Falls at Letchworth State Park in New York. iStockphoto hide caption
Falls at Letchworth State Park in New York.
"Where were you?" my beloved asked as I walked through the door caked in mud and sweat. "I was communing with my gods," I responded and proceeded to tell her about the exquisite hike I'd had that morning in New York's Letchworth State Park (the Grand Canyon of the East).
Earlier in the day, looking down the rim of a canyon cut over thousands of years by the Genesee River, I felt a profound sense of awe that cut me to the quick. But in that sense of awe, was I communing with anything extending beyond just a particular state of my neurons? My joke about the gods aside, was there anything religious about the feeling I, an atheist, felt looking across that vast expanse of river, stone and still blue air?
During the last week we've been having a fascinating conversation here at 13.7 on exactly this topic of atheists and awe and science and religion.
Barbara King started us out using two books she'd recently finished to dispel the notion that atheists can't feel awe. She further argued that it's an experience that need have nothing to do with the "sacred" but can be a pure response to science's own unpacking of the world's richness. Then, Tania Lombrozo picked up the ball by looking at psychological research showing how the feeling of awe has two characteristics: an experience of vastness and the need for an accommodation with that experience. Both the religious and non-religious have this experience of vastness, she argued. The real difference between them arises with how the subsequent accommodation is accomplished.
Marcelo Gleiser then drew from the ancient Greeks to explore how reason could be a gateway to a profound sense of spirituality but only if that sense eschews mysticism. In this way, Marcelo argued we might "rid spirituality of its supernatural prison." Alva No finished the week taking a different path. In his meditation on the limits of rationality, he argued it's imperative to see meaning and value as real in and of itself, something perhaps rationality can't do.
I loved the insights in all of these posts and am thankful to my colleagues for pushing me in my own thinking. If there's one word I'd emphasize in my response to their discussions it would be this:
Experience. Experience. Experience.
OK, that was three words. But like my moment standing at the edge of Letchworth's deep cliffs, I believe that it's experience that should come first and foremost in our discussions of awe. In fact, it is exactly that emphasis on what happens in experience that makes awe a proper pivot point for deeper discussions of science and spirituality.
Read the original:
Is Atheist Awe A Religious Experience?
- Book Excerpt: One Song - November 7th, 2009 [November 7th, 2009]
- Book Review: The Mitten Tree - November 7th, 2009 [November 7th, 2009]
- Book Review: The Monkey with a Bright Blue Bottom - November 7th, 2009 [November 7th, 2009]
- Book Review: Mama, Will It Snow Tonight? - November 7th, 2009 [November 7th, 2009]
- Book Review: There's No Such Thing as Monsters! - November 7th, 2009 [November 7th, 2009]
- DVD Feature Film Review: Perestroika - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- DVD Feature Film Review: Nothing Like the Holidays - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Spiritual Literacy Blog: Must We Have Bad Music in Public Spaces? - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Book Excerpt: Angels and Dragons - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Book Excerpt: A Soul's Journey - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Book Review: A Book of Hours - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Book Excerpt: A Book of Hours - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Feature Film Review: Storm - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Feature Film Review: Skin - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Book Excerpt: The Anger Diet - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Newsletter: October 31, 2009: The Abbot Who Declared The Hall Is Finished - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Book Excerpt: Suffering and the Courage of God - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Book Excerpt: Life-Changing Affirmations - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- DVD Feature Film Review: The Answer Man - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- DVD Feature Film Review: The Dead - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Book Excerpt: Five Voices, Five Faiths - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- DVD Feature Film Review: Lemon Tree (Etz Limon) - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- DVD Documentary Film Review: Unmistaken Child - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- DVD Documentary Film Review: Food, Inc. - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Book Excerpt: The Workplace Revolution - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Book Excerpt: Journeys of Courage - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Feature Film Review: The Men Who Stare at Goats - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Book Excerpt: The Gift of Prayer - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Feature Film Review: That Evening Sun - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Feature Film Review: The Box - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Relax and Melt into a deep deep meditative state. - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Symptoms of Anxiety - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Nonduality And Spirituality---Enlightenment - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- How Not to Stop Anxiety Attacks---Part 1 - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Natural Treatment for Anxiety disorders--Antidote anxiety - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- What to do When Anxiety Attacks--Antidote Anxiety - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Spiritually charged metaphysical spiritual quote - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Release Technique & Non Duality& Law of attraction - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- NonDuality & Manifestation - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- All Is One, One is All !! - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Worrying about Anxiety---Antidote Anxiety - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Free course on Conquering Anxiety - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Manifesting Prosperity,Love manifesting,Dream Manifesting - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Stress and Anxiety Relief Treatment - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Stress and Anxiety Reduction with Brainwave entrainment - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- How to Remove feeling of Fear and Anxiety - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Relieve Stress:Financial Troubles, Low Self Esteem - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Meditation, Enlightenment & Paradox - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- False beliefs and Emotional Healing to develop emotional intelligence - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Millionaire Mind- Meditations Manifesting Abundance - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Three Essential requirements to learn Self Hypnosis Quickly - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Non duality and manifestation--Law of attraction - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Law of Attraction-- Manifesting Wealth Beyond Reason - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- The Secret Busted--- Flaws of the Secret. - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Book Excerpt: Web of Silence - December 12th, 2009 [December 12th, 2009]
- Living Spiritual Teachers Project: Byron Katie - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Feature Film Review: Before Tomorrow - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Book Excerpt: Sadhu Sundar Singh - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Spiritual Literacy Blog: We May Be Born with an Urge to Help - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Feature Film Review: Everybody's Fine - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Feature Film Review: Brothers - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Feature Film Review: Gigante - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Book Excerpt: When People Grieve - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Book Excerpt: The Light and Fire of the Baal Shem Tov - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Feature Film Review: The Last Station - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Feature Film Review: Up in the Air - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Book Excerpt: Learning to Pray - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Book Excerpt: Beyond Absence - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Book Excerpt: Ecology & Liberation - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Book Feature: The Best Spiritual Books of 2009 (So Far) - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- DVD Feature Film Review: Julie & Julia - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- DVD Documentary Film Review: The Cove - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- DVD Feature Film Review: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Book Review: Spirit of Service - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Book Excerpt: Spirit of Service - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Book Review: The Wolf at Twilight - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Book Excerpt: The Wolf at Twilight - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Book Review: Memories of Muhammad - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Book Excerpt: Memories of Muhammad - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Book Excerpt: Humility Matters for Practicing The Spiritual Life - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]