Spirituality for the Skeptic (Robert C. Solomon)
OVERVIEW
“. . . let me begin with a confession of sorts. I have never understood spirituality. Or rather, I never paid much attention to it. When the subject was introduced, I made a convenient excuse to leave, perhaps expressing myself inwardly with a muted groan, expecting what followed to be platitudinous if not nonsense . . . But between my disgust for self-righteous hypocrisy and my disdain for mindless New Age platitudes, I mistakenly rejected what I now see as an essential dimension of life. Spirituality can be severed from both vicious sectarianism and thoughtless banalities. Spirituality, I have come to see, is nothing less than the thoughtful love of life.”
This is what Robert C. Solomon argues is naturalized spirituality, explored in his book “Spirituality for the Skeptic.” Naturalized spirituality requires no belief in a soul, fate, afterlife, or any supernatural entities. This type of spiritualty doesn’t contradict science – it’s not mystical or irrational. It is simply: the thoughtful love of life, which includes self-expansion, active engagement, and gratitude.
Naturalized spirituality (“Spirituality”) is self-expansion. It’s living beyond yourself and belonging to the world beyond yourself– to the people you love, the community you serve, the planet you inhabit. It calls us to turn to those perennial philosophical questions about meaning, death, and our place in the world. This self-expansion is a loving interconnectedness, an inspiration to compassion and harmony, a larger sense of life. In this way, Spirituality isn’t about belief, it’s about belonging.
Spirituality is also a way of living, an active engagement with the world. Spirituality is passion and passion for life – it’s love, reverence, and trust – embracing affections and a respect for life that calls us to action. Spirituality is wild enthusiasm for living. It’s overflowing engagement with the world.
The last thing to say about Spirituality is that it’s a profound gratitude and appreciation for all the good in our lives. In a naturalized world there is no place for fate or destiny, but we can be thankful (even if there’s no supernatural entity to be thankful toward). Solomon says that life, in the final analysis, is a gift that none of us deserves. But, it is a gift that can be earned, and for that reason we should feel not just a happy acceptance, but gratitude for life itself.
That, in a nutshell, is Solomon’s conception of Spirituality, the thoughtful love of life. And to strive for it is natural. It’s not otherworldly… we’re not expanding the self into some mystical dimension. There’s nothing metaphysical or transcendental about active engagement in the world – nothing irrational about loving life, loving others, and embracing nature.
WHAT NOW? (actions for mortal atheists)
If you’re interested in the topic of secular spirituality, read Sam Harris’s “Waking Up – A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion,” which aligns with Solomon on the aspect of self-expansion, but then diverges down a different path. For Harris, secular spirituality is about cutting through the illusion of the self.
IN SUM:
Is this book entirely secular? Yes (though religious sympathies make frequent appearances).
If I had to describe the book in one sentence? How to divorce spirituality from supernatural interests.
Who should read this book? Nonsectarian folks looking to reclaim spirituality.
Other books by Robert C. Solomon reviewed for the blog include “Death and Philosophy”