God and Existence
Spirituality is most often associated with theism, so much that it seems impossible, even for atheists, to imagine a form of rational spirituality. But it is pretty obvious that theism is an empty proposal. Even in the golden age of Christianity, theologians were quite aware that the word "god" was a meaningless, infinite construct.
It is a powerful symbol, an empty shell filled with our aspirations or worship, just like any other overarching overseer. Freud seems to not have been too far off the map by saying that God was a father-figure. But because it invokes our highest emotions, however badly, it seems natural to associate it with spirituality - emotion, after all, is intricately associated with faith.
But not only does the notion of a god has nothing to do with reality, but it is not conductive to spirituality. The notion of gods, and their plans for mankind, is highly dissociative.
* It puts a consciousness as "leader" of reality, instead of a part of it.
* It separates everything in two "realms", the natural and the supernatural.
* It proposes the existence of disembodied consciousness, which puts the attribute of consciousness apart from all other material life.
* The idea of divine creation/intervention goes against the notion of natural law, and the uniformity of reality.
* The "divine plan" tends to set man's earthly life and his salvation against each other in terms of competing interests.
* The "divine plan" tends to separate people in saved and unsaved - those who believe in the god, and those who don't. This is said to have significant material repercussions.
And so on.
All these divisions are the consequence of trying to impose an overseer "god" on reality. In essence, while trying to divide reality in order to unify it, they ultimately destroy it. Any notion of unity which does not respect that unity, destroys itself. As Ayn Rand writes in Atlas Shrugged :
"They claim that they perceive a mode of being superior to your existence on this earth. (...) To exist is to possess identity. What identity are they able to give to their superior realm? They keep telling you what it is not, but never tell you what it is. All their identifications consist of negating: God is that which no human mind can know, they say — and proceed to demand that you consider it knowledge — God is non-man, heaven is non-earth, soul is non-body, virtue is non-profit, A is non-A, perception is non-sensory, knowledge is non-reason. Their definitions are not acts of defining, but of wiping out."
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