Atheistic forms of spirituality? NO christians pls!?

Question

Can you tell me some of the different forms of spiritual atheism? (like Jainism) and/or if you are an spiritual atheist....what is your personal practice like, if any? and what is it's purpose?

What is it's purpose for you personally I mean. Thanx.

Answer 1

Actually, I like to study religion. Some are spiritual, like Buddhism and Hinduism, I may not see evidence for their beliefs but still have personal benefits by practicing things like yoga and meditation. Even Christianity, perhaps the most lacking religion in the area of spirituality has several bits of beauty. The Orthodox and traditional rites of the Catholic church for example are very spiritual. Even though I don't believe in these religions, they make me wish I could. They inspired a lot of artwork and I think art and music is an avenue of the spirit as well.

To me the spirit is the part of you that connects to your own humanity, to others, to nature, inspires creativity or emotion, it can be anything. The purpose of spirituality and these practices for me is mental clarity, to reflect inward to understand yourself and others, to find peace and inspiration for good work and a good state of being. No religion necessary. If you need that kind of help fine but a lot of people don't have any use for it. I just refuse to lie and pretend to be something I'm not to please others. That would not make me more spiritual. If I may inhance my practice by learning from others, great but if they ask me to believe something I can't possibly make myself believe then I don't see how they can help me.

Notice how all the people that critisize you for using the term spiritual atheist are not atheists themselves. The atheist seem to be answering the question very matter of factly describing religions, philosophies and practices appearently unknown to these other people, most of whom identify as Christian. Well its not suprising since they know for a fact there is an unseen God, angels, rapture coming, etc that they already know everything about everyone else as well. Sorry guys, as a matter of fact Christianity did not get the monopoly on spirituality. To clear it up for you guys atheism means you don't believe in god(s) or any similar form of supernatural being(s). It has nothing to do with spirituality, morals or other practices. It is simply an acknowledgement of plain and simple truth - there is no god.

Answer 2

The biggest one, as has already been mentioned, is Buddhism, hands down. LaVeyan Satanism is another, albeit very humanistic one.

I'm an occultist, so I suppose that makes me some sort of spiritual...something; although I do believe in gods, I believe in them as entities which were created by men and have been invested with limited power only through people putting energy into them through prayer, worship, offerings, etc. And I'd certainly never be caught worshipping one myself... (Note this isn't a general occultist standpoint; these are simply the conclusions I've drawn myself, which I later found to happily coincide with a number of other ideas.)

Answer 3

Well, there's Jainism. There's also Daoism. That religion was founded by Laozi, a Chinese person who had invented a religion in which he wanted the practitioners to find the Dao, or the "Way," which involved the acquisition of certain traits. Strangely enough, he said that if one wanted to find the Dao, he would have to NOT seek it. He also wanted the practitioners to become like water in the respect that water flows gently, but can wear away a rock, and to become like the hole of a jar in the respect that, though it is empty space, without the jar, a pot would not be what it is.
There's also Buddhism, founded by Buddha, which favors discipline of the self. The goal of Buddhism is to, through meditation and by forsaking desire, achieve inner peace, called nirvana. This is done in part through recognizing the Four Noble Truths: 1) Life is suffering, 2) Suffering stems from desire, 3) One gets rid of desire through suffering, and 4) The only way to be released from suffering is to follow the Eightfold Path. The Eightfold Path is a list of eight things one must have to achieve inner peace. They are: right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. Those are the basics of Buddhism.
There's also Confucianism, founded by the Chinese philosopher Confucius. His teachings are written down in a religious text called the Analects. His teachings dealt more with social hierarchy and how one should live his life. Confucianism emphasized the idea, importance, and maintenance of the family unit, strengthened by filial piety, in which children would always respect their elders. Confucius also spoke about societal relations. He emphasized five relationships: husband to wife, elder to younger, parent and child, ruler and ruled, and friend to friend. He believed that, in all of these relationships, one person commanded respect and fealty, except in the relationship of friend to friend. Concerning work, Confucius advocated hard work, but said that women should never work, but should stay home. He also said that all professions in which one worked hard are somewhat honorable, but the lowest profession was, to him, that of a merchant, because the merchant didn't work with his hands but sold things that other people made. As a consequence, merchants occupied the lowest rung in ancient Chinese societies. Confucianism is arguably more of a philosophy than a religion, but whatever.

Answer 4

I consider everything in the universe to be "alive" and share the same energy. Which is a form of spirituality without personality.

It can be compared to electricity or radio waves. The energy is there to be used, but it has no personality or will of its own.

And, that is the way I view the energy that is contained within everything, including our bodies.

I'm not sure you could call it "spirituality," but it does answer many questions regarding how we can perceive things that are beyond our normal senses.

To Spotfox:

See what happens when you keep all that negative energy you acquired at church all bottled up inside you? It can make you a raving lunatic...

Answer 5

The best way to attract Christians is by saying "No Christians, please." They don't want to miss anything.
I can comment on atheistic spirituality even though I'm not actually an atheist. I'm not a member of a religion at all. I believe in a higher power and I could go on and on about that, but when I actually practice my spirituality, I don't make God responsible for it. I own my own spirit. Is that close enough?
The short version or overview of my approach to spirituality is that I seek to create full agreement within myself. I try to let my mind think what is true to my feelings and try to make the actions of my body consistent with my feelings and thoughts. In other words, I seek full agreement in my body, mind and soul.
My primary methods include meditation for learning to trust my un-directed mind (and to see if there is garbage in there) along with activities that let me express my genuine self and some activities just to help me cope with stress. I could tell you more specific things about my personal practice, but I feel that understanding the purposes is of a greater primary importance than telling about my practices. Anyone who understands the reasons and the purposes can easily create their own practices. So I'll continue to describe my spiritual practice in a general way.
For meditation, I concentrate on letting go of thoughts or rather on attachment to my thoughts. During the early stages of this kind of meditation, my mental garbage comes up. I look at it, don't make myself feel bad about it, then I let it go. I have found that I can spend a lot of time doing only this stage. I take on a lot of mental garbage. It's just like sport fishing: catch and release. Eventually, the noise in my head quiets down and I can enjoy a few minutes of just being still. I can't rush through the initial phase even though the second phase is much more enjoyable. What I DON'T do in meditation is focus my mind on something and then call my chosen something the ultimate reality. I have heard that some meditators do that with mantras or- even worse- with gurus. If I need a focusing tool at all to accomplish my meditation, I use numbers to count my breaths or heartbeats and I understand that I am merely focusing on my own internal processes.
But a human being is not just a spirit and a mind. My internal self also influences my body and vice-versa. So I do some physical activity as part of my spirituality. Mine is geared toward stress reduction- you can call it anger management if you want- so it is vigorous physical activity that lets me use aggressive energy in a healthy way. Again, different people; different activities. Mine are drumming and dance. Those are the activities that appeal to me because I like music. And, well, I sing too, but no one ever really hears that. People do see and hear my drumming and they do see me dance, because I allow this part of myself to be public, but usually I consider the singing to be only for myself.
That's about it really. I mean, there's more to it, but that's my basic program, along with working for a living, saying what I think, loving who I love, expressing who I am, always looking for opportunities to genuinely live my life. To me that is the essence of spirituality: I have a life with living energy. I give that energy something to do.

Answer 6

Buddhism is not a deist practice (some traditions are, but the mainstream isn't) and also you can find out a lot more about this type of practice by searching for Unitarian Universalism. They welcome atheists and all belief systems so that everyone has a moral support structure for spirituality. They may even have a church near you...

Answer 7

The moment you say No Christians we all come to look.

I'm going to bookmark this one and listen to all the Atheists tell how spiritual they are, so I can rub it in their faces the next time that talk about our Space Daddy!

I was under the impression Atheists had NO "spiritual" beliefs at all, hence the word A-THEIST. Philosophy is a different story. That is not spiritual.

Can't wait to see them fess up to their "Space Daddys" over the next three days!

Answer 8

no matter what you will always become earth and dirt .. the earth and dirt created by your rotton flesh is ideal for a tree to grow.. the herbivore eats the tree.. the carnivore eats the herbivore.. the carnivore may get eaten by another one or just die and repeat the process.. because this has happened so many billion times through out history and time as we know it.. and the amount of veg and fruit i have eaten in my lifetime which have been grown from the soil from all of our ancestors..Am i. me, my father, my grandfather, your grandfather,grandma etc.. i am made up of mostly everyone that has ever died as there energy and nutrients helped grow that tree or fruit and veg .. and one day your future generations could eat fruit grown from the nutrients from my corpse and my energy is transfered to them.we are all the same. just look slightly different..but all the same person

Answer 9

I find your term 'spiritual atheist' rather amusing. Especially since you do not see the rather obvious conflicting nature of that title. If you believe you are spiritual in any way then you are not an atheist.

Answer 10

Buddhism is one of those. It doesnt have a god to bow down to. Even though they ask, what would Buddha do? It is all about understanding what your thoughts are and how to change them into something positive. The more compassion you show to yourself and the world, the more peaceful you will be.