Skip to main content

How to Be Spiritual without Religion, Faith, or God

By Tim Sledge ~

Today, the only way I can see religious faith is through a rear-view mirror. I don't think any God is listening to any of us or is involved in our lives in any personal way.

In Goodbye Jesus: An Evangelical Preacher’s Journey Beyond Faith, I shared my story of five decades of up-close involvement with churches, Christians, and ministers. I wrote of what it felt like to be a committed believer and a productive pastor. I did my best to journal my struggles and failures along with my accomplishments. But the heart of the story was my journey out of faith.

The breaking point occurred when I decided that no supernatural source was needed to explain the way of life I had witnessed for decades in one church after another. It all made more sense when I understood that church—as impressive as it could be at times—is just one more human organization. The end of my faith was not far behind.

It might seem surprising, but when my faith ended, I did not stop wanting to be spiritual. I just didn’t think it was possible.

Spirituality, in all the forms I’d known, focuses on things that are beyond the physical realm and beyond normal perception—invisible entities like God, Satan, heaven, hell, and the soul. And faith—not reason—is required to see this spiritual realm.

I would come up with my own concept of spirituality.With my new commitment to reason as the basis for my beliefs, I could no longer regard faith as a way to see anything. And since faith and spirituality seemed inseparable, I could not imagine how someone like me could be spiritual anymore.

Author David Richo enlightened me. I wasn’t looking for a new spirituality paradigm when I read his book, How to Be an Adult in Relationships, but that’s what I found.

Richo describes himself as “a psychotherapist on a Buddhist path,” and argues that the same attitudes and actions that enable the highest level of human relationships are also the keys to spirituality.

Richo’s presentation of spirituality was different enough from my former Christian view that I could relate. And while he pointed to a connection with some larger spiritual force, I felt no pressure to adopt this aspect of his teachings.

The important thing was that Richo’s approach gave me hope that I could still be a spiritual person—though in some different way than I had previously imagined. This realization became a launching pad.

The next step was thinking for myself about what spirituality could look like for me—with no belief in God, no buying into any otherworldly concepts, and no credence for some cosmic vibration with which we should all try to be in sync.

You might wonder if my desire to find some workable form of spirituality in my faithless state is a holdover from my past dependence on religion—a sort of methadone to get me through spiritual detox.

I don’t think that’s the case.

Spirituality continues to intrigue me because I’m still interested in searching for the deepest truths and the highest values in life. I’m still interested in developing my inner life. And I still want to be challenged to be my best self.

After years of following teachings that claimed to be from God, but were actually human in their origins, I decided I would build my own substitute for religious faith.

Why not?

I would come up with my own concept of spirituality.

I just wouldn’t claim it was divinely inspired or related to some magical invisible world, or to some mysterious cosmic energy, or to any deity. And I wouldn’t promise eternal life, healing, or rebirth.

I decided to use the term “meta-spirituality” to identify my approach as beyond any conventional concept of spirituality. I’m not the first person to use this term, and I’m not the first to attempt to define what meta-spirituality looks like. This book is my contribution to a larger, emerging view of secular spirituality.

In the following pages, when I state what meta-spirituality is and isn’t, I’m sharing my own opinions. I am writing as one person attempting to redefine spirituality in a way that works for me and hopefully, in a manner that makes sense to others who are seeking to live a meaningful life without God, faith, or religion.

My version of meta-spirituality holds that no existing religion has revealed unmistakable truth about any supreme being. My meta-spirituality rejects the concept of a personal God who is watching over each of us and listening to our prayers. My meta-spirituality also rejects pseudo-scientific mumbo jumbo about connecting with the energy of the universe or getting on the same frequency as some cosmic tuning fork.

You may wonder why I do not abandon the concept of spirituality altogether, and simply pursue the attributes and experiences I seek without calling them spiritual in any way. There are two reasons I do not choose such a route.

First, I like the idea of reclaiming, renaming, and redefining the concept of spirituality. There’s something pleasing about the thought of being asked, “Are you a spiritual person?” and being able to reply, “No, I’m meta-spiritual.” This brings a smile to my face.

But it’s more than just giving a concise, thought-provoking description of my new way of living. This reclaiming, renaming, and redefining of spirituality has a higher purpose.

More and more individuals are moving away from religion and religious faith. The fastest growing category in religious preference surveys is “None.” This trend might lead us to assume that the topic of spirituality will become less and less relevant. But I don’t think that’s the case.

There are reasons to believe that many, if not most of us, have an innate interest in—perhaps even a need for—some kind of spirituality.

In this context, it makes sense to seek new options for how we can think of ourselves as spiritual, to redefine an old concept for a new era, and to consider what it can mean to be meta-spiritual.

-- Tim Sledge in
A Meta-Spiritual Handbook: How to Be Spiritual without Religion, Faith, or God © 2018 by Tim Sledge. All Rights Reserved. Used by permission.



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

So Just How Dumb Were Jesus’ Disciples? The Resurrection, Part VII.

By Robert Conner ~ T he first mention of Jesus’ resurrection comes from a letter written by Paul of Tarsus. Paul appears to have had no interest whatsoever in the “historical” Jesus: “even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, we know him so no longer.” ( 2 Corinthians 5:16 ) Paul’s surviving letters never once mention any of Jesus’ many exorcisms and healings, the raising of Lazarus, or Jesus’ virgin birth, and barely allude to Jesus’ teaching. For Paul, Jesus only gets interesting after he’s dead, but even here Paul’s attention to detail is sketchy at best. For instance, Paul says Jesus “was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures” ( 1 Corinthians 15:4 ), but there are no scriptures that foretell the Jewish Messiah would at long last appear only to die at the hands of Gentiles, much less that the Messiah would then be raised from the dead after three days. After his miraculous conversion on the road to Damascus—an event Paul never mentions in his lette

Are You an Atheist Success Story?

By Avangelism Project ~ F acts don’t spread. Stories do. It’s how (good) marketing works, it’s how elections (unfortunately) are won and lost, and it’s how (all) religion spreads. Proselytization isn’t accomplished with better arguments. It’s accomplished with better stories and it’s time we atheists catch up. It’s not like atheists don’t love a good story. Head over to the atheist reddit and take a look if you don’t believe me. We’re all over stories painting religion in a bad light. Nothing wrong with that, but we ignore the value of a story or a testimonial when we’re dealing with Christians. We can’t be so proud to argue the semantics of whether atheism is a belief or deconversion is actually proselytization. When we become more interested in defining our terms than in affecting people, we’ve relegated ourselves to irrelevance preferring to be smug in our minority, but semantically correct, nonbelief. Results Determine Reality The thing is when we opt to bury our

ACTS OF GOD

By David Andrew Dugle ~   S ettle down now children, here's the story from the Book of David called The Parable of the Bent Cross. In the land Southeast of Eden –  Eden, Minnesota that is – between two rivers called the Big Miami and the Little Miami, in the name of Saint Gertrude there was once built a church. Here next to it was also built a fine parochial school. The congregation thrived and after a multitude of years, a new, bigger church was erected, well made with clean straight lines and a high steeple topped with a tall, thin cross of gold. The faithful felt proud, but now very low was their money. Their Sunday offerings and school fees did not suffice. Anon, they decided to raise money in an unclean way. One fine summer day the faithful erected tents in the chariot lot between the two buildings. In the tents they set up all manner of games – ring toss, bingo, little mechanical racing horses and roulette wheels – then all who lived in the land between the two rivers we

Christian TV presenter reads out Star Wars plot as story of salvation

An email prankster tricked the host of a Christian TV show into reading out the plots of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air and Star Wars in the belief they were stories of personal salvation. The unsuspecting host read out most of the opening rap to The Fresh Prince, a 1990s US sitcom starring Will Smith , apparently unaware that it was not a genuine testimony of faith. The prankster had slightly adapted the lyrics but the references to a misspent youth playing basketball in West Philadelphia would have been instantly familiar to most viewers. The lines read out by the DJ included: "One day a couple of guys who were up to no good starting making trouble in my living area. I ended up getting into a fight, which terrified my mother." The presenter on Genesis TV , a British Christian channel, eventually realised that he was being pranked and cut the story short – only to move on to another spoof email based on the plot of the Star Wars films. It began: &quo

On Living Virtuously

By Webmdave ~  A s a Christian, living virtuously meant living in a manner that pleased God. Pleasing god (or living virtuously) was explained as: Praying for forgiveness for sins  Accepting Christ as Savior  Frequently reading the Bible  Memorizing Bible verses Being baptized (subject to church rules)  Attending church services  Partaking of the Lord’s Supper  Tithing  Resisting temptations to lie, steal, smoke, drink, party, have lustful thoughts, have sex (outside of marriage) masturbate, etc.  Boldly sharing the Gospel of Salvation with unbelievers The list of virtuous values and expectations grew over time. Once the initial foundational values were safely under the belt, “more virtues'' were introduced. Newer introductions included (among others) harsh condemnation of “worldly” music, homosexuality and abortion Eventually the list of values grew ponderous, and these ideals were not just personal for us Christians. These virtues were used to condemn and disrespect fro

I can fix ignorance; I can't fix stupid!

By Bob O ~ I 'm an atheist and a 52-year veteran of public education. I need not tell anyone the problems associated with having to "duck" the "Which church do you belong to?" with my students and their parents. Once told by a parent that they would rather have a queer for their sons' teacher than an atheist! Spent HOURS going to the restroom right when prayers were performed: before assemblies, sports banquets, "Christmas Programs", awards assemblies, etc... Told everyone that I had a bladder problem. And "yes" it was a copout to many of you, but the old adage (yes, it's religious) accept what you can't change, change that which you can and accept the strength to know the difference! No need arguing that which you will never change. Enough of that. What I'd like to impart is my simple family chemistry. My wife is a Baptist - raised in a Baptist Orphanage (whole stories there) and is a believer. She did not know my religi