- 13 Mar 2014 07:20
#14375543
August 8th, 2019
This thread is, of course, open to even people who identify as atheists but have a spiritual aspect to it. By spiritual, I mean when one feels the greatness of existence, and the greatness of the Universe, and how good it is to be a living creature. Naturally, this spirituality in a religious person often makes them feel the greatness of God at this point.
I assume that my answer will be similar to a lot of others, but I will try to elaborate and be specific about this experience more.
Like most people, I get a spiritual feeling from nature; specifically, I feel it most intensely when I am in or on a lake. I was born and grew up for a time on an island in Lake Minnetonka, and I have so many memories connected to this lake and the various other lakes of my youth. I really love the woodlands that tend to grow around the lake, and I really love the water, and being near it; I feel particularly spiritual when it is dark or the sun is setting and I am on the lake.
I get a similar feeling when I am in the mountains of Korea -- whether I am at the top or on some other little stretch of it, looking down at the vastness of nature and sometimes the massive city of Seoul below.
What is interesting is I always notice that even when you are with people, when you are up there or by the lake, or by any natural beauty, there will always come a giant, pregnant pause in the conversation. You are even silent with everyone else; everyone is contented and at peace, and you almost feel like you are connecting with some aspect of eternity there... You feel in that moments the bliss of of just being alive and there.
If you gave me a choice between having a TV or spending each evening by the lake, or up in the mountain, to just sit and be there for 20-30 minutes... Of course, this would win every time.
I would also like to say that I feel spirituality sometimes while viewing a great piece of art; sometimes, I feel a certain spirituality when I drink alcohol with my good friends or family, too, and there is just that calm (yet thrilling) euphoria of being with your 'pack' so to speak. But none of this quite fully matches those moments with nature.
I wonder if some of the higher primates or some of the larger animals with greater menal capacity, like elephants, dolphins or whales, have similar moments. I could even see and imagine that life as a dolphin or life as a whale or elephant on some level, being entirely in tune with nature and living off the land, could potentially even have a greater spiritual euphoria, and perhaps the continuous pulse of nature could be felt, and a mere... tranquility, thrilling tranquility, of Existing.
I think it also might even make sense that religion was not given in this form to the people until our societies developed because, likewise, it is perhaps true that the earliest humans and even the Neanderthals or Cro-Magnons or hominids, had a far more spiritual existence in union with nature. And I wouldn't be surprised to hear that if you were to win the trust and prove oneself to the isolated tribal people, while they might have some practices even we could recognize as savage... There would be some intriguing underlying spirituality to mere existence that they can feel and experience more than ourselves.
I guess that is why I understand atheists who do, in practice, some nature worship.
I assume that my answer will be similar to a lot of others, but I will try to elaborate and be specific about this experience more.
Like most people, I get a spiritual feeling from nature; specifically, I feel it most intensely when I am in or on a lake. I was born and grew up for a time on an island in Lake Minnetonka, and I have so many memories connected to this lake and the various other lakes of my youth. I really love the woodlands that tend to grow around the lake, and I really love the water, and being near it; I feel particularly spiritual when it is dark or the sun is setting and I am on the lake.
I get a similar feeling when I am in the mountains of Korea -- whether I am at the top or on some other little stretch of it, looking down at the vastness of nature and sometimes the massive city of Seoul below.
What is interesting is I always notice that even when you are with people, when you are up there or by the lake, or by any natural beauty, there will always come a giant, pregnant pause in the conversation. You are even silent with everyone else; everyone is contented and at peace, and you almost feel like you are connecting with some aspect of eternity there... You feel in that moments the bliss of of just being alive and there.
If you gave me a choice between having a TV or spending each evening by the lake, or up in the mountain, to just sit and be there for 20-30 minutes... Of course, this would win every time.
I would also like to say that I feel spirituality sometimes while viewing a great piece of art; sometimes, I feel a certain spirituality when I drink alcohol with my good friends or family, too, and there is just that calm (yet thrilling) euphoria of being with your 'pack' so to speak. But none of this quite fully matches those moments with nature.
I wonder if some of the higher primates or some of the larger animals with greater menal capacity, like elephants, dolphins or whales, have similar moments. I could even see and imagine that life as a dolphin or life as a whale or elephant on some level, being entirely in tune with nature and living off the land, could potentially even have a greater spiritual euphoria, and perhaps the continuous pulse of nature could be felt, and a mere... tranquility, thrilling tranquility, of Existing.
I think it also might even make sense that religion was not given in this form to the people until our societies developed because, likewise, it is perhaps true that the earliest humans and even the Neanderthals or Cro-Magnons or hominids, had a far more spiritual existence in union with nature. And I wouldn't be surprised to hear that if you were to win the trust and prove oneself to the isolated tribal people, while they might have some practices even we could recognize as savage... There would be some intriguing underlying spirituality to mere existence that they can feel and experience more than ourselves.
I guess that is why I understand atheists who do, in practice, some nature worship.
August 8th, 2019
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