Transcription
The Atheist Debates Patreon Project presents: Spirituality is nonsense. And I mean that. I don't mean gibberish in the sense of like, "perglebergle manurglebergle," but nonsense. And I'm going to go through, uh, I'm, I'm going to reference some dictionaries. And as always, I'm going to say, uh, dictionaries are not authorities on meaning. They describe usage. Language is our tool to play with. And that's part of the problem is that it's very difficult to understand what some people mean by spiritual. And after 20-plus years of interacting with folks outside of religion, I still have no real good idea what most of them are talking about. And while I'm maybe not the most intelligent person any of you have ever seen or heard from, I'm a reasonably bright guy, and I spend a decent amount of time studying this.
So, what do I mean by nonsense? Well, if you go to a dictionary, it's one of the secondary definitions of nonsense are things of no importance or value. And definitely spirituality, uh, so far has no importance or value to me. And until someone clearly explains what it is, that it's real, and why it should be important to me, I don't see that changing. But that's a trivial objection, saying, "Oh, it's nonsense because I don't care about it." That's, that's not an objection, and that's not what I'm here to say. I'm going with the more primary, the more prominent usage of nonsense: words or language having no meaning or conveying no intelligible ideas; language, conduct, or an idea that is absurd or contrary to good sense; and an instance of absurd action. And since we're talking about something that doesn't convey intelligible ideas, it's worth knowing that by intelligent, we're talking about something that is capable of being understood or comprehended, that it is apprehensible to the intellect.
All right. So, let's look up how dictionaries describe the word spiritual or spirituality. Spirituality relates to the human search for meaning, purpose, and connection to the sacred, transcendent, or inner self, often independent of organized religions. Cool. I don't know that that told me anything. And that's kind of broad. I mean, spirituality relates to the search for meaning and purpose, connection to the sacred, the transcendent, or the inner self. We're going to get to all of those. Um, and spiritual is just of or relating to, consisting of, affecting the spirit, which, okay, we'd have to look into that. But it says of or relating to sacred matters; ecclesiastical rather than lay or temporal; spiritual authority concerned with religious values; related or joined in spirit; of or relating to supernatural beings or phenomena; of or relating to or involving spiritualism. I'm going to assume that most people actually aren't into spiritualism in the religion. And so we're probably talking about this search for meaning, purpose, connection to the sacred, uh, related to sacred matters. And, okay, cool. Let's take a look at those.
So, first, when it comes to a search for meaning or purpose, I see no reason to think that there is any intrinsic meaning or purpose in the universe. I know that freaks so much of you, so many of you out. I get it. And it's because you have had your mind polluted with an idea that there must be some intrinsic meaning or purpose, or else there is no meaning or purpose. No, no, that's not what I'm saying. There's plenty of imbued meaning and purpose. Things have value because there are minds that value them. "I want this." "I would prefer this to that." And that means that my preferred thing is of more value than this. But it's not a more value to the universe. The piece of cloth that my $1 bill is printed on has no less or more value to the universe than the piece of cloth that the $100 bill is printed on. But they're a very different value to people who are exchanging them back and forth. If you see a penny, uh, you probably would, most people would just ignore it. And that's probably why there's this like, "Find a penny, pick it up, and all the day you'll have good luck" thing to kind of teach you something about value. But if you saw a silver dollar laying on the ground, you might not leave that there. If you saw a $100 bill, you're probably not going to leave that there. Things have value, but they're because we imbue them with value, not because they have any intrinsic value. Gold has no more intrinsic value to the universe than salt. And people used to get paid in salt, by the way. So that's where the term salary comes from. So if there is a search for intrinsic meaning or purpose, fine, you can go out and find that. But I see no reason to think there's any likelihood that there could be an intrinsic, uh, meaning or purpose, or that you're going to find anything, or it's going to change anything about what we actually value.
The next thing to talk about is the connection to the sacred. Once again, sorry, not sorry. I see no reason to think that there is anything sacred in any real sense, in any sort of obligatory sense. Though I agree that we can certainly treat things as if they were sacred. Like I treat truth and liberty as if they are sacred. It's the closest thing to what other people might mean by sacred. I put those there. Are they actually sacred? No. It's sacred to me and sacred to the other people who agree. They're still, this is just like value. There is a mind, and this is of highest value, is a, is sort of the exaggerated. That's why we say sacred. This is of the highest value. It's a bit of hyperbole.
Similarly, uh, there's this notion about seeking a connection to the transcendent. What does transcendent mean? It means exceeding the usual limits, beyond the limits of ordinary experience. But like, what overwhelmingly I find that every time I hear that was transcendent, it is mere hyperbole. In the same way that sacred is hyperbole for valuable, transcendent is a per, is hyperbole for neat. Like, one of my pet peeves is that the word unique means one of a kind. And to borrow from The West Wing, something can't be very unique. I know it's a silly pet peeve. I try not to get too upset about it. Um, but something cannot be very unique. But that doesn't stop people from using the term very unique. It hurts me to say that, just like it hurts me to say nuclear instead of nuclear. But people use the phrase very unique, but what they're doing is they're engaged in hyperbole. They're exaggerating for emphasis. And I love poetry and language enough that I can forgive it. But it still kind of pokes that little thing in the back of my brain like, that's wrong. But nothing about something that is unique. Nothing makes it more unique, very unique, especially unique. Transcendent just means beyond the ordinary. And that is contingent on what your ordinary is. If you hear a new style of music that is different from anything you've ever heard, it would be very easy to describe that as transcendent because it transcends your ordinary. But to somebody else, that is their ordinary. To somebody else, it's banal, tedious. This is why when music trends shift, when the Beatles show up and they go and they get Indian influences of instruments that people in the West aren't used to hearing and styles and time signatures that people aren't used to seeing, they incorporate into that music, that stuff into their music, and all of a sudden it becomes transcendent. But that doesn't mean there's something that's actually transcendent. So, once again, it's hyperbole of, this is really cool.
What about a connection to the inner self? What inner self are we talking about? I don't see any reason to think there's a soul. And I see plenty of good reasons to be extremely confident that there is no such thing as a soul. But at best, at my most charitable, I would argue that this is probably more about aspects of your personality that you aren't aware of or didn't grasp. And that's just because our psychology is complicated, complex, and we are not always able to grasp who we are and what we think and why we think and why we do these things. And that's why we need assistance. This is why psychology is important. This is why something like the secular therapy project is important because that is science-based exploration of what's going on in your head to help you with issues. This is why therapy and counseling are important. Uh, I, I, I didn't ever used to go. I have a therapist now, and, you know, I'm getting, there are certain things that I experienced anxiety about and had no idea I was even engaged in experiencing anxiety because the description of anxiety I got from others was different than that. I don't, I'm never like, very rarely would I get like, catatonic in anxiety, but teaching me to be mindful and engage in, in looking at how and why I respond to things in different ways and how I can go about potentially altering those. That's important. That's, that's, is it, is it physics? Is it chemistry? No. It's a softer science, but it is about something identifiably real, demonstrable, and coming up with the tools to deal with it. By the way, secular therapy project, highly recommended. I, I support recovering from religion.org and seculartherapy.org. If you need assistance, by all means, go there, and you won't, whether you're religious or not, if you go to seculartherapy.org, you will get, uh, recommendations of therapists who are using science-based, reason-based, evidence-based treatments instead of offering you pseudoscience and religion.
And it says in the definition that it can be often independent of organized religion. We'll get back to that. Uh, because it definitely says organized religion, but it also implies that it's somewhat about religion, that it affects the soul or the spirit, which I don't think is real. Um, but I'm fine with a poetic spirit, like our spirit of adventure, our spirit of inquiry. Um, those are fine. Metaphors and poetry, great. It's our best way to describe what's in there. But it's when you take those things and try to make them literal that you lose me.
Now, if you have a different definition of spirituality, then first, um, sorry, yours wasn't sufficiently popular to make it into the dictionary that describes popular usage. So, you have a particularly esoteric use of spirituality. I'm happy to hear yours and let you try to defend that, whether you're religious or not. Uh, tell me what it is. Demonstrate that what you're referring to is real, and show me that, uh, it is deserving of pursuit of reference or reverence. Sorry.
There are people who say that they are spiritual but not religious. There are people who say they are engaged in non-religious spirituality, and there are people who say they are involved in nononsense spirituality. Um, and then there's plenty of other labels. To me, the first thing you've got to do is tell me what it is that you're studying. What do you mean by spirituality? What are you striving to grasp or teach? And how can we be confident that it's real and not just a, a construct, an expression of hyperbole for something that isn't there but you wish was there? Because I'm convinced that we're speaking about people who don't like organized religions, or found their way out of an organized religion, or found that the organized religion lied to them, but they miss the community, or they miss the mystery, or they miss the feeling of, uh, there was some kind of feeling there. I stood in church, I felt goosebumps, I felt elated. I felt like I was filled with the spirit because that's what people around me would say. The experience that I had is real, psychologically real. It is triggerable by all kinds of things. It doesn't mean there's a spirit or a soul. It doesn't mean there's not. But there are people who miss that and who want to find a way to not just experience that again, but to potentially understand it.
There are other people who miss the, "Tell me what to do because I don't want to have to think for myself." That is a, it's not me, but that is definitely, um, a contingent of the population would rather have someone just instruct them. This is why we get gurus and life coaches and things like that. So those people will latch on to spiritual or spirituality because it is sufficiently ill-defined as to be largely immune from criticism. It is devoid of testable, identifiable content. It is nonsense. Spiritual and spirituality, as far as I can tell, and, and we'll get to the point where you can prove me wrong, is nonsense. It does not contain any clear, identifiable, testable, real proposition. It is hyperbole and poetic wishful thinking. It is an unfalsifiable proposal that operates almost entirely, it seems, on vague feelings and the posturing that by you and I using the same word, spiritual, we mean the same thing when we probably don't. It is a performance of understanding with no demonstration of any actual understanding.
And that's how you end up with Christian diploma mills, unaccredited Christian diploma mills, passing out degrees or master's degrees to people who aren't religious and aren't Christian, but are willing to part with some money to become spiritual mentors. That's how you wind up with ex-religious pastors offering you the chance to become a certified spiritual director for five grand. And if you're really good, or one of the only people who bother to pony up the money, you could even wind up as the new instructor and get a piece of the pie while touting all of your store-bought credentials and being a life coach with a new label. And no more demonstration that you're anything other than a guru using sophistry to exploit people's desires, weaknesses, confusion, and frustration to make a buck.
Now, don't get me wrong, there are probably good people, well-intentioned people trying to do this, trying to engage in spirituality, and even trying to teach it. And there are also scam artists trying to do this. But I don't know how to tell the difference, which is why they're making up their own certifications. This is not a recognized real anything. There's nothing sensical about it. Sensical should probably be sensible. But none of them seem to be able to offer any clarity. None of them seem to be able to demonstrate that their area of study, their area of expertise is real. Exactly like clergy people. Clergy people aren't experts in God. They're experts in religion, maybe, and the book, maybe. But nothing that the book or the religion points to is demonstrated as anything that could you could have an expertise about. None of them seem to be able to demonstrate that their methods are effective or beneficial or useful beyond the placebo effect of affirmation. And affirmation is so important. We crave it. Affirmation and understanding. They are the comfort blanket that allows you to avoid confusion and anxiety. And you can run around collecting credentials and certifications. You can even become ordained in as many untestable, unfalsifiable religious and pseudoscientific disciplines as you like. I've seen ordained this and ordained that and secular counselor and, uh, spiritual diploma, directors, which is just a way of saying, "Hey, look, this group has said that I understand how to make their nonsense feel like it makes sense." But none of its science, none of its demonstrated reliability, and no amount of store-bought certifications will ever mean that this isn't nonsense. It's just a circle jerk of affirmation of nonsense. And affirmation is needed because religions have done massive harm, and we are fragile, and we are confused, and we're desperate to understand and grasp something significant. In part, we have that need, somewhat, I would argue, naturally, but it has been exploited and amplified by the pretense that our suspicions can in fact be confirmed. Because the reality is that if something doesn't make sense to us, we're frustrated. We are a species that craves understanding. So if you're served up some nonsense and you recognize it as nonsense, you just ignore it or dismiss it or argue against it. If you're served up some nonsense, but somebody manages to convince you that if you just work hard enough, like they did, you will be able to understand it. And it is very, very, very important for you to understand this. And they'll be happy to help you and even certify your success for five grand or four grand or $19 grand or whatever it is. It feels like it's not nonsense. It's playing on your fear of missing out. They have found the secret. I should be able to find it, too. When there's no demonstration that they've found any secret at all.
Like, genuinely, I keep asking these people to offer any defense, any definition that they would like to defend, any demonstration that they actually understand the subject they're promoting, that the subject makes sense. And the closest any of these have come to an honest defense is by saying something like, "Hey, I don't understand it either. We're all just searching here. I just know it's real, and I'm sorry you're not there yet." They'll spin the language. It's non-religious spirituality. It's nononsense spirituality. It's secular spirituality. You can be a spiritual director. You can be a spiritual life coach. You can be a spiritual guru for only $19.99. Maybe it's a weaker version of Dumbo's magic feather, but they won't give you the feather, which would make the claim testable. That's the key thing about Dumbo's magic feather is that you didn't need the feather at all. And the appeal of, "Oh, the power was within you all the time." Uh, that's a great, great, powerful message. Doesn't mean it's a great, good quality message, but it's a powerful one because it is specifically empowering people. And if this was a version of Dumbo's magic feather, and they're not giving you the feather, they're also not able to demonstrate that you can fly. They're just willing to tell you that they're confident that you can eventually fly, and so can they. And they'll give you a certificate that shows that you've taken their course where you learned their unproven method for trying to learn how to fly.
So, in response, not only do I challenge every single non-religious spiritual person, and yeah, if you're a religious spiritual person, you're challenged, too. But I'm more irritated by the people who are doing it in the pretense of, "Oh, this is non-religious. It's, it's you don't have to be religious, and you can still pretend you understand something." I challenge them all to debate the merits and reality of the subject and methods that they claim are real. You can call into the shows. You can book a debate. I pick your representative, maybe one of the people who's offering certifications in this. I will debate them for free because I want to know if this is real. Have I missed out? Is this demonstrable? What am I missing? Or is this a scam that is preying on people and their fears?
So, in addition to that challenge, I'd also like to say that I'm thinking about starting up my own certification course. For only $4,000 instead of $5,000, I will train you and offer you the chance to become a certified skeptical detective. It'll be cheaper and it will be more demonstrably useful than anything any of the yesnonsense spirituality advocates are offering. And if you need help, reach out to this psychotherapy project for actual help. You don't need a guru. See you next time.