The Little Book of Athiest Spirituality

By Andre Comte-Sponville

Parental warning: Don't read if you don't want to know (I mean this as a literal warning to my parents!)

This book was a birthday gift from my friend, Conrad. (By the way, Conrad, I look forward to a conversation with you about this book over a cup of coffee or two!)

This book was mind blowing. Comte-Sponville's thinking is thorough yet open to his own potential error, true to himself yet aware of his own limitations, genuine in a way that is difficult for philosophers to muster. He seemed to love the exploration, understand the complexities and be unafraid of the controversies. Surely, to someone like Dawkins or Harris, his American counterparts writing about the problem of religion, even using the term "spirituality" is anathema. Comte-Sponville struggles with that as well but deals with it straight on, honestly and openly.

His discussion of morality was an important beginning, expressing clearly why atheism does not in any way break down the possibility for human morality. He then exposes his six reasons for being an atheist, a twist on the usual formula of refuting arguments for the existence of God. Once morality is on the table and religion is off the table, Compte-Sponville can freely explore the moments of transcendence we experience as human beings (moments of being moved by music, taking a great hike that connects you with nature, true friendship). This is where he delves into the content of this spirituality - immensity, silence, serenity, simplicity, unity (to name a few). Regardless of your opinion on the use of the term "atheist spirituality" his exploration of each of these experiences is refreshing, personally challenging and stimulates self-searching.

Woven throughout his discussions of "why atheism" and then into his spirituality section, he grapples with the reality of human suffering. All of my personal and academic life has centered around a search to understand what religious people call "the problem of evil." And what those who are afflicted with said "evil" (slavery, holocaust, rape, just to highlight a few) call suffering or their own personal story. I turn the reality of it over like a perplexing object and as much as I read, as much as I study, as much as I listen to painful stories I still can't make heads or tails of it. I always end up perplexed. Grasped viscerally by the horrific reality of human existence. I appreciated how attuned he was to the reality of human suffering.

I do think that redefining "spirituality" in the way he does is debatable. It is helpful if you are, as Compte-Sponville openly admits, interested in dialogue with believers. It is a twist that can lead to interesting dialogue. But what if any is the value in usurping that term for atheists otherwise? An interesting point to talk to with other non-believers. I think the book would have been just as good had he used an alternative, not as heavily loaded, word as "spirituality." At the same time, for me, it made the ideas compelling and challenging in another respect to not be afraid of the term simply because it has been largely used by religion.

There are so many, many quotes I could put here. I really hope these are a pleasant smorgasbord of what lies in wait for you, the potential reader of this fine philosophical yet extremely accessible book.

"Horror is numberless, with or without God. Alas this tells us more about humanity than it does about religion." Pg 76

"The existence of being is intrinsically mysterious. This is what needs to be understood - this, and the fact that the mystery is irreducible. Not because it is impenetrable but (on the contrary) because we are inside it. Not because it is too dark, but because it is light itself." Pg 86

"Despite its suggestiveness, the analogy [the watch in the field as an indicator that there is a watch maker-my addition] has a number of weaknesses. Firstly, it is only an analogy; the universe is clearly not made up of springs and gears. Secondly . . it makes short shrift of the countless examples of disorder, horror and dysfunction in the universe. A cancerous tumor can also be described as a kind of clock (as in a time bomb); an earthquake, if we wish to prolong the clockwork metaphor, would be something like a planetary buzzer or alarm. Does this prove that tumors and cataclysms are all part of an intelligent, benevolent design? Thirdly and most importantly, the analogy advanced by Voltaire and Rousseau is out of date. Its model (like eighteenth century physicis) is mechanical, whereas nature as described by contemporary science has more to do with dynamics (being is energy), randomness (Nature plays dice - this is just what distinguishes it from God) and general entropy (what would we think of a clock that tended toward maximal disorder?)." Pg 88 - 89

"Finally and most important, in human beings the idea of the infinite is a finite idea, just as the idea of perfection is an imperfect one." Pg 92

"If the absolute is unknowable, what right do we have to believe that it is God?" Pg 105

"Life is too difficult, humanity too weak, pain too frequent or atrocious, chance too unfair and haphazard for us to be able to believe that so imperfect a world is of divine origin!" Pg 111 (I love this quote!)

In regards to humans: "The more I get to know them the less I can believe in God. Let's say I don't have a sufficiently lofty conception for humanity in general or myself in particular to believe that a God could be at the origin of this species and this individual. Everywhere I look, there is too much mediocrity, too much pettiness, too much of what Montaigne called nothingness or vanity - "of all the vanities, the vainest is man!" What a poor result for omnipotence! Some will object that God may have done better elsewhere. Well, perhaps he has. Is that any reason to be satisfied with such a lousy job here? What would you think of an artist who, on the pretext that he has produced masterpieces for other people, would saddle you with his trash?" Pg 119

"Were we copies of God we would be either ridiculous or terrifying." Pg 120

"A religion of man? Definitely not. What a sorry god man would make! Humanism is not a religion; it is an ethics. Man is not our God; he is our neighbor. . . Ours is an illusionless humanism that cares about protecting our species, especially from itself. We must forgive humanity, and ourselves, for being what we are - neither angels nor beasts . . . neither slaves nor supermen." Pg 120 - 121

I love this whole section on "Desire and Illusion":
""What do we wish for more than anything else? Leaving aside our base or vulgar desires, which have no need of God to be fulfilled, what we wish for most is: firstly, not to die, at least not completely, not irreversibly; secondly, to be reunited with the loved ones we have lost; thirdly, for justice and peace to triumph; finally and perhaps most importantly, to be loved. Now, what does religion tell us . . .That we shall not die, or not really; that we shall rise from the dead and thus be reunited with the loved ones we have lost; that justice and peace will prevail in the end; and, finally, that we are already the object of an infinite love. Who could ask for more? No one, of course! This is what makes religion so very suspicious: As the saying goes, it is too good to be true!. . . .God is too desirable to be true; religion is too reassuring to be credible." Pg 125

"To be deluded is to believe that something is true because one wants it to be true." Pg 129

"God is too incomprehensible, from a metaphysical point of view, not to be dubious (if you don't understand something, how can you know whether it is God or chimera?); religion is too comprehensible, from an anthropological point of view, not to be suspicious." Pg 129

"Not believing in God does not prevent me from having a spirit, nor does it exempt me from having to use it . . . The spirit is not a substance. Rather it is a function, a capacity, an act (the act of thinking, willing, imagining, making wisecracks . . . ) and this act, at least, is irrefutable, since nothing can be refuted without it." Pg 135

(Contrast this with the theologian that dubbed God as verb, God is not a noun or a being but is in the act of connecting, the act of friendship, the act of serving homeless people, the act of goodness).

"All our speeches are about this, which itself is not speech. Not the Word, but silence. Not meaning, but being. This is the field of spirituality or mysticism, when they break free of religion. Being is mystery, not because it is hidden or because it hides something but, on the contrary, because self-evidence and mystery are the same thing, because the mystery is being itself." Pg.143

"When I contemplate immensity, the ego seems laughable." Pg 149

"Spiritual life . . is the life of the spirit - but only . . . inasmuch as we can break free, at least partially and occasionally [moments] from what Kant called 'our precious little selves,' our precious little fears, resentments, self-interest, anxieties, worries frustrations, hopes, compromises and conceits. Is it a matter of 'dying to oneself'? The expression recurs in the writing of many mystics. . . however it puts too much emphasis on the death wish. Rather, I would say that it is a matter of living more - of living at last, rather than hoping to live - and, in order to do so, leaving oneself up behind as much as possible: not dying to oneself, therefore, but opening oneself up to life, to reality, to everything." Pg 200

Personal aside: This book was my first ability to accept the term atheist for myself instead of agnostic. He makes a very good, entertaining and spirited argument that agnostic is simply a term used to provide smoke and mirrors in order to avoid the controversial label "atheist." If you really believe "there are mysteries or spirit, but no old man with a beard roaming in the sky deciding our fate" then why not just use the term atheist?

Book 30