Not religious, not spiritual

It's quite trendy these days for people to claim that they are "spiritual but not religious." This sentiment is even widespread among materialists who don't believe in any sort of supernatural spirit. On one level, I love it. It's reflective of society's individualism and disillusionment with organized religion. As for the spirituality claimed by materialists, which I will dub "secular spirituality", that's even better. Secular spirituality recognizes that spiritual experience are real, are rewarding, but are not evidence of a spiritual realm. I strongly agree with this position. The reason I reject arguments from personal experience isn't because I think that such experiences don't exist.

On a personal level, I don't feel the same way. I am neither religious, nor spiritual.

Pause. I should first note that there is some degree of uncertainty when I say this. I'm very young and have a life ahead of me. Also, spiritual experiences are rather hard to define, so how would I know whether I've had them? The nearest I've ever had to a spiritual experience is the feeling I get when solving puzzles (thus why I blog about puzzles). It's when I get that "Aha!" moment. But most descriptions say that a spiritual experience is very profound. I would not describe the "Aha!" moment as profound. It's more like a little rush of pride and accomplishment. I don't think that qualifies.

So I don't consider myself spiritual in any sense of the word. Spirituality, secular or not, is not my thing. It's not what motivates me to study science. I study science because I like it, not because I feel I'm one with the universe. There's not much more I can say about it. I'm not going to wax poetic on my lack of awe of the cosmos. I guess I'm not much of a Carl Sagan.

I feel like I'm holding a minority position here. Even the most rabid atheists (ie Richard Dawkins) will declare a profound wonderment of science. And I'm okay with that. If it's a matter of personal taste, how could I possibly object?

What I do object to is when people--both theists and atheists--declare that spirituality is universal. Religious people talk about a God-shaped hole. Atheists, when prompted, will usually admit that not everyone is spiritual, but other times you can echoes of denial (and it's always from the "humanists"). Frankly, I'm hurt by the implication that I'm less human merely because I feel less of a particular emotion. Again, maybe I'm wrong, and I have a subconscious craving for spirituality. But what makes people so sure? There is variation among different people. The Pope is probably more spiritually inclined than your average person, so why can't I be less spiritually inclined?

If you want to talk about human nature, aim wider.