spiritualskeptic

Divide the world into people who believe in the supernatural and folks who don’t. I’m on the side of the hardcore skeptics and atheists who have followed the hard road of parsimony to its politically incorrect conclusion: there is no man behind the curtain. The imperfect, kluged-together natural world contains all the miracles we need.

So here’s a question: if we don’t believe in God or a spiritual world, and we cast a dubious and skeptical eye toward mystical explanatory systems of psychology and reality, then what value does the concept of “spirituality” hold? Does it hold any value at all?

Some hardcore atheists seem to think so… the estimable Sam Harris, for one. From The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason:

Our spiritual traditions suggest that we have considerable room … to change our relationship to the contents of our consciousness, and thereby to transform our experience of the world.

As someone who has made the slow, perilous journey from Northern California new age true believer to dyed-in-the-wool atheist skeptic, I have run this experiment on myself, and am on the fence. Yeah we humans can transform our consciousness. We can transform our consciousnesses right into a mental institution if we want to. Is this a good thing? And if effective and beneficial means of altering our consciousnesses are found by scientists… well, uh, isn’t there a word for this?

On the other hand, not all cults are all bad. A religion, broadly, is just a codified worldview into which adherents can be indoctrinated. Could there be such an organization that preserves the good effects of cults while diminishing the bad? Or is the temptation to become a guru just corruption waiting to happen and discipleship inherently a trip down a rabbit hole with no bottom?

I plan to blog about this until my fingers bleed. Consider this fun? Think I’m a hellbound fool? Certain yours is the one true cult and want to make a sales pitch? Let me know in the comments.