Religion and Individualism

[Insidious Rex]

Originally Posted by RÃ*an

Interesting points, Rex - I guess it's a matter of definition. What do they mean by "spiritual"? and if they don't believe in any gods, why would they object to being called atheist? They could qualify it by saying "spiritual atheist", but by "spiritual", do they generally mean they believe in "spirits" but not gods, or just that they are rather non-materialistic?

Originally Posted by GrayMouser

I don't know. What do they mean by "spiritual"? That there is some force underlying and unifying the Universe in a way not observable to science? That we can relate to this force in ways outside our senses and reason?

They vehemently disagree with being labelled as atheist almost as much as they dislike being labelled as loony tunes which generally is the only other alternative for them in our narrowly focused society. And please realize these folks are coming from radically different spiritual paths from each other let alone from dominant society. Some believe there is an inherent spirituality in nature and its not derived from a single all powerful source so all of their focus is on nature itself and not on some need for there to be a creator (which remains irrelevant in their point of view). Some worship their ancestors but not as deities or gods but as spirits capable of helping them in the living world. For them there is "another side" but not a heaven or a place where god sits with the dead. Its just the living and the dead. Others believe as GrayMouser pointed out that there is an immaterial fabric connecting all aspects of the universe that we can tap into on a spiritual level. There are other nuances and variations in addition to these but surely you can see how a term like atheist would not work with these folks who often times are MUCH more spiritual in their thinking and behavior than many people who call themselves christian or jewish or muslim.