Carl Sagan made it easy to be an atheist

I am still working on my piece on fasting. As it turns out, how you consume calories can have implications for many, many other parts of your life. I'm very excited about eventually telling you all about it.

In the meantime, I've been thinking about Carl Sagan a lot lately. If you've never read his book, The Demon-Haunted World, I would highly recommend it. In one part of the book, he explored the etymology of the word "spirit." The word comes to us via Latin, but it seems to be even older than that, and it basically means "breath." And at this point Sagan got very poetic about the lightness and mobility of our breath, saying that our "spirit" was our desire to be uplifted - to find wonder in our universe and in ourselves.

I hope you can all appreciate what a wonderful moment that was. Here was a man who didn't necessarily believe in gods, or even spirits, acknowledging that people have a "spiritual" side. That's something I was struggling with at the time, so I personally found it very uplifting and comforting. I miss you, Carl Sagan! I don't know for sure if there's an afterlife (you'll notice that while I have many feelings about the spiritual dimension to our existence, I don't claim to know squat about it!), but if there is I hope you're enjoying the heck out of it. And if there isn't, I'm sad you're dead but happy that you made the world so much richer a place while you were alive.

Next post: Friday, November 9

Our physical existence

If you accept that there is a spiritual dimension to reality, what does that say about the physical side of our existence? It seems like a lot of people want to consign physical existence to a secondary role in this universe, as if having a spiritual existence somehow makes the physical one less important. I tend to think the opposite. I think of physical existence as a very important place; namely, a birthplace for new spirits.

If you look at the world from a very animistic point of view, everything with a physical existence has a spirit (or at the very least, has spirit). From that point of view, as the physical world gains complexity so do those spirits. This world is a cradle and nursery for spirits.

You could also argue that this world is a workshop for them. This world, with its physical rules, could provide a framework for spirits to interact with their universe. It could provide a forum for negotiation with other spirits. Perhaps it's just my meat-brain talking, but I find it difficult to imagine manipulating reality on a purely spiritual level. It seems to me that physical existence would provide a good "handle" for these interactions.

So, there you have it. Some interesting things to ponder if you get bored this weekend. I'll write some more on Sunday, September 16.