Most of us have had it before, the feeling of an epiphany while doing something. Phrases that are often associated with this can include:
- I felt God.
- I feel at one with nature (or the universe).
- I feel connected to a higher power.
Yesterday on the Atheist Experience, a caller expressed his feelings that he found god in this regard. The host did a great job of explaining that no matter how you come to these “epiphanies,” and no matter how true it seems at the time, it needs to match and have evidence in reality to be considered true.
Before elaborating on that, I want to describe my personal experiences in this regard. Although I’m a huge geek, I’ve also been a musician since early childhood. I’ve played the piano classically for about 18 years now, and during Jr. High I was tasked with learning the bass guitar to replace a person in the “worship team” at church that was moving out of town.
Musically Worshiping
Music to me had always been a major part of my worship. If you’re a believer, you probably have a similar feeling, although it’s probably more related to singing than playing an instrument. I always enjoyed working up a piece to play for an offertory. My favorite arranger was Mark Hayes, who has a lot of classical/romantic arrangements of popular hymns. Challenging enough to make it fun and interesting, while providing drama from the romantic-style and peace from the softness and lulls.
A great example is last spring, when I picked up his “Gospel Classics” book. I worked up “The Old Rugged Cross” from it. It’s just an insanely powerful piece. Here, have a listen from when I recorded a practice session last summer:
That wasn’t a great recording (small digital camera), and no where near the caliber of when I performed it. However, even then when I played it, I would feel a sense of calm and reverence come over me. To help me get the mood correct, I wrote in the words above the melody to remind me of what the song was saying. I took this very seriously, as it was very personal form of worship for me.
Each time I performed, I sat down at the piano and readied myself by saying a prayer humbling myself and reminding myself I was doing this for God, not the congregation.
“Worship” as an atheist
But something happened between then and now: I became an atheist. Before I had come out to anyone, I was asked to play at my wife’s home church. So I re-worked up this piece. During practice times, I still felt that calmness wash over me. When sitting down at the piano to perform, instead of saying a prayer, I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, waited a few seconds, and let my hands do the work.
I hate saying I did “great,” but it did come out as a better performance than the first time I performed it. Afterwards, a person whose mother had just passed away a few days before came up to me, and said that he could just feel the holy spirit’s presence because that song was his mother’s favorite hymn. He had been moved to tears.
Now as a Christian, I would have chalked this up to God setting me up to play this specifically for him that Sunday. But as an atheist, I realized that any number of people were moved by that hymn that day. The chances were high that a highly reverent and well-known hymn like the “Old Rugged Cross” with such powerful verses to a believer will move someone in a congregation. It wasn’t anything more than a coincidence.
But what about my “spiritual” feelings? I don’t find them to be spiritual anymore. They feel the same, but I just don’t see them as spiritual.
I’ve watched a lot of great clips of wonderful musicians playing amazing romantic-era classical pieces, and they all have something in common. When you watch them play, they don’t sit there smiling the whole time. If you watch them, their face changes as the mood changes in the piece. They are “feeling” the music. They are feeling what I used to call “worship.”
Does spirituality exist?
I think the existence of spirituality depends on what you define as spiritual. There’s an overblown tendency to label “that good feeling you get in your gut” as a spiritual experience. But let’s look at the evidence:
- Spiritual experiences manifest themselves in every religion. This alone shows that if there were a supernatural entity that gave us these experiences, the religions have it all wrong because it doesn’t discriminate based on what people believe.
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Spiritual experiences can often be induced by drugs. The caller into the Atheist Experience, as Jen joked, “found God in a bong.” This was an over simplification called out because the caller was spending a lot of time trying to avoid actually saying specifically what he was talking about.
But it’s true that many people feel closer to God/nature while getting high or doing drugs. These drugs are introducing chemical changes into how their brains are processing signals, and it’s no wonder that new feelings are experienced. However, as Matt pointed out in the show, some people have horrible experiences under drugs as well. - Spiritual experiences can’t lead to truths that couldn’t be discovered outside of a spiritual experience. What I’m saying is that any “truth” gained in a spiritual experience is no more true because you were having an epiphany at the time than if you weren’t. For example, I could claim I had a spiritual experience that lead me to confirm that I think that unicorns exist. That doesn’t mean they do.
In the end, I don’t believe that there are any genuine “spiritual” experiences. I believe they are a product of our mind, most likely caused by hormonal and/or endorphinal changes induced by the brain reacting to certain stimuli. For some people that’s music. For others it’s meditation. For others it’s observing nature.
And I think that expresses my take on this beautifully: each person experiences these feelings from their own particular viewpoint. There is no guaranteed way to have a spiritual experience that works for every person (except maybe mind-altering drugs, which by definition alter the mind). I think when we observe that fact, we must realize that this is just a normal part of our physiology, and not a result of a supernatural entity.
