SPIRITUALITY FOR ATHEISTS AND AGNOSTICS

I never know where my Lectio Divina meditations will take me. Once in a blue moon, I make it to the contemplatio part of my four steps. Often, I do what I call the chain Lectio (someone may have another term for it).

Last night, about three in the morning, for my potty break, I ended up thinking about whether all my assumptions were false and there actually is no God. Wonder if you take God stuff, the Church, all notions of Religion out of the picture when you try to answer the six questions every human has to answer, sooner or later, like it or not. For me, the answer is to go inside myself, using Cistercian spirituality and contemplation. It is the one place no one likes to go, the unprotected and defenseless place of your mind and heart, where they duel sometimes over what is meaningful and what is superfluous. I have learned to go there, wait in silence and solitude, and receive what I need to answer the six questions each human must face.

Assumptions about atheists, agnostics, and non-believers.

As a dedicated humanist, I assume that each person, no matter who they are or where they are, has the right to believe whatever they want about anything.

Of late, I have tried to place myself in the mindset of someone who genuinely thinks that there is no God. I can actually say that I have come to believe that their arguments (which vary from atheist to atheist or agnostic to agnostic) are compelling if I accept what I think are their assumptions.

This line of reasoning led me to ask the question: “Okay! I accept your proposition that there is no God, no deeper meaning than what humans can conjure up by their own reason and free will to choose what is good or bad for them.

The notion of God’s existence is now mute. There is no God. So, I asked myself, what is there that begins to address the questions about humanity that all philosophers, theologians, psychologists, and anyone in between have about the meaning of being human?

Again, each person has the natural right to believe what they want without interference from any “ism” or political state intervention. But, this does not answer the question, “If there is no God, what is there that makes sense out of the seeming chaos that surrounds me?”

All humans, in my estimation, gravitate towards some set of assumptions or principles outside of themselves to answer the questions no one wants to ask.

Rather than dismissing atheism, agnosticism, hedonism, existentialism, anarchy, socialism, capitalism, and communism as a set of principles capable of resolving the three longings of the human heart: a) What is the knowledge that can lead me to an ever deeper level of my evolution than I now have? b) What is a deeper feeling of the meaning of love? c) What is truth beyond the changing whims and power of individual humans to allow me to move to that deepest level of my humanity, one where I am in resonance with all that is?

This is a fascinating source of mental inquiry, having spirituality for atheists and agnostics. Still, it does make sense if you think of contemplative spirituality as going inside to find the answers to those six questions. By the way, they are:

• What is the purpose of life?
• What is the purpose of my life, or what is my Center?
• What does reality look like?
• How does it all fit together and make sense?
• How do I love fiercely?
• I know I am going to die: now what?

I actually wrote a book entitled The Six Thresholds of Life about these six questions. I think I have figured out some of the answers, but whenever I think I know something, I find a much deeper meaning that wasn’t there before. That is why I like Lectio Divina so much.

I want to make a book that is a journal and the opportunity for atheists and agnostics to reach into the depths of their selves (whatever they consider that to be) and find answers to these six questions. It is an Internet Retreat book with URL resources to look up, if they want. There are no right or wrong answers. There is no God stuff that I push. There is only the assumption that those who take this private and personal retreat do so using the resources within them.

This idea so enthused me that I already outlined a blog for it.

The Center for Contemplative Practice shares

 SPIRITUALITY FOR ATHEISTS AND AGNOSTICS

 A Lay Cistercian reflects on how contemplative spirituality addresses the six questions every human must resolve.

Michael F. Conrad, Ed.D.

 A Lay Cistercian reflects on how contemplative spirituality addresses the six questions every human must resolve.

Can Atheists, Pagans, and Agnostics be spiritual? Depends. In the way I practice spirituality, especially contemplative spirituality, as a Lay Cistercian, the answer is an unequivocal YES. All humans are spiritual in the sense that they have within themselves the ability to find purpose and meaning in life and take time to look for it. What the purpose and meaning are might be different. One thing I noticed about finding the answers to life’s challenges is that they are all contained within us (mind, heart, will), using our intelligence and reason. (As a Lay Cistercian, I also add Faith.)

I asked myself the question, “Given the assumption that there is no God, how would I answer six questions every person must answer before they die?” The six core questions are:

• What is the purpose of life?
• What is your purpose in life, or what is your Center?
• What does reality look like?
• How does all reality fit together?
• How do you love fiercely?
• You know you are going to die, now what?

No one prescribes these six questions; they are answered only by the individual. The question of knowing if what you wrote there is correct or not depends on the principles of life that you have identified. Forget a “churchy” or “prescriptive” approach to what is meaningful, and use this opportunity to open yourselves to the ontic possibility of the manifestibility of all being. I don’t want to convert anyone except myself to exploring my inner self and discovering the wonders of what is.

Your answer to these questions is the foundation of your humanity. What you measure them against to see if they are true is spirituality, in the humanistic sense.

Copyright, 2026, Michael F. Conrad. Ed.D., The Center for Contemplative Practice. All Rights Reserved.