About Spirituality
Spirituality is a key element of a person being "healthy" in the holistic way. Overall health is not just about the physical aspects of not being sick or being able to climb twenty flights of stairs. To be fully healthy (and happy) one has to have balance in different aspects of their life. These aspects include physical, mental, and spiritual areas. "While there is surely an opposition between reason and faith ... there is none between reason and love or reason and spirituality" [Sam Harris]
From a well-being perspective, the following areas are worth considering [Martsolf & Mickley]:
- Meaning and the significance of life
- Values, beliefs, and ethics
- Transcendence or awareness
- Connecting to yourself and to others
- Becoming and growing as one experiences life and reflects on it
One of the aspects that is not natural or easily available with Humanism is spirituality. Religion has natural (comfortable) ways to participate in safe social interaction, to practice rituals that help bind people together, and traditions that show us our place in the progression of time and our relationship to the past. These elements do not naturally occur in a Humanist household. In particular, the following are areas that a Humanist must pay special attention to since they are not naturally present:
- Periodic social gatherings with like-minded (Bright) families
- Periodic sessions of some form of meditation
- A connection with the past
- Discussion of relevant historical figures
- Personal family history
- Various Rituals that help a person naturally flow through life
- Birth ceremonies
- Rites of Passage:
- Age of Reason
- Maturity
- Adulthood
- Marriage Ceremonies
- Funerals
- Community Traditions (group/social traditions beyond the family)
- Music and Singing
- Counseling
- Marriage difficulties
- Divorce
- Drugs
- Sexuality
- Pregnancy & Abortion
- Death
- Finance
- Emotion
Spirituality is certainly possible without religion, but we do not have thousands of years of practice, tradition, and ritual to accomplish it so naturally. Instead we have to work at it by proactively providing various aspects of spirituality that religion naturally provides. We essentially have to think about the bullet items above and make sure that we are accomplishing these by some other means.
The gist of this web site is to help provide some of the tools you need to accomplish this.