Atheism

Over a hundred years ago, Nietzsche declared that God is dead, and he had a point. We had become a scientific species, objective in our outlook. There was no place left in the human heart for the mystery of life and for things unprovable. So God had passed away from our thoughts and our beliefs and, in a way, atheism was born from this.

Most atheists consider themselves not to be religious, to be irreligious. But atheism is a belief that there is no god, and that belief is as unprovable as the belief in God. So atheism is also a system of belief, and in a way it is profoundly spiritual.

Atheism brings the focus right back to the manifest world and our life here on Earth. It says there is nothing else except this, and it brings, with that assertion, the intensity of all our energy to living our life here, now, as beautifully as possible without any thought of judgment of reward from a god.

So for me, atheism is a religion and an atheist can be deeply spiritual. Gautam Buddha didn’t speak about God, we don’t really know whether he was a theist or an atheist, but he is without doubt one of the most spiritual to ever visit this Earth. For Buddha it was not really important whether there’s a god or not, he focussed on the problems we face in a real life, day to day, here on Earth. He found the ultimate solution to those problems, and having found it for himself, he did everything possible to help others to find it for themselves.

So atheism is not a barrier to our spiritual enlightenment and it has this to offer: that, taking away the unseen from the picture, taking God out of the equation, we have no choice but to directly confront whatever our difficulties are here in life. This is the message of atheism. It is one of the strongest religions, in my mind.