Posted by Mike O on: 08.21.2008 /
The question of how to describe “the spiritual” purely in physical terms is one that has been rumbling around in my head for several weeks now. In My Deconversion Story, Karen made the comment
Yet I clung to the memory of several spiritual experiences I’d had in my life that seemed very real to me. But as I examined each of them (maybe half a dozen) in my memory, I also examined possible alternate explanations. Had god really been talking to me during prayer, or was it my own subconscious chiming in? Was the sense of transcendence I felt during certain worship services really supernatural, or was it an emotional reaction - one that I also felt at great concerts and touching poetry readings?
In other unrelated posts Jason has said that spiritual, to him, means a general sense of awe or wonder that we can experience in nature, for example.
And to me, a Christian, the spiritual obviously means so much more than that.
So I keep coming back to the question, “Is it possible to describe the spiritual in physical terms?” My initial reaction to that statement was that it was not possible - the spiritual and the physical are completely different - “like TV and radio” is how I put it at one point. I didn’t think it could be explained, but the more I think about it, the more I think I can!
I can’t wiggle my ears, but Jeff Goldblum can.
The way I understand it, people who can wiggle their ears can do it, but they can’t explain it. Jeff Goldblum can wiggle his ears, but he can’t teach me to wiggle mine. And that’s because wiggling your ears can’t be learned by explanation or teaching, it has to be discovered for ones own self.
But what does wiggling your ears have to do with spirituality, you ask?
Trying to explain spiritual concepts to atheists is like trying to teach someone to wiggle their ears - I can’t explain to you how to connect with the spiritual - with God. But I can show you what it looks like when I do it.
My main premise here is that there is a spiritual nature to physical life. It can’t be measured, it can’t be proved. It can’t even be taught - it has to be discovered. And I think where it shows itself is in that “sense of awe and wonder” that Jason referred to, or the “sense of transcendence” mentioned by Karen.
I don’t believe the ability to wonder at beauty evolved. I don’t believe it’s merely a measurable reaction to measurable inputs causing a measurable response in the physical brain. I’ve come to believe that the sense of awe, the ability to be moved by poetry or art, or mountains or the intricacies of science, is actually a manifestation of the spiritual world within our physical world.
Is it possible that Jason was having a spiritual experience? At first I thought not, but now I think he was. Is it possible that Karen did feel the same “sense of transcendence” at the poetry reading or concert that she felt during certain worship services? I think so, but rather than thinking none of them were spiritual, I think all of them were!
I can’t prove it, I can just try to explain it. And like wiggling your ears, you can see what it looks like when I do it. But there’s no way I can explain it that will give you that ability for yourself. It has to be discovered.
All I’m saying is, maybe you have discovered spirituality for yourself, but nobody recognizes it for what it is.
Leave a Reply
Comment by: Ir (Helen)
1 08/21/08 7:56 AM | Comment Link |Mike, I expect you’re familiar with where the Bible categorically says that people without the ‘Spirit of God’ can’t understand spiritual things (it’s here).
I’ve seen that verse used a lot against atheists by Christians who say of course atheists don’t agree/believe: it’s because they don’t understand spiritual things because they don’t have the Spirit of God.
If atheists having a sense of transcendence is spiritual does that mean they have the Spirit of God and can understand spiritual things?
Comment by: Jason
2 08/21/08 9:04 AM | Comment Link |Interesting. Personally I think the idea of spirituality is entirely internal and not supernatural at all. Spirituality is a sense of connection to the world, nature, the universe, everything, at least for me. That’s where I get the awe from. For me it is necessarily lacking in religious meaning but we can get our connection from all sorts of experiences. If you get it in a church and I get it sitting by my pond then the only difference is geography.
Someone without a sense of connection and empathy to other members of society or to the world at large might feel justified in allowing others to come to harm or allowing nature to be despoiled for profit. A lack of what you would call spirituality but I would call connection is isolating. If I can dismiss the awe that someone feels at the sight of the stars or the setting sun or ignore their sense of connection to a child or lover then I can dismiss them as equal human beings. I’d be free to exploit that person because I wouldn’t value them.
Unsurprisingly I disagree with your assessment that we cannot describe the spiritual in physical terms. We could certainly measure a spiritual experience in terms of the physical effects on brain chemistry and hormone levels if we were so inclined. Such an analysis might seem dry and clinical but it would be possible.
I am also sure that my idea of spirituality differs from yours. For a long time I struggled with understanding what Christians and other theists even meant by the word. Now I think it is more important what I think of it and how far removed it is from other people’s ideas. I might agree that a spiritual experience transcends our ability to offer a reasonable explanation but that’s more a limitation on our ability to explain than the ability for it to be reasonable. We can explain what we mean by rhythm, timbre, meter or melody but that doesn’t diminish the emotions evoked by a moving piece of music. We can explain composition, tone, perspective, direction and depth but until we look in wonder at fine art we’ll never feel it. Examining the elements of a spiritual experience might actually help us to retain that sense though and it certainly helps us to share it with others.
One last thing. I learnt how to wiggle my ears from watching Stan Laurel do so in an old movie. I’m not very good at it in comparison but I still think it’s possible to learn. I also learnt how to flare my nostrils from an ex girlfriend.
Comment by: Mike O
3 08/21/08 6:44 PM | Comment Link |I’m not saying the Spirit of God is in atheists, I’m saying atheists (all people, in fact) have a spirit. And what I’m talking about is one way God shows himself (manifests His Spirit) in the physical world so people can see evidence of him.
I don’t think that’s the same as saying people have “the Spirit of God” in them. Kind of like the difference betwen radio waves and a radio - the radio can detect radio waves, but it doesn’t have radio waves.
I think what that verse is referring to is when men alligh their spirits with God’s spirit, that’s when you can say “God’s spirit is in them.”
Comment by: Mike O
4 08/21/08 6:57 PM | Comment Link |But Jason, I understand the value for that sense of connection and awe, but where did it come from? I’m saying it doesn’t have a physical, evolved source and that’s why I think it is spiritual (i’m not trying to convince you, just explain my position).
But wouldn’t you then say it wasn’t spiritual at all?
I still contend that you probably saw them do it, and then had to discover it for yourself. Did they give instructions?
Comment by: Jason
5 08/22/08 5:21 AM | Comment Link |I think we’re just arguing about semantics again. What is spiritual for one might be mundane for another. I’ve been profoundly moved at the sight of my partner sleeping and at my children (as babies) yawning. Are these mundane events spiritual or have I just attached an emotional response to them?
Looking upon the full moon on a clear night I have felt a deep, almost physical connection to every other being on the planet who looks up at the same lifeless piece of rock. If this a primitive function of the evolved brain that seeks patterns in things as a survival trait or is there something more powerful at work here?
Whether it is simply axons firing in my hindbrain, a learned response, some kind of evolutionary memory remnant, a glimpse of the heavens or something unknown does it diminish the event? Sometimes I think that attributing a spiritual experience to God (or to evolution) actually makes it less inspiring.
Comment by: Mike O
6 08/22/08 7:49 AM | Comment Link |But doesn’t it make you wonder how “feelings” could have evolved? To me, there has to be something else and I’m trying to figure out how it works.
Christians are rightly maligned for our inability to consider science that countradicts our beliefs. What I’m seeing here is interestingly similar … people who are unable to consider faith when looking at evidence that contradicts their belief belief.
How does that jive with the search for truth piece you just wrote? it’s almost like the pursuit of “how” is what drives science as long as it doesn’t contradict the base assumption that there is no spiritual. What if that assumption is wrong?
Comment by: Jason
7 08/22/08 1:05 PM | Comment Link |Emotions have biological causes. Every animal has a basic set of responses to certain situations, the fight or flight response is one, fear or anger. Our highly developed brains and better communication skills allow us to express the range of our emotions better.
I wouldn’t say that we atheists fail to consider faith, rather we look first to natural explanations to determine the truth of something. Our feeble little brains are overloaded with chemical impulses and hormonal responses, our brains fire erratically and sporadically for all kinds of unexplained reasons. I’d rather seek out those reasons than assume some divine spark.
I can see why you’d want a divine cause. I imagine that it is comforting to have that trust but the skeptic in me says that the trust might be misplaced. The only way to tell is to explore all the natural explanations first and reject those that don’t fit.
I love questions like this. In science there are methods to reduce the bias of the investigator so that our assumptions don’t interfere with the investigation. That’s not to say that sometimes science doesn’t get it wrong, it surely does. In that situation we should always reassess the evidence to change our idea. We fall back on evidence again and the supernatural is cannot have evidence or it wouldn’t be super, it’d be natural.
Comment by: Ir (Helen)
8 08/24/08 5:22 PM | Comment Link |I don’t argue with Christians who say certain experiences are spiritual, but speaking for myself I’m satisfied with the explanation that they are emotional. And I don’t have more problems with the idea that emotions evolved than the idea that anything else did.
So, I don’t have a reason to look ‘beyond’ those things.
Comment by: Mike O
9 08/24/08 9:09 PM | Comment Link |It is not my goal to convince anyone of anything. My goal is simply to help atheists see that Christians don’t believe like we do simply by closing our eyes and hoping. There is actual logic and reason that goes into it for many of us, including myself.
What I would like to see come out of exchanges like this is when your kids come to you and say, “Daddy, why do Christians believe in God?” you can give them a well-informed answer. You don’t have to believe me to explain how I think that there is evidence for God, and what that evidence is.
I do the same in defense of atheists all the time. I don’t agree with you, but I try to understand you.
Just today I was in a conversation with some friends at church and they were telling me why athiests don’t believe in God. And let’s just say that they didn’t understand. They have all the stereotypical explanations (you don’t want to believe, you really believe but can’t accept, whatever). But none of them seem to understand that you simply don’t believe.
All I ask is that you take the time to understand our position. emotions, life, that sense of awe are all good reasons to believe in God. You don’t see it that way - OK. That doesn’t change the fact that this is one piece of evidence Christians have for the necessity of there being a God. Frankly, from our perspective, the thought of there *not* being a God is unfathomable. And it’s more than “I believe because that’s what daddy taught me.” It’s *really* what makes the most sense to a LOT of people, Christian or not.
Comment by: Jason
10 08/25/08 12:39 AM | Comment Link |Well said Mike. When my kids pose the question of other people’s beliefs I prefer to invite them to discuss it. “What do you think?” is a wonderful question and better than a pat answer that they believe what they’ve been taught. There are still a few religious kids at school that they can use as examples of those who believe.
Unfortunately they tend to focus of the differences between them rather than the commonalities.
Comment by: Connections
11 08/25/08 1:00 AM | Comment Link |[...] email.This message will automatically disappear after your 3rd visit.I want to try an experiment. Mike spoke about spirituality last week last week and about how it is difficult to explain and understand. I see spirituality as a [...]