Attacking the rainbow
My first contest on this column was about secular spirituality. Unfortunately, I did not get any appropriate response. It seems that most readers associate spirituality with religion, and for good reason. However, there is such a thing as an atheistic, veridical, spirituality. Many people live their lives in accordance with reality, and such behaviour will always exist.
One cannot deny that there is a need for spirituality. To witness, the teeming masses of people who, without being temporarily vulnerable to exterior influences, still search for meaning in their lives. The ontological "malaise" left by the diminution of religion's influence has spawned a whole lot of new spiritual belief systems : "new religions", "new age", egotheism, cults, denial philosophies. In a sense, any ideology can be modified to suit this search.
Because of the God Module, whatever form spirituality takes, it must exist and will always exist for as long as human nature remains untouched. However, people cope with this problem in various ways. The most visible effect of this search are belief systems. They propose to answer the question of man's existence, the purpose of his life, and his destiny.
The word "spirituality" primarily refers to that which pretains to spirits and souls : in that sense, the term is an abstraction, and refers to nothing in reality. There are no spirits, souls, or other disembodied consciousness. However, "spirituality" also refers to the highest capacities of the mind, in all respects (perhaps as an adaptation of the first definition). To my sense, the general meaning of secular spirituality as we use it today is a reference to the highest emotions that we experience, be they come from science, esthetics, personal relationships, or others. However, this spirituality is usually considered as mundane : but I contend that it is because it remains unexamined. Atheists do not usually tend to desire to search for spirituality.
Our most powerful emotions often involve the sense of wonder and awe. Richard Dawkins, the famous evolutionist, wrote a book called "Unweaving the Rainbow", refuting the religionist claims that science is destroying the sense of wonder. Dawkins was answering to Keats' claim that Newton, by decomposing the rainbow to its primary colours, had "unweaved the rainbow" and thereby made it lost its wonder. Furthermore, science is usually claimed to demystify, and therefore make mundane, reality.
Actually, a few days ago, I was the happy witness to a rainbow near my apartment. You know, I was on the way back and I saw this wonderful rainbow in the sky. I thought that was absolutely incredible. I felt a deep sense of awe at the wonders of nature. Did I feel any less impressed because I knew the rainbow was caused by the refraction of light thru falling rain-drops ? No, quite the contrary. The mere fact that rain-drops reflect light in such a way that it creates (to our eye) arcs of colour is amazing.
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