Atheist Meditations

Had a conversation today that helped my mindfire grow beyond kindling with the topic of the soul. Most if the major species of monotheistic religion posit the existence of an immortal soul as an article of faith. Engaging Descartes, our existence is divided into two completely separate spheres. The realm of the body, the material world; our skeletal system, tables, computers, beer. The world of moving bodies, opposite and equal reactions, starvation and fat. On the other side be the realm of the soul, the inner world of the spirit. To this nebulous region experiences such as emotions and spirituality reside. If you believe that your soul lives on in heaven or some other afterlife, that 'soul' becomes the reference point for all that the tensions, desires, fears, - in short it becomes shorthand for you, all the characteristics that one references when they contemplate selfhood.

Now I'm certain that many enlightened (no, not enlightened . . . edjemicated ) are already assailing Cartesian Dualism with either Skinner's Behaviorism or a recently released study on neuroscience. For this entry, however, I'd like to run off into another tangent.

To most theists, when they discuss the soul they are thinking on some level about the things they treasure about themselves - the things that make them unique. Parts of themselves that they anticipate will be with them in the 'next life.' Skill at pool, a fascination with astronomy, a way with the ladies, traits that will continue to define them once they have left this body behind. Uncle Fritz just wouldn't be Uncle Fritz if he didn't have that goofy sense of humor in heaven. In heaven you're you, just without the material body. What is not flesh, muscle, or bone falls into the region of the soul. Hairs could be split, but the soul is the self.

So let's ponder the soul for a few moments. Do Atheists have a soul? If we don't believe in Gawd can we believe in a soul?

A rudimentary definition of the soul: the unique parts of a sentient being that engages the spiritual.

What is the spiritual? Those drives and impulses in a human being that lure and urge some of our kind to act in ways that transcend the mundane. I'm not prepared to define spiritual (especially after just leaving the May Day festivities this afternoon) , like the famous quote regarding pornography - 'I know it when I see it.' The swelling in a heart that makes one stand up to tyranny despite threat of death, that impetus be spiritual. The decision to take in an orphan when one's own children have an uncertain enough future as it is, that choice was motivated by something beyond an instinct for survival. Somewhere between sheer irrationality and cold, cold rationality; spirituality inspires some to seek a better world.

The tolerant accept that this spirituality can be found in many places. It might be hardwired into our brains. The intolerant see spirituality as exclusive to their cultish belief system. The intolerant must be purged.

With this pair of terms crudely delineated, I do not support my Atheist brothers and sisters who would throw away the realms of the soul and spirituality.

Just because we refuse to labotomize ourselves into sheep so that megalomaniacs can shamelessly exploit us, does not mean that we have forsaken all the subtle wonders of life that lift sentient beings above poultry.

I happen to agree with many that empathy supports most of what our species considers to be morality. I've always felt I was a rather empathic individual, it is the feeling of others emotions. When others are suffering, I suffer. When others are truly joyful, I am often joyful. I will choose actions that affect others' emotions because often I can feel them too. An interesting motive in a society whose 'capitalism' supposedly has elevated 'acting in one's self interest' to the primary virtue.

Faith also belongs in the real of the spiritual. To the ignorant evags who think that faith and Atheist are anathema I say read S.K's Fear and Trembling. I have and understand faith. The evag has been too damaged intellectually to comprehend the true Virtue. They are the blindmen being lead by the elephant's tail.

I think that we are born with a genetic blue-print that will create an organism with a huge mass of cleverly connected neural cells. Each of us possess processing power that dwarfs every computer on earth working together by a few exponential steps. Within that almost incomprehensible processing machine the capacity for self-awareness began. Within that self-awareness an awareness of others and our own certain mortality also springs forth. These realizations of self allow for the development of the characteristics that have been short-handed into the soul.

I don't believe that we are all born with a soul, but as humans we are all born with the potential for a soul. I'd say most kids these days have devoted more time to developing a digital pet/mmorpg character than they have ever spent cultivating their soul.

I forgot how long one of my blogging sessions can last. I'll have to continue this at another time.

Labels: Spirituality, The Soul