A Place for Religious Atheism in 21st Century Spirituality?

In revisiting William James's Varieties of Religious Experience, Charles Taylorpoints out that in our post-Durkheimian world, individuals will make what they canof their religious experience. The individual (or small groups of individuals) payslittle or no attention to how this attitude affects organized religion or wellestablishedchurches.One of the consequences of these fractures, Taylor explains, is a rise innumber of people calling themselves atheists, agnostics or non-religious.Furthermore, there seems to be a significant increase of individuals holdingseemingly untenable religious positions, e.g. Catholics not accepting crucialdogmas; individuals combining elements of Christianity with certain aspects ofBuddhism and so forth.One other of those positions that might be considered as untenable is the socalledreligious (or spiritual) atheism. As atheism is mostly viewed as the absolutecounterpart of religion or the religious, religious atheism therefore must equal acontradictio in terminis. The point of my presentation will be to show otherwiseand to indicate that there is room for and proof of spirituality and religiousexperience for atheists.My own doctoral research, mainly based on William James's analysis, clearlyshowed that, al

ISBN:978-1-84888-139-6

Publication year:2012

Keywords:Wiliam James, Charles Taylor, Spirituality, Religious atheism, secular humanism, New Atheism, Leo Apostel, Richard Jefferies