Spirituality for the Skeptic is an interesting little book by Robert Solomon defending what he calls a naturalistic spirituality (spirituality for the atheist). I took lots and lots of notes for future reference…

Naturalized spirituality is the thoughtful love of life and is based on these presumptions:

1. the idea that spirituality has a lot to do with thoughtfulness;
2. that spirituality is not at odds with science but in cahoots with it;
3. that spirituality is by no means limited to religion much less sectarian, authoritarian religion.

Solomon grew up with a nominal affiliation to Judaism in a Protestant neighborhood so always saw religion as a hateful threat. But over the years, he became increasingly frustrated that the notion of spirituality had been hijacked by organized religion, New Age eccentrics and divisive sectarian. Instead of being thoughtful, it had become associated with something mindless. For Solomon, spirituality is what philosophy (the love of wisdom) is all about. If spirituality means anything at all, it means thoughtfulness. The self is a process and spirituality is the process of transforming the self, not an abandonment of the self.

Spirit is social. It represents our sense of participation and membership in a humanity and world much larger than our individual selves. The spiritual world is “here”. We are Spirit. The spirit is in us when we have drunk our lives to the fullest. Spirituality is all-embracing, including much (if not all) of Nature and the natural world. It is the passionate sense of self-awareness in which the very distinction between selfishness and selflessness disappears. Spirituality and wisdom are one and the same. (”Science is the organization of knowledge, but wisdom is the organization of life.” Kant)

The meaning of life is life itself. Life’s purpose is not the pursuit of some further life. Nor is life the meaningless struggle for survival and existence lamented by particularly sourpuss Darwinians and pessimists like Arthur Schopenhauer. For Nietzsche, the larger purpose was the transcendence (self-overcoming) of the individual in the realization of higher goals and ideals. Rather than thinking in terms of transcending life, think in terms of transcending ourselves in life. Life is an ongoing work of art.

Without spirituality, philosophy is nothing but tantalizing puzzles alienated from its larger audience and devoid of personal feeling. Philosophy, like theology, needs to regain some of the personal charm of myth and mythology.

Spirituality is neither rational nor emotional but both at once, both Apollonian and Dionysian (as Nietzsche puts it). Spirituality is living beyond oneself, discovering a larger self or the “no self”. What opposes spirituality is not naturalism or secularism. It is petty egoism, vanity and vulgarity. Philosophy becomes spirituality when it learns how to listen.

Reverence, trust and love are the very essence of spirituality. To be awe-struck is to be paralyzed. To be reverent is to be moved to action. Reverence is not an awareness of one’s insignificance. It is the contrary. To be responsible is to be significant. The opposite of reverence is hubris. Reverence is a kind of confidence in our limited powers and our ability to use them wisely.

The guiding metaphor of Nietzsche’s spirituality is overflowing. The more one has to struggle to give, the less virtuous one is. Nietzsche, like Aristotle, insists that the performance of virtues is always pleasurable. Too often we think of forgiveness as a sort of personal sacrifice. But for Nietzsche, forgiveness is likewise a sort of overflowing. It’s not a sacrifice at all.

If our trust is based on entitlement, it isn’t trust at all. The opposite of trust is distrust and alienation. Trust is a way of being in the world. It is a stance to conceive of the world as trustworthy. Trust includes the acceptance of a lack of control and the acceptance of one’s own vulnerability. (It is well-confirmed in the social science literature that people who have a more accurate estimate of the likelihood of failure and betrayal do far worse than people who are overly optimistic.)

Authentic trust is a wizened confidence in the world and one’s role in it. It is not simply trust or naive trust that has been unchallenged or untested. And it is not stubborn trust. It is trust that has been reflected upon - distrust held in balance. To trust the world is to take responsibility for one’s role and actions, in part by acknowledging that the outcome is never wholly in one’s hands. Trust is something we do and for which we must take responsibility. Authentic trust is primarily concerned with the integrity of relationship, not with personal advantage.

Resentment reduces the world to our own impotence. This is the problem with Camus’ Sisyphus who slides from happy existentialism to shaking his fists at the gods. Nietzsche says however clever resentment may be (and there is no emotion more clever), from the point of view of living well, it is a stupid emotion. Forgiveness is the way beyond resentment. But to forgive thinking God will take care of the punishment is not forgiveness. That is doubly not to forgive. It’s like hiring a hit man to keep your own hands clean. Forgiveness is instrumental for spirituality. What we forgive is the fact that the world did not meet with our expectations. This was where Camus went wrong with Sisyphus. He had an unforgiving view of the world. To say, “I forgive you, world” is a surprisingly effective ritual.

Forgiving is not the same as forgetting. Forgetting involves denial. Forgiving is about putting the betrayal behind us but not out of mind. We forgive the world for the misfortunes it inevitably inflicts upon us. Spirituality is about moving on, not forgetting.

Emotions constitute the framework (or frameworks) of rationality itself. What is rational is what fits best into our emotional world. Rationality is not the defining structure of human experience, and emotions are not just reactions. Rationality is the product not only of thought but of caring, and although the emotions undoubtedly have an evolutionary history that precedes the arrival of the human species by hundreds of millions of years, they evolved not only along with but inseperably from the evolution of reason and rationality.

Aesthetic attitudes are essential to science at its best. Scientific experiments and mathematical formulas are celebrated as elegant and even beautiful. A conception of science that rejects such values as unscientific opposes itself to spirituality. This is not only contrary to the view of the very best scientists, but cold, corrupt, and self-defeating. But any form of spirituality that rejects science (but not scientism) is an impoverished quest.

Solomon wants to get away from Camus’ and Unamuno’s opposition of philosophy/reason with spirituality/faith and the mock-heroic stance of rebellion that is associated with this forced opposition. He agrees with Unamuno’s line on personal responsibility and the importance of personal commitment. We make meaning by way of our commitments. This suggests that by refusing to make such commitments we can avoid tragedy. But Solomon says the opposite is the case. It is by making meaning in life that we free ourselves from the meaninglessness of suffering. Tragedy is real and undeniable. Our lives are not entirely in our hands. Unamano is right, passion can never escape or eclipse our reason, but not for the reason he supposes. There is no passion without rationality. Camus is right, too. There is no viable alternative to the absurd confrontation between our rational, demanding minds and an indifferent universe. But confrontation can be turned into acceptance. We are even capable of embracing the opposition. Spirituality begins with that acceptance.

We tend to think we are entitled, but none of us is entitled to anything. We’re not even entitled to happiness (which is not to say happiness is not worth having - even the Declaration of Independence only says we are entitled to the pursuit of happiness, not happiness itself). That we expect fair play is what creates the problem of evil. This doesn’t require a belief in God or an after life. It’s the problem of evil that created Camus’ idea of “the Absurd” and Camus was an atheist. There is a problem of evil only for those who expect the world to be good.

In Western culture, blaming the victim is a long-standing, popular metaphysical and theological doctrine based on the idea of free will. It is important that we take responsibility for our own flaws and failures, but it is medieval to blame the victim. An example is illness - we have a medieval tendency to interpret all illness as a sign, a punishment or a payback. (The person didn’t eat right, was too fat, was living an indecent lifestyle, etc.) But sometimes people just get sick. It isn’t necessarily a punishment. The same is true of tragedy. Sometimes bad things just happen. Anyone who reduces tragedy to blame lacks wisdom.

It’s important that we don’t deny tragedy, but embrace it as an essential part of the life we love and for which we should be grateful. Spirituality at its best is a combination of gratitude and humor, a dash of that mock-heroic Camusian confrontation with the Absurd, and a passionate engagement with the details and the people in our lives. Suffering has meaning because life has meaning. We have no right to demand any more than this from the world.

Belief and acceptance of fate has to do with embracing a larger narrative in which one’s actions and fortunes have meaning and make sense of one’s life. Part of that meaning and making sense, an essential aspect of that acceptance, is our willingness to feel and show gratitude. Whenever we ask “Why me?” we should go one step further and ask, “Why is there a me at all?” We should feel gratitude for, if nothing else, life itself.

Death is not the ultimate tragedy. Nietzsche said the great virtue of the Greeks was their fatalistic acceptance of death and suffering as the ground of human existence. It was this acceptance that made him proclaim the Greeks were beautiful. (Those before Socrates and Plato, of course.) The belief in an afterlife, any afterlife, is a denial of death. Even if there is an afterlife, to wonder “What happens after death?” is no substitute for “What is death and how should I think about it?” To think that life after death answers our questions of death is just a denial of death, whatever it is that happens after death.

Death is not the focal point of our existence. We often hear that death is nothing because when we die, we no longer have sensual experience. But this is problematic because if we view life as suffering and pain, then death becomes a sought after release from life which is life. To think of death as nothing implies that life is nothing, too. The real question is this: “What is my death to me?” Ultimately, the meaning of death comes down to the meaning of life.

We fear death because it brings an end to our lives. But we can appreciate death insofar as we identify with the people around us, with our culture, with humanity and with life. To the extent to which we can do so, death is not the end at all so long as we do not cheapen our spirituality with the idea that as individuals we will in the end cheat death and gain some sort of eternal personal life.

The most important reason to “believe” in the soul is not the possibility of life continuing after death but rather the posibility of an essential transformation of the self during life. The self that is too caught up in its personal ambitions and interests isn’t the real self. It’s a deluded self - one that isn’t at peace with itself. It’s a mistake to say that this self should be sacrificed or replaced with another self. But it can be transformed through discipline and spirituality.