You don’t have to look far to find websites, blog posts and youtube videos that show atheists just as capable as any believer of feeling all the wonder, awe and majesty the universe has to offer. A run in colorful crunchy, fall leaves, or a hike up a majestic mountain with indigo sky backdrop generate the same connectedness with nature that our believing brethren so easily attribute to deities. Peering across galaxies through the eyes of Hubble give us all a feeling of grandeur, and an impression of our own insignificance that is simply beyond words.

But, in the course of trying to find those words, “spiritual” often gets called into action. Spiritual is a powerful word with no apparent equal – no seemingly adequate synonym that captures nature’s power to inspire. It’s no wonder so many of us call ourselves “Spiritual Atheists”.

But, in my opinion, it’s a problematic label to use because it comes loaded with religious connotation – and I think that goes directly against what we want to accomplish. No matter how hard we try, using spiritual to attach feelings of wonder, awe and amazement to our atheism is wrought with difficulty. This is because the word is not, in the minds of most, tied to nature. No, most people associate it closely with spirit/the Holy Spirit/God. And if that’s not enough to convince you, a quick google will show a theistic bias firmly embedded in how the word is most often defined.

Try as we might, I think these theistic connotations are impossible to avoid and, by trying to call ourselves spiritual atheists, we are setting ourselves up for a lifetime of frustration – it just muddies the waters.

With this problem in mind, I think we need to seek out a better, less religiously affiliated word.

I visited the Skeptical Seeker’s blog where I learned that, in The Atheist’s Way: Living Well without Gods, Eric Maisel thinks the right word might be “meaningful”. Meaningful? Really? That word seems far too generic for me. It’s simply got too much latitude to be useful. All kinds of mundane things can be meaningful. Having a favorite color can be meaningful. Enjoying the taste of coffee can be meaningful. Reading an xkcd comic (go look – it’s a good one) can be meaningful. But do these things hold as much meaning as the awe we feel in pondering the immensity of the universe? I think not …well, except maybe in the case of xkcd comic.

So, no, “meaningful” just doesn’t cut it for me.

When challenged with this line of thinking, Christopher Hitchens likes to talk about the numinous. While I can certainly see the word’s appeal (sounds kind of nummy), I think it suffers from the same issue we have with spiritual – the only difference being that most people don’t know what numinous means. However, that problem is easily remedied with another quick googling where another theistic bias quickly becomes apparent. Do we want to try and redefine another word? Personally, I think trying to do so just seems like another headache.

So, no, I don’t care for “numinous” either.

But, I still think we’d benefit from a secular cousin to the word, and I think I may have found one.

I like sublime. Why? Well, because it seems to describe what we mean when we are tempted to use spiritual! The very first paragraph at wikipedia really grabs your attention by defining sublime as:

…the quality of greatness or vast magnitude, whether physical, moral, intellectual, metaphysical, aesthetic, spiritual or artistic. The term especially refers to a greatness with which nothing else can be compared and which is beyond all possibility of calculation, measurement or imitation.

In philosophy, the sublime gets its legs from aesthetics – the branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty – another definition from wikipedia.

Doesn’t the definition of sublime fit nicely with the curious awe we often feel? Don’t we really mean that we have a profound appreciation for the beauty, greatness and magnitude of nature and the universe?

So, yeah, the sublime works for me. From now on, whenever I speak of things that strike me with a sense of wonder, awe, amazement and connectedness, I’m going to call that the sublime. And whenever I’m challenged for a secular equivalent to spiritual, I will instantly shoot back with the philosophically rich concept of the sublime. I’ll say, “Aha! You’re talking about our godlessly sublime universe!”

Or maybe I’ll just say nature kicks ass.

• Morality came from religion.
• The meaning of life came from religion.
• How we got here came from religion.
• What would happen to me after I died came from religion.

Suddenly, there was this blank slate. Nothing I thought I had known, was known.

It scared the hell out of me to realize there was no grand purpose for humanity and my life, that there was no afterlife, and that there was no set moral code telling me how to live. In other words, my religiously based life had been replaced by an immense void.

However, fear and uncertainty very quickly gave way to an insatiable, unconstrained curiosity to learn. I became full of a sense of wonder I hadn’t had since my childhood fascination for space and dinosaurs. Life was now an open road and I realized my new purpose was to explore that road.

That was almost two years ago, and my curiosity hasn’t abated – not in the least. In fact, I’d say it’s just getting stronger.

Which brings me to you. If fear has held you back from thinking god might not exist, I encourage you to press on – the rewards are truly immense. A mind-opening, perhaps even (dare I say it?) spiritual experience awaits you.

And to my fellow non-believers who get frustrated with those who don’t seem to be hearing your message, please try to be patient – there is a lot at stake for them. Letting go of immortality for one’s self and one’s loved ones can be enormously difficult, and your proposition brings a great deal of fear and uncertainty with it.

All that aside, de-conversion after years and years of belief is possible. If I can do it at 40, anyone can.

(In case you are wondering, the beautiful music is part of the Shawshank Redemption Score composed by James Newton Howard,)

You can view the entire film in 10 minute segments on youtube but, before you do, I’d like to call your attention to the final segment where some of the astronauts share how their journeys changed them. The segment starts with Eugene Cernan and Charlie Duke describing their feelings of wonder, and how those feelings convinced them of God’s existence (Duke actually became a born-again Christian not long after).

Being a fairly recent (2 year) de-conversion to atheism, I can relate to these men. I’ve shared similar experiences of wonder and majesty – most notably while hiking in the mountains, or going for 10+ mile runs (runner’s high’ll get ya every time). And, yes, two years ago, I too would have given credit to god for those wonderful feelings.

However, since the de-conversion, the source of those feelings has changed, and I’ve become more and more fascinated with the seemingly universal tendency for us to attribute these emotions to a god or creator.

Why is this so?

Some think it’s connected to our affinity toward anthropomorphizing – attributing human qualities to things that are not. In this case, humans create things, so we assume that the universe must also have been created by something human-like, only much more powerful.

Scientists who study the brain may tell you that our willingness to invoke god is connected to our ability to identify patterns. In this case, the pattern is that most everything we observe has a cause, and we extend that pattern to the assumption that the universe must also have a cause.

But is this correct thinking? Just because we see cause and effect around us, does that mean the same rule applied to the formation of the universe? If a god can simply exist, then why can’t a universe? Also, could the Big Bang have been preceded by a Big Crunch, and that crunch have been preceded by a different Big Bang? Might this process be cycling on eon after eon after eon?

And, even if the universe did have an external cause, why would that cause need to be an intelligence or a god? Might it just as easily be another universe, as multi-universe theory proposes?

And then there’s the fact that most of us were raised by parents who told us that God created everything, and many of us grew up in churches where everyone agreed the universe was created by God. How many of those people really examine these claims from authority? After all, all those smart people couldn’t be wrong – could they?

I wonder, if parents stopped teaching this idea to their children, how would it take long before our sense of wonder aimed itself at the natural world instead of some unknown, undetectable entity?

There is a world of science awaiting those who would ask these questions. There is a world of wonder awaiting those willing to entertain the idea that maybe, God didn’t do it. And, in my opinion, the fact that our universe came to be without a deity makes it even more wondrous and majestic.

• we don’t believe humans have a soul, therefore
• we think this life is all there is – there is no afterlife, therefore
• we think that there is no reward (eternal heaven) or punishment (hell) awaiting us after we die, therefore
• we have no motivation to be good people – we have no good reason to be good and will act in only self-serving ways.

Some might be surprised to learn that I, and many of my atheist brothers and sisters, care more about treating people with care and respect now than we did before becoming atheists. Why? Well, because:

• we don’t think humans have a soul, therefore
• we don’t think there is an afterlife, therefore
• we think this life is all any of us get, and
• we want this life to be as happy and fulfilling as possible, and
• we think every human deserves to have what we have.

Those last three bullets are all about having a heightened sense of empathy around human desires to avoid suffering and be happy.

But what underlies this empathy for another’s happiness? Although I can’t speak for all atheists, I’ve read enough blog posts, comments and forum threads to have seen a consistent answer from many of us, and I’m guessing it boils down to this line of reasoning:

• we share a sense of wonder and awe that our 14 billion year old universe and 4.5 billion year old earth yielded life
• because of this multi-billion year heritage, we also share a deep-seated feeling of interconnectedness – via shared ancestry – with all of earth’s living creatures
• we have an intense appreciation for the struggle to survive among every human – past and present – along with the notion that we are all related
• we are exquisitely grateful for the good fortune of being part of the chain of life
• we share a sense of kinship, care and respect for others within that chain

Evolutionary biologists often theorize that caring and morality are evolved, built-in characteristics of human beings (I’d guess they are right). That’s one way of explaining how we came to care. What I’ve tried to do above is slightly different – I’ve attempted to put a more personal face on why we might care.

It’s been almost a year since I became an atheist. I remember thinking at the beginning of that year that I’d have a lot to say about the ongoing experience (it’s why I started this blog). Well, it turns out, I’d rather spend my time sucking in information (philosophy, science etc) from others.

I’ve never before had such intense curiosity about the universe I’m so fortunate to live in. Actually, that’s not quite true – I haven’t had this sort of curiosity since I was a child.

It really is quite marvellous.