I also found it disheartening and rather disingenuous that Mister Harris spent so much time and effort to condemn religion, and then defends a secular religious view as 'empirical'. Apparently (now that's said) Mister Harris has been criticized for his atheist views by all kinds of religionists, and by atheists for trying to sneak some form of Buddhism into the book. He just can't win.

The problem with his statement is that 'empirical' means we can look at something as an object, toy with it, demonstrate what we find out about it to others, who can then repeat what we have done so others can see it, too. His "empirical" kind of spirituality cannot be demonstrated except subjectively, which means within one's own mind, which in no way can be demonstrated in any objective fashion. It can, at best, be described and compared to what others have observed within their own minds, but the internal parameters of whatever affects such observations cannot be objectively measured or made known. The result of that lacking is empirically observable by comparing the disparities that abound in all the religions mankind has created in the world, in just that fashion.

I did gain one insight I think is most applicable, and maybe could generate some self-assessment by readers here. It is about the 'self', which I think is important to maintain, whereas the path to what is called spirituality promoted by most religions, including Buddhism, seems to demand that self must be abandoned, condemned, or denied to exist. Many of us who deny it from existence also deny the nature or existence of religion as it appears in the secular community. Western religion seeks to replace 'self' with some form of 'god' (usually named 'God') and service to that is what supposedly makes a person 'spiritual'. Mister Harris maintains that does not work, and I agree with him, but it took me some after thought to understand why what he presents is not an abandonment of the self, but rather a change of form (so to speak) (and, even though he did not say that at all).

Rather than seeing the self as an essential feature of the body it appears to occupy (wherein you have no control at all over most of what goes on), imagine you see it instead as an essential feature of the universe (wherein you have no control at all over most of what goes on). The body is just another feature of the universe, and is just one body among billions. The self is just a node in a communications chain, housed in a body that enables motility. Note how, at least in American Heritage, one definition of motility is the ability to move about and the other has to do with imaging. A string of words stirs up images in the mind, those images get stored or rejected, and communications about them get relayed to other nodes OR a response of some kind is made and gets sent back out from the node. Other nodes (selfs) may or may not pick up on it.

Compare that to a TV set, a radio, a computer, or an electronic musical instrument: On the TV set, a string of signals gets into the antenna, stirs up images and sounds (most of which get tuned out because they are not on a band authorized by the device's settings) and that becomes what is portrayed by the device's interface. A computer hooked to the Internet does the same, and also can store what does not get rejected into memory. The electronic musical instrument, being the most rudimentary, does not reject anything, but portrays everything according to the nature of its design, and it forgets all about it as soon as it has happened. We are like that, but considered to be self directed because we can make a wider array of responses to our inputs, are complicated beyond predictability (for now), and possess a semblance of self-awareness. Like the TV set, we tune out most of the signals we receive, because they are not authorized by our memeplexes.

I believe it's the self-awareness aspect of being human that gets us into trouble. We see ourselves as separate from other sentient beings, and realize our own condition of mortality. Seeing dead human beings, and hurting human beings, scares us at a young age. We realize bad things can happen to us, and it scares us. ("Chin up, Laddy and Lassie, we all must suffer sometimes.") Gran'Ma tells us all about the fairies and angels who stand guard to keep the bad spirits away, and it pacifies us enough so we forget that we felt worried. But, our self-awareness has been heightened but not directed toward any good end, and it ends up getting stolen from us so we never learn our proper roles as natural human individual nodes to the universe.

We never see our interconnections, because we see the eyes we use to look at the world as belonging solely to the body in which they are mounted. We never get to see the flow and interactions of all the events in which we engage our surroundings, and in which our surroundings engage with us. We never realize how each little action initiates another in a chain that may appear to fade away but never really does. Innocuous acts in our own time can affect circumstances and events for thousands of years. The birth of the first human beings resulted in the births of you and I and everyone we will ever meet. Who knows those people's names? Who knows who told the first lie ever?— or first differentiated between truth and lies and explained that to someone else? We are still affected by those events, but how many of us ever get to realize how that is the way things work, and that we are, ourselves, a myriad of events currently ongoing in the midst of a chain of such, the rest of which plays out while we stay mainly oblivious except about the high points and the very low.

We can pretend and realize (whereas religion demands we pretend and do not realize) what is true about the nature of our 'self'. Realize that each tiniest particle of which our bodies are formed, are separated from their nearest neighbors the same way the planets and stars are separated. Yet, there are so many of them we appear to be quite solid and are, in fact, quite hard to tear into pieces. Realize the seat under your butt, or floor beneath your feet, are jammed onto your body into a tight unit in comparison to that, even though they may be easier to separate than are the components of your body. If seated, you can envision that chair to be an extension of your body and, therefore, and even though no direct feedback can be gotten from it, it is essentially an extension of your self. You can tilt it, slide it, turn it, at will, by making a decision to do so. But, so what?

Look at the rest of your environment in that same way and, even though it is less directly accessible to your whim, consider it to be an extension of your chair. A wall may be in front of you. Think of that wall seeing itself through your eyes. It has no nervous system. You know that's impossible, but consider this: Without your 'self', would your body be anymore aware of itself than that wall? That wall is part of your world, and that is no less your world than your body is your body. What happens to it affects you, just as truly so as what happens to your body. What happens far away, maybe in another country, is not so immediate but, if the chain of events includes yourself, it will work its way to you and sooner or later you will take notice. You will most likely never get to realize where it got its start.

It's scary to look through the windshield of a car while you're driving it, and think about the scenery in that manner. You feel separated from it inside your little metal cocoon, until you begin to envision all the ways you're connected to it the same as in your chair. Just don't get so lost in reverie, while doing so, that your car gets connected to an obstacle. I think that might be overdoing it.

It seems to be a secular method, to attack something as nonexistent and therefore "merely" a "concept", an "abstraction", a "delusion", or "immaterial". It must come from our rejection or doubt about ideas such as the supernatural, gods, angels, demon and such that are not at all in evidence and also not at all a genuine part of the human experience. The 'self' IS a genuine aspect of the human experience, whether or not we share it with any of the rest of sentient nature, that we can and do observe every day we go out and about.

To say, "no one has ever come upon this thing called 'self'" is the most common argument used by those who wish to dethrone it from our psyches, but look: Has anyone ever come upon a thing called an 'idea'?— or 'time'?— or a 'two'? If you can find them, please send me a minimal order of 'distances' so I can place them between myself and that argument.

In the same way we value our recognition of such concepts and make actual use of them, and talk about them while taking it for granted everyone else involved has had some experience with them, we recognize 'self' as being of that order. No one but the person making this reifying argument ever claimed it to be a 'thing'. To acknowledge it as an illusion does not discredit it as a delusion. It is as truly there as any other condition of existence, within the range of our perceptions.

People have used that same argument to discredit memes as a valid concept; yet, Richard Dawkins identified them (in THE SELFISH GENE) as resident in the nervous systems of human individuals and, therefore, physically present. The self can be described that same way (rip out the nervous system, and the 'self' will disappear, probably along with everything else described as 'life' (another 'thing' that philosophers have attempted and failed to adequately identify because they cannot reify it, nor can they visualize it in any other way.)).

That said, rather than view or proclaim the 'self' as something separate from the body (I take it that's what you mean), look at all of existence according to this rule of mine: "All that exists results from events in processes in a hierarchy of increasing complexity, each process itself becoming an event that, along with other events, forms a process of a higher order. The ultimate process to result from that is the process we have named 'Nature'." People try to discredit that by calling it "merely 'philosophy'," but never make an effort to show it as erroneous or meaningless.

I try to understand everything —every thing!— according to that, and have never had to stretch a fact to do so. Understanding 'self', 'time', 'memes', 'memeplexes', 'distance', and all the rest of such concepts according to that rule sheds a new light on the natural order of things: 'Self' results from certain kinds of events within the process of living; we acknowledge those particular events in that particular process with a name.

We acknowledge 'living' as a sequence of events in a process we have distinguished with a different name. That does not separate them from the material being (the result of a myriad other bunches of events in processes that we have granted unique names down to the finest details we have access to). It also does not separate them from the world, nor even the universe, nor does it separate me from you nor anybody else. We are all in this together, including even rocks, the beaches full of sand, and the manure in piles behind a billion cattle barns, intricately interdependent.

Who named it a metaphor? I called it a 'process'. Does your mama bake a cake as a metaphor?

Never mention your book without providing a link to it on the Internet.

Like this 

Awareness is part of the process that evolved into self. Self awareness just adds one more item to the list of what animals have become aware: "I am a process trapped inside a body. Other than that, I don't know what I am. I claim to have free will, but that cannot be because I am so limited by my circumstances. I want to think your thoughts but I can't because I am separated from you by the fact of we both being individuals. Look, I can lift my feet up and let go of things from my hands. I am separate from the rest of the world. I am me. Whoopee! Look at me ride my bicycle, we are as one in our performances."

In my youth, I heard the term "self-conscious" applied to those who tried too hard and worried too much about failure, a prospect identified as "loss of face". Look at it as the process of self interfering with the process being attempted by distracting attention away from it. It becomes a matter of exercising priorities, the job at hand taking precedence above all else in those moments. To ride a bicycle requires us to learn to overcome our fears and, through repetition, learn to begin paying attention to what's going on around us instead of all the sequences of motions that maintaining mobility requires. The goal is to forget yourself (not to deny it nor call it a delusion, or even acknowledge anything about it) until the endeavor achieves a state of being automatic. Once there, the process mastered, the resulting events can then bring joy and other emotionally satisfying experiences in an ongoing process. Spirituality, after all, is about the natural release of chemicals that make us feel good about having gained homeostasis in a new adventure.

(4) This kind of thinking is still thought thinking about itself.  It has no transcending power.  We cannot correct the fundamental mistakes we have made by changing our thinking about how we think about things. If we were nothing *but* our thinking, we could do so.  But we are not our thinking.  Out thinking is merely an aspect of us. The problem lies deeper than mere wrong thinking.

I must be fun to string words into a sentence and try to convince somebody it means something real. "Thought thinking about itself" is meaningless nonsense unless you can point to an example. Thinking is nothing other than a contributing process within the processes of our existences. Only you mentioned "transcending" or "power". Shame on you for your red herrings! That we have said something about correcting mistakes is another one of those! People do that when they cannot deal with what somebody else said. And then, to introduce the idea of it being a problem adds yet another one to the layer. How droll! Who said we are our thinking? Good grief, how you do go askance! If there is no self to think, there'll be no thinking and no thoughts.

If what you say is true, that we cannot correct mistakes about thinking by thinking about thinking, then it also has to be false. The aspect of ourselves we call 'thinking', by the very nature of being an aspect,  is nothing other than a contributing process within the processes of our existences. We are a process. We are a culmination of all the events and processes from which we arise. We are not just any one of them. We have names for all of them, the same as we do for the components and actions of a car.

I have never heard of a mechanic arguing on the order of, "There is no program in this car. It's just an aspect of the car. Show me the program, I have never run across a program, it is just a feature of the computer computing about computation." I have never heard of geeks arguing about memory chips, "There is no memory in that chip. We need to get over the delusion that says a memory chip can remember anything. I have never run across a memory in a chip, it is just a feature of the chip. Show me where the memory is."

To me, wrong thinking results from granting credence to indemonstrable ideas. I believe I share that notion with a large portion of atheist people. It is indemonstrable concepts that end up being the subjects of arguments, whereas all participants could advance their own well being by holding such ideas in abeyance. You cannot make something true by the simple act of saying it over time and again. You will not give rise to a picture of what you wish someone to believe until you can show it to them. You cannot make something into what someone else said by adding your own words to it. You cannot make whatever is true go away by sending people on a chase for red herrings.

 Even having abandoned religion as a valid pursuit, secular people still cling to many notions as though they have to be sacred, and their opponents do the same in opposition. Sam Harris, in THE END OF FAITH, said we can know what is true about the self because it is empirical. That is fine enough, but to experience something and then try to explain the experience is not that simple. It becomes like thinking about thinking and trying to explain that. Everything mentioned gets translated, and what gets translated becomes like a secular religion. We could do better without that. Accept what I am writing here as being what I mean when I say it. Don't try to remake it into something you wish to argue against. If you cannot paint a picture of your own, try to understand what gets painted for you on its own terms without attempting to translate.

I believe the folks involved in linguistics are gaining the most correct view of how this all works, and that would be a worthy study for everybody interested in this subject matter.

Let me start at the end and go backward: You have not explained what you mean by 'thought' and so have painted no picture of how an 'I' can exist as that. 'I' am my 'self'. I am a process named Lloyd H. Whitling. As part of that process, I am conscious, or aware, of my own existence. I am that existence, not something separate from it. You are your self. You are a process similar but distinct from me. You are integrally aware of your conscious functions, but not of mine beyond what I communicate to you. The same in reverse applies to me. All of that applies to be 'us', two distinct high-level processes among billions that share all or most of our characteristics, but those processes are each inclusive of everything related to our individual presences and are necessary to maintain them. No part of it is 'separate' and no part of it is of any less value than any other part at the same hierarchical level within the overall process. That is simple and I am sure you are capable to understand it.

As processes (or, if reduced to the level of their events) ourselves do both share the same environmental reality. The important (to humans) factor is whether illusions are additive to or detractive from human wellbeing. Illusions, if they are constructive, add to that; delusions are inevitably detractive and entirely unreal (however real they may seem at the time).

I have never experienced the notion of self as separate. I believe that notion to be inherent to the "soul" delusion, wherein the "soul" supposedly lives on when one dies. I regard the self to be like what one could ask about the filament in an incandescent bulb: "Where does the light go when the bulb has burned out?" The filament is an integral part of the bulb, analogous to the nervous system; the "soul" is the light. Events involving the flow of electricity produce the process wherein the bulb gives off heat and light. When the bulb "dies" the process ends. When the body dies, the self ends.

Thought is what we typically name the process in which thoughts persist. The process is 'thought', whereas 'thoughts' names the events that take place within it. This is true for all of existence, and claims we make of anything of which that is not true have to be untrue. It is that which we claim to be true, but outside of this, that is delusional. It is that which we deem true, and that is true, that is illusionary but only because our mode of perception induces the error that makes it workable for our circumstances.

That does not quite make sense: If no 'I' exists, if no "I' is findable,  how can an 'I' do any thinking? How do thoughts become more real than their thinker? How can we even discuss 'I' or 'you' without there being an I and you to hold the discussion?

I cannot see why you believe the self (the "I") cannot be found. It is something obviously present. It results as events within a process, the same as all else. If you can explain to me why it is different from that, then maybe I could get what you are saying. As it is, I do not at all see why it is important to deny things that way, as it has no relevancy I can perceive to anything anyone might endeavor. As it is, 'thought' is the name of the process in which 'I' arises, whether or not I think about it. That is not different from saying that you only exist only because I (whoever) think about you. Is that somehow different from what you are saying? If I think about you, does I stop existing meanwhile? If I think about you and so I stop existing, does the entire world somehow vaporize until I regain my senses?— or does it go on, but only because enough other people are involved in thinking about each other and everything?

Did I say or imply anything about a "universal principle"? How? When? If something is "real as a projection of thought", then it ought to have some effect that can be observed by others. I, as my'self', have that effect, as to you as your 'self'. Gods do not act on their own volition in any fashion that shows in objective reality.

What you are calling "God"-thoughts are delusions because they cannot be tested nor demonstrated true, nor experienced in some way as to be different from actual insanity; whereas it is a common experience for human beings to experience their self as something that arises from internal processes (in spite of religious proclamations to the contrary), and also to come sooner or later (as they mature) to a realization that others share that same experience about themselves.

Why are things "afflictions" or "misguided" or presumptions without reasons? The elaborations appear to be coming from your camp, wherein you use them to create decoys to derail a discussion, put words in others' mouths, and so on as already described. You cannot just make value-judgments about this without showing how such valuations arrive. Not, at least, if you want to convince your audience you truly have a message for them. How can you proclaim 'I' (the self) as nonexistent and then say it can be observed in action? You contradict your own statements! What corrects falsity is evidence contrary to it, not rhetoric. I see nothing of the sort in any of this. False is false and true is true according to tangible, verifiable evidence. I still await the presentation of such; words, revelations, and literature belong to the religions. Honest judges prefer tangible, hard evidence.

We all experience self in common. We accredit others with the experience because we can observe them and determine from their behavior that they function in much the same way as ourselves. But, in the scenario you would have me accept as true, ourselves cannot exist because we are delusions, and, so, nonfunctional.

I have never until now seen self considered to be an affliction, and definitely never as unnecessary. Our perceptions are the result of evolution, with which we obtain self-guidance and verification of their input by a process of playing one against the other. Simply "seeing" does not provide verification. It represents only one kind of sensory input, which must be verified by taste, touch, smell, sound, memory as well as from sources outside oneself. Thinking, even though internal, is only one input and so requires verification to gain the status of truth. Emotional inputs must be subdued, even though they vie for supremacy in our considerations, and vested interests need to be banished because they will lead directly to delusional responses.

I have read many religious proclamations against self as something to be banished, subdued, dangerous, related to greed, and in other ways condemned, but that is by religious memeplex hosts whose selves have been appropriated by their memes. Memes (if I may speak for them) necessarily regard a strong sense of self as dangerous to their own safety and want it banished. Attempts in that direction arouse my suspicions.

Now: How can self-observation be a viable activity if the self is a delusion? I understand self as something inseparable from the processes from which it arises, which you seem to regard as true while still calling the self delusion and false. I cannot make the connection where something true is also false.

If self arises from a mental process, it would seem one could recognize that by discovering what kinds of events are involved in that process (or, those processes). We would then have a choice of acknowledging it and trying to discover its limitations, or of denying it and then showing what it is that appears to be so evident to us, if our denial is based on factual evidence.

Good. I assume that spirituality without God requires that the self be appropriated by some other meme that then replaces the god-meme. Why not acknowledge the self as a source of spirituality, if your intent is only to banish it and then supplant it with something contrived or 'revealed' by what appears to be an unverifiable subjective process within your own mind.

Compare your two statements to each other:

You seem to be confusing self as it is, with self trying to make sense of itself. The thought of self may be real as a mental event, and the subject matter may or may not be delusional. It is you who proclaims self to be a delusion while trying to put that expression onto me. I tried to tell you this (from American Heritage):

So, the dictionary says 'illusion' is erroneous. In reference to our perceptions, that is true: We have a view of our environment that is illusionary. Nature designed us, however, in a way that makes that illusional view useful and beneficial to our well-being. It is that which enables us to build an understanding of existence that not only acknowledges and appreciates the illusion, but also understands the truth of it. The two are NOT in conflict if we have that understanding. It is as easy to present a statement that the entirety of reality is illusional, and it is. That does not invalidate our perceptions of it, however, for so long as testing and verification can support them.

Delusion, however, cannot be accredited with utility nor benefit (in spite of religious claims to the contrary). Whereas the self is something obvious to most people without the need for explanation, delusion is about something not in evidence, even though a good delusion will have the power to convince a hallucinating person about its presence.

Your tree might make a good example (thank you): We "suffer" (your viewpoint) the illusion that the tree is a solid, immovable object standing at a fork in the road. We all can share that about this certain tree. It would be a delusion to insist, because a tree is no more a solid object than is a cloud or fog, that it should separate into its smallest components and vaporize if we would just go up the road a few hundred yards, climb into our Porsche, get a good start, and smack it at about a hundred-fifty miles per hour (or, kilometers, if you prefer).

We know that can't be true, and the deluded person is going to hurt himself. We understand the illusion to which he referred, and we understand why he is delusional. We are not going to climb into the car with him, except to try to snatch his keys. We also understand this: Those who share his delusion will try to erect a shrine to him, but only if they don't go on his fatal ride to witness verification of his fantasy.

From above:

How so? Because it does not support your premise? Because I used the word 'ultimate' within it?— so you read to that point and then stopped because your memeplex kicked you in the gut? It is a straightforward rule, definitely not delusional, and is about a testable fact of existence. Can you demonstrate it to be otherwise? That is what you must do to make your position tenable and cogent. Rules are meant to subdue confusion and provide guidance. People who do not like rules, and do not offer reasons for their stance, but simply make denigrative remarks against them without providing an example, well….

That said, how is it any more 'ultimate' than a statement that says the 'I' is a delusion? Science has not shown any way that is true, and it definitely is not something I find obvious.

'I' as a useful illusion, yes; 'I' as a delusion, no.

"The separate self-sense" is indeed delusional, and is a product of religious dogma and is debilitating, yes. I agree. We do not have imaginary friends to hold conversations with. What lessons I see as needed are the same as my very Xian Mom said, which was to not be so self-conscious. To be "not self-conscious" is vastly different from attempting to deny the self existence at all. I can think of many ways to demonstrate the truth of that, that do not require self-abnegation; to simply pour yourself into the task of mastering that you would love to do, and forget how others perceive you, as just one.

It is paying attention to others that brings the self into focus, and it is those who introduce their poisonous comments into processes of learning that need to be condemned. Too many folks offer negative advice, without offering constructive corrections and examples, to others that are making an effort to better themselves through accomplishment. They do it right when those persons most need their support through constructive advice, when it is at its most damaging, and when it induces the most self-consciousness. Taking an approach that condemns self-awareness adds to the damage. It only serves to heighten self-consciousness in anyone who would take such evil advice to heart, while they struggle to apply it. It doesn't work, it is wrong, and it does a disservice to humankind. It ends up being debilitating and, if you mean what you said, counterproductive.

In line with that, here is a page on the subject:  http://www.atheistlloyd.com/positionpapers/adultery.html 

From above:

You would have us be zombies? You would have us take you at your word and not wonder about anything, but follow you like sheep? I believe it's obvious that thinking refers to the mental events engaged in the processes related to thought, that go on with or without our input. 'Appropriate', as used here, appears to refer to a valuation, and we are to accept your values without hesitation? Of course, in a 'fight or flight' situation, stopping to think may be obviously inappropriate, but we seem not to be discussing that kind of situation.

I agree that 'god' is an indemonstrable idea. I disagree with the contention that self is not obviously true and demonstrable: The mere fact that we are having this discussion demonstrates the presence of two 'selfs' happily involved in it. Were a god to enter this discussion with us, I am sure that we would both quickly grant that it exists. Please explain how that is the same as it now stands!

Look into a mirror while in a crowded room, and loudly proclaim while pointing toward the mirror, "That is not myself. That is not myself. That is not myself!"

Of course it is not yourself! It is a reflection and we are raised with the illusion and a shortcut-taking language that proclaims it to be yourself. You and I both know that to think otherwise is a delusion.

Still, most people in the room would argue, "Yes, that is you in the mirror."

How will you respond to them? "No, that is not me. I am right here," while pointing toward your own body. However much you want to shuck it off, you suffer (if, as you claim, you suffer) from the same illusion as the rest of us, but not from a delusion about your mirror image.

What Spiritual Atheism does *not* mean to me is that ghosts, piety, supernatural, gods, angels, priests and preachers, deity, and all the conundrums elaborated upon by religions have nothing to do with spirituality to begin with. That is all about spirits and ghosts, imaginary contrivances thought up to scare children and keep old folks in line; that is about nothing real. It also has little or nothing to with worldliness and materiality, altruism nor selfishness or selflessness. Not really. All of that is beside the point, and elaborating on it leads to obfuscation, manipulation, and confusion.

We forget that we atheists, even though we regard ourselves to be completely secular people, are poisoned by religion and religious thought. We are not pure. Knowing about that requires us to be wary of our own thought processes, and to be diligent in our examinations of heady topics, not only so that we don't let unwarranted influences sway us from accurate conclusions, but also so that we don't too hastily reject that which does. Either way, we miss out on a lot of the good stuff life offers. I suspect, after all the exchanges of messages I have experienced, that most of us miss out on most of it and insist that we are being right and moral while doing so.

To understand about spirituality, let us take a look at what 'spirit', itself, means and see if we can find anything at all in that, that has secular relevancy. I am sure that, once we have done that, you will understand why self-abnegation, denial of self as a reality, and ritualized practices have little or nothing to do with our topic.

Lots of choices, eh? Let's see what we can pick out from them that is strictly secular in meaning (or by not too much of a stretch). If spirituality is derivable from some concepts about spirit, it is those we should investigate and test for our own application.

Going though the above, I find a secular application in 1a, 6a & b, 7, 8a & b, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 17.

Look specifically at number 17 first, to set our mood: You'll note that the word 'spirit' originates in the Latin word for 'breath'. The words 'inspire', 'inspiration' also originate from there: "With a gasp of inspiration, he was off to busy himself for hours, onto something startling and new that brought the glow of joy to his every feature."

Breath is, in fact, the subtlest sign of animation in animated forms of life, and we can safely assume that to be one of the signs our distant forebears used to verify death. From that (among other things) we can reason our way toward spirituality that we can apply to ourselves in a secular fashion. By secular, we mean the dictionary definitions referring to worldly, godless, strictly natural. There is plenty to work with from among the definitions, as we have seen. So, why do we have so much trouble with this?

A strong case can be made against our western socialization processes and the nasty, inhumane kind of religions upon which we have built our cultures. They are behind a lot of our thinking because our exposure to their children and their aggressive enculturation processes dominates many aspects of our own reasoning processes. We apply, as a result, many forms of bias without a thought about it, and find we have problems coping with certain kinds of concepts. Spirituality is just one of them.

Because we live in ignorance in an era when we think science is finding new truths that will free us from such strictures and mental poisons, we find ourselves forced to deal with things the way they are, and hope for the best (Freud's Reality Principle). Still, if we could set aside quiet moments to ask ourselves questions about very many things that (were we to consider them at all) we do that we cannot justify, we would then astound ourselves with the religion-inspired practices we take for granted as "right" and "proper" and "moral", about which we know of no secular alternatives with which to justify them.

That said, let's look for our own niche and put our own notch on it. What do we have left to include? The lead into #17 says "To impart courage, animation, or determination…." 6a and b say, "6.a. The part of a human being associated with the mind, will, and feelings: "…they are with us in spirit;" and b: "The essential nature of a person or group;" 7. "A person as characterized by a stated quality…"; 8a: "An inclination or a tendency of a specified kind" and b: "A causative, activating, or essential principle … a joyous spirit;" 9: "A mood or emotional state…;" 10: "…characterized by vigor and animation (remember breath?); 12: "…predominant mood…" and so forth.

That gives us plenty of ammunition to respond to those who say atheism and secularity have nothing to do with spirituality. Pure atheism and pure secularity are actually about nothing else than spirituality, and we should recognize that and be the prouder for it. If we can see a clear way to recognize the contamination of our thought induced by aggressive religious influences, and use that recognition to introduce our own programs that must be based on pure secular reasoning as demonstrable and verifiable by science, atheism and secularity would be an unstoppable force at work spreading not doctrines, not dogma, not hatred and war, but knowledge into the world about the ways things actually work, how human beings truly fit into Nature's processes, and how to live in ways that increase our own wellbeing

If we look at the secular aspects of spirituality as defined in a commonly available dictionary, we can see that it boils down to emotions animated by such feelings as joy, love, happiness, determination, the essential nature being of people who pursue spirited living. Inspiration, we know, drives accomplishment, and accomplishment drives joy with a zest no other force can muster.

We have seen and heard about people who have made great accomplishments in their lives, only to lose everything in the end. Why is that?

It is clear, from reading about them, that they lost their sense of direction. Musicians, for instance, burn out from repetitive one-night shows because their accomplishment is behind them and the pursuit of wealth then took center stage. They are driven to that pursuit by those who manage them, whose income depends upon their continual performances, and who lower them down to the status of employees or property no matter how their contracts read.

So, they burn out. Life gets to be the same old thing, day in, day out. They quit, turn to booze or drugs, or some other destructive acts. They have lost their spirit. Life no longer takes away their breath and leaves them panting for more; they pant, instead, for some respite.

Do you see what I mean? Some, maybe most, of those poor sufferers go into hiding, never to return to their former glory. A few take time off, and start all over again on a new adventure, quite often in some way that allows them to take charge of their schedules. They know their talents, know their desires, because they know themselves sufficiently to know what makes them happy when their drive has weakened and they are wallowing in despair rather than reveling in the throes of passion and joy.

What makes that different from the religious idea of spirituality? Does it not present the same aim: the pleasure of serving something greater than oneself, even if something so mundane as a personal goal or the perfection of an art, craft, or skill?— the joy and the passion of what has been called the religious experience, except directed toward a productive end and not a specter from ancient imaginations?— the inspiration that strikes and demands to be met, that turns into the perfect poem, story, or paint scheme on a vehicle or a house?

What makes your breath catch and quicken? Shuck off the layers under which your talents and interests have been getting buried since the moment of your birth, and expose the real you to the world. Revel in what you are and what you can become. Demand the right to be yourself, and act upon that until you can achieve it. Don't stop there, for by the time you reach that, other worlds will have opened up to you and beckoned your interest. One of those will take you past the burnout point, if you stay aware and play with it and see if it, too, can catch your breath and quicken your heart.

Please notice how I defer to my dictionary in this; rather than try to impose my own views, I take the secular portions of what the typical full-fledged dictionary says about 'spirit' and derive 'spirituality' from that. I do not, as others insist I should, attempt to apply those definitions that are oriented toward the religious.

The interesting aspect is that the results are not that different from what others commonly describe, spirituality as an aspect of energy, and I think I can see why:

Spirit derives (in its origins) from 'breath'.

Breath + fuel = potential energy (Math junkies will be jumping all over me for this). :8^)~

From there, see what the religionists are calling "spiritual" and what there is in a nonreligious existence that they are trying to emulate with their gimmicky approach. You cannot sell nature, we already possess our share of that; you can sell gimcrackery, and religion spreads in no other way than by its salesforce.

If we keep in mind that religion results from attempting to emulate reality in "supernatural" terms, we can quite easily find the equivalents and assemble a picture and method that adheres to the standards reality imposes. From the religions' viewpoint, that will not work because the result is generally one that doesn't require priests and rabbis and ministers, gods nor angels, and so they lose their control over individual minds and the generous income they gain from that. Plus, they lose their flocks to something from which they will never get them back.

I believe that, if we atheists as a group would like to gain prominence in the world, we should keep that in mind, stop arguing about the nuances and philosophical inferences, and take the bull by the horns and wrestle it into our own camp. We *don't need* religion to gain the things that religion claims to offer. We have it already, and it is real. All we need to do is understand that without trying to develop our own flocks of sheep with a one-size-fits-all creed derived from determinism (which was, in turn, derived from religion's predestination).

We, atheists, are individualists and we have been letting that fact get in the way of advancing a cogent atheistic program. Rather than stumbling over our individualism, we can take advantage of it and use it as a boon, and not an obstacle.

So, let us go to work in a common spirit. We are the harbingers of freedom, but not by the way we are going about it.

---The Mad Poet, Lloyd---

Copyright ©2007 by Lloyd Harrison Whitling. All rights reserved.