of our identity.
But our feelings/beliefs are.
Knowing 1+1=2 is something "you" know/possess. Correcting it if "you" were wrong fixes a mistake in something "you" possessed.
"Knowing" Christ, the Savior, is Risen....then something suggests that is not true..."correcting" that isn't fixing a mistake---it is changing who you are. At least that's how people believe/feel about it.

[Fist and Faith]

Not feeling generalized gratitude and morality are entirely different topics.

[peter]

The observation Fist makes had struck me already in the reading of V.'s post in that I don't see an overlap between gratitude in the broader sense that I am [badly] trying to get across and morality. But can I put it that this curious need to feel gratitude even where it may be totally suplerfluous is an almost 'throwback' to the default condition of humanity - which is that of 'believer'. Atheism is in effect an intellectual construct that is 'superimposed' above the still remaining remnants of belief, which will pop up in such places as this 'gratitude' situation. In this sense true Atheism is really difficult to achieve. It's as unatural as that patting your head and rubbing your tummy in a circle thing .

[Fist and Faith]

The observation Fist makes had struck me already in the reading of V.'s post in that I don't see an overlap between gratitude in the broader sense that I am [badly] trying to get across and morality. But can I put it that this curious need to feel gratitude even where it may be totally suplerfluous is an almost 'throwback' to the default condition of humanity - which is that of 'believer'. Atheism is in effect an intellectual construct that is 'superimposed' above the still remaining remnants of belief, which will pop up in such places as this 'gratitude' situation. In this sense true Atheism is really difficult to achieve. It's as unatural as that patting your head and rubbing your tummy in a circle thing .

I think you have it backwards. Atheism is the default position. Murrin said it nicely:

If I hadn't learned of religions from others, the idea would never even have crossed my mind.

I do not feel this generalized gratitude. I feel awe and wonder, but I don't feel any need to thank anybody or anything for whatever caused the feeling. People are told from Day 1 that God is responsible for it, and to give thanks. I imagine it certainly can be really difficult to achieve atheism if you've been brought up that way, assumed it was the truth for years and decades, then came to think it is not. It's difficult to reverse that kind of thing.

Not difficult for me, because I wasn't raised in an overly religious way. I was raised Presbyterian. I had to go to Sunday School for several years, and church many times. But I was only 10 or 11 when I first heard of atheism. The idea God does not exist had never crossed my mind. I just assumed those telling me he did all my life were speaking fact. I was stunned and amazed. And I immediately realized that, if it is a matter of belief and feeling, I didn't have any. The words I'd been taught didn't have anything behind them. They were just words. So I said I didn't want to go anymore. There weren't any arguments or exorcisms or anything. I'd been saying it was boring for a long time anyway, and getting out of it when I could.

In short, I never had this feeling of general gratitude, and it wasn't pushed on me as forcefully as it is on others.

[[Syl]]

Yeah, despite being raised Mormon, it wasn't something that was a big part of our lives or stressed much outside of the occasional services I went to with my grandmother. I remember it being really boring, just waiting for the sacrament to come (a cup of water and a small piece of white bread wasn't much of a snack, but it was kind of interactive). I remember being interested in the story of God (and Jesus, Moses, Joseph Smith, etc.), but not much the glory. Heh. I do faintly remember looking forward to going on a mission so I could receive the gift of tongues from the Holy Ghost. I think that might've worked out on its own, though, since I outscored my Mormon friend at the Defense Language Institute (a lot of Mormons at DLI).

I was interested in other religions, and my mom always let me go to church with whomever I wanted. I went with Jehova's Witnesses, holy rollin' type baptists, Lutherans, and probably others. I guess I was always looking for something, especially in my later teen years when I was forced to acknowledge I was something like an atheist. I found some interesting stuff along the way (especially the Satanic Bible), but the only thing that had any kind of draw for me was Zen Buddhism, especially when it all kind of clicked in an enlightenment experience, which was exactly the kind of thing that would often hover around my consciousness in deep thought but would always elude me when I felt I was getting close to something.

After that, I haven't looked back. I guess when you know your place in the universe, there's no need. Having that basic level of understanding has deepened my perception of the underlying nature of reality, in ways that should really be considered spiritual but at the source isn't much different than seeing the obvious. It's crucial to who I am, and in that sense I'm thankful, but...

"that stone Buddha deserves all the birdshit it gets
I wave my skinny arms like a tall flower in the wind"

[peter]

My mistake Fist - I should have said that I believe man was mystical/spiritual before he was rational and in this sense the sense of the numinous was default rather than sense of the intellectual. [This is badly phrased but I hope you get my drift.]

[Obi-Wan Nihilo]

Who says that man is rational.

[Vraith]

My mistake Fist - I should have said that I believe man was mystical/spiritual before he was rational

I don't think so.
I don't think it is at all likely peeps started being mystical/spiritual BEFORE they realized a sharp stick was better for getting food than clawless hands and dull teeth.
They probably came about at roughly the same time/in tandem, I'd bet.
Rationality is abstracted hooting, pointing and spear throwing...
mystical/spiritual is abstracted fear, empathy, and sensing...
Then the chocolate and peanut butter get together...BANG!

BTW, I wasn't saying gratitude and morality are the same thing.
I was saying they're two things [and spirituality is another] that people try to deny can/does exist in, or to take away from, unbelievers.
Another tool/trick/claim to make atheists seem less worthy/human/trustworthy. [or make themselves seem superior---prophets, seers, visionaries, holy.]
And a false one, as usual.

[Zarathustra]

We're hard-wired for reason and higher thinking. So, yeah, we're definitely rational.

Unfortunately, we also have primitive areas of our brains that developed long before the cerebral cortex. So we're both emotional and rational. However, it is not until recently that we developed a cultural tradition that allows the benefits of rational thought to transcend generations in a sustained fashion.

I don't believe that using tools is necessarily rational thought. Certain memes (like using tools) are self-propagating. There are certainly rational ways to go about making/improving tools, but there was probably very little thought going into using sharp sticks and stones. That was more opportunistic. Rational thought was more evident in language skills than the ability to pick up something to bash or stab an animal.

Spiritual development was the beginning of forming explanations, and as such it is a quantum leap forward beyond tool-making. But it was mainly the creation of bad explanations, and was only recently replaced on a large scale in our global society. It's no coincidence that our global prosperity/development has sky-rocketed along with the adoption of rational explanations over supernatural ones, because they actually work.

[Obi-Wan Nihilo]

All the decision making circuits are emotional, Z.

[Zarathustra]

Emotion does play a large role in decision making. It's most useful in navigating social circles. It's another kind of intelligence, actually; a more primitive form than abstract thought, but more advanced than simple special/temporal perceptual processing. It allows us to do more than seek food/mates and avoid danger; it enables complex relationships that are built on a sense of fairness, reciprocity, ethics, etc. The problem comes when using emotion as the basis of navigating levels of reality that aren't social, such as superstitious world views that anthropomorphize reality. So perhaps I shouldn't have said it's unfortunate that we also have emotions, but rather some of the things we do with them.

[peter]

Mmm...U. I doubt that man ever 'reasoned' that a sharp stick was better for hunting - rather I think he 'discovered' it, which I don't think is the same. But yes I do see the 'development in tandem' idea of reason and spiritual [for want of a better word] thinking. Surely mans mystical side would have developed alongside his ability to think beyond the prosaic level of meeting his basic daily needs [for which his 'rational' mind amply sufficed]. As soon as he became aware of an extended 'universe' [again, for want..etc] unconcerned with his primary needs, the questions we regard as 'metaphysical' would begin also to arise in him. But has not this 'other' side to his thinking become so 'hardwired' into our thinking over the millenia [after all - we see the emergenge of Gods and religion independantly all over the surface of the early world], that it takes an almost 'active' process by the intellect to over-ride it.

re The use of such spurious tactics as attempting to label atheists or non-conventional believers as somehow less-moral or less-trustworthy...or indeed less capable of appreciation of the wonder of the world......pahh! to that. This has no place in any serious consideration of this nature and a retreat into such is the point where both rationallity and spirituality fly out of the window.

[Sorry Z. just read your post {I tend to deal with them one at a time} and see you have covered the same(ish) ground as I did. I leave mine unaltered on the basis that I have become irrationally fond of it over the course of its development ]

[Zarathustra]

Mmm...U. I doubt that man ever 'reasoned' that a sharp stick was better for hunting - rather I think he 'discovered' it, which I don't think is the same.

Yeah, the hand axe was the longest used tool in human history. For millions of years, it was used without any improvement whatsoever. I think it does take some sophisticated intelligence to develop it in the first place, but given how long it went without any improvement, I don't think there was much rational thought behind making them. Just lots of copying the behavior of others who made them.

[Vraith]

Mmm...U. I doubt that man ever 'reasoned' that a sharp stick was better for hunting - rather I think he 'discovered' it, which I don't think is the same.

Yeah, the hand axe was the longest used tool in human history. For millions of years, it was used without any improvement whatsoever. I think it does take some sophisticated intelligence to develop it in the first place, but given how long it went without any improvement, I don't think there was much rational thought behind making them. Just lots of copying the behavior of others who made them.

That's so, from the evidence. But I think that just shows that a shift/break happened after the initial, in the change from more primitive man to modern man. And I agree with what you said on emotions in the previous...they are a different kind of "thinking," and can be mistakenly applied. [some folk object to calling that kind of thing "thinking"---but they are at least adaptive and responsive to environmental, personal, cultural clues, communications, and circumstances.]

But I mentioned a spear for a reason. [and mentioned hooting in the same...because the verbal/linguistic is of course evident]. When one picks something up and realizes they can throw it at something and end up with rabbit stew...that is rational even if not what fully modern humans can do. It is a THOUGHT, not a "discovery," if we're going to make that distinction. I'm not sure that I would.

And when you go to throw it...automatically adjusting what you do for the things weight, the distance, whether it is running or not...that is absolutely rational, the beginning of geometry...when you MISS on your first try, you try to correct it...not only by throwing better, but by finding/testing/creating a better stick---that is definitely rational.
The emotional happens along with it. Spears mean better hunting...more food and tools and materials, too. Bigger/more game [and the other advantages that arise from it] is much much easier if you can team up with and trust the other peeps around you. [[and similar on the gathering side---more roots and berries and baskets and clothing if you give a damn about each other]].

re re peter: I hope you don't think I was making a spurious retreat. I was noting the fact that such things exist and have been used...and that the question in the thread title indicates that, at some level, such have had some influence. Simply recognizing one piece of ground/fundamental underneath the question.
That relates directly to the reverse I asked above: if one believes in one, and only one, particular god---and one is wrong---can one [and/or has one ever] experience(d) "the spiritual?'

[aliantha]

That relates directly to the reverse I asked above: if one believes in one, and only one, particular god---and one is wrong---can one [and/or has one ever] experience(d) "the spiritual?'

You've rephrased it a little here, and it changes my answer a little.

If "spiritual" feelings -- which is how I would classify things like awe and wonder -- are generated by some facet of our brains, then the answer is yes. Because our brains are going to generate those sensations, just as they regulate our breathing and heartbeat without our conscious thought.

The attribution of those feelings to God/Odin/Lugh/FSM is a learned response. So you could be wrong about the specific god, or about whether a god is involved at all, and still experience awe.

Unless you're saying that "the spiritual" equates to the learned response. But that's not how I would classify it.