Introduction
This essay represents an attempt to clarify my core beliefs and commitments as someone who identifies as religious but not spiritual. I reject supernatural explanations while affirming the enduring value of ritual, moral reflection, and shared human practices. To me, religion is not primarily about belief in divine beings but about the structures, habits, and narratives that give shape to life. By working systematically through questions of the natural and the mysterious, death and meaning, morality and ritual, I aim to articulate a position rooted in naturalism but open to wonder, grounded in history yet responsive to the present. What follows is both philosophical inquiry and personal memoir — an exploration of how one can live religiously without the supernatural, finding depth in the ordinary and dignity in human truth.
Ritual and Grounding
Ritual is often assumed to belong exclusively to religion, bound up with prayers, candles, and sacred spaces. Yet my experience as a naturalist has shown me that ritual is not defined by the supernatural, but by repetition, intentionality, and grounding. Each morning I begin with simple practices: brewing coffee, feeding my cats, and carving out time for reading before the noise of the day intrudes. These are not sacraments in the theological sense, but they function in my life much as liturgy does in a monastery. They provide rhythm, stability, and a sense of rootedness. As the psychologist William James (1902/1994) observed in The Varieties of Religious Experience, “the whole drift of my education goes to persuade me that the world of our present consciousness is only one out of many worlds of consciousness that exist” (p. 388). My rituals, though secular, remind me that each day can be entered into as if it were a threshold into another world of possibility.
What strikes me about these rituals is how ordinary they are. They lack grandeur, yet their repetition carries meaning. When I measure out coffee grounds and pour hot water carefully, I am engaging in a physical act of attention. The same holds true for the quiet presence of my cats, who remind me that companionship and care are woven into the texture of the everyday. These acts do not need supernatural sanction to matter; they matter because they are chosen, repeated, and trusted. The Roman philosopher Seneca understood this well when he wrote, “True happiness is… to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future” (Letters from a Stoic, trans. Campbell, 1969, p. 101). The intentional savoring of small acts transforms what might appear trivial into something sustaining.
My attraction to monasticism has always been more about structure than doctrine. As a younger man I admired the Benedictine balance of prayer and work, ora et labora, not because I believed the prayers ascended to heaven, but because I saw the beauty in shaping life through disciplined rhythm. Liturgy embodies a communal pattern of attention, one that invites participants to step into something larger than themselves. Émile Durkheim (1912/1995), the sociologist of religion, argued that ritual functions by binding individuals into collective life: “The real function of religion is not to make us think, enrich our knowledge, or add representations to those which we owe to science, but to make us act, to aid us to live” (p. 418). Even stripped of the supernatural, ritual has this power: it orients life toward continuity and participation in something beyond the isolated self.
The philosopher Rainer Maria Rilke captured this truth when he urged his young correspondent not to despise the ordinary. “If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself… for to the creator there is no poverty and no poor indifferent place” (1903/1992, p. 14). To treat the mundane as meaningless is to impoverish oneself, while to treat it as rich with possibility is to discover depth in the simplest acts. Likewise, the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber (1923/1970) argued that even everyday encounters carry transcendent weight when entered into with attentiveness: “All real living is meeting” (p. 11). Whether with my students, my cats, or the steaming cup in my hand, ritual teaches me to meet the ordinary with seriousness.
In this way, ritual is my entry point into naturalism. Before naturalism is an argument about the absence of supernatural beings, it is a lived way of being-in-the-world. To brew coffee, to care for a cat, to sit quietly with a book—these are not trivialities, but foundations. They affirm that life’s grounding does not require transcendence. Ritual shapes my days, and in shaping my days, it shapes me. Aristotle (trans. 1999) argued in the Nicomachean Ethics that “we are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit” (Book II, 1103a). My rituals are not sacred acts in the traditional sense, but habits of attention that sustain a naturalistic life. Naturalism begins here, not with denial, but with affirmation: the ordinary rhythms of life are enough.
The Shape of Naturalism
Naturalism begins with a claim that sounds deceptively simple: there is no supernatural. Everything that exists belongs to the same order of nature. If a god were to exist, that god too would exist within the natural framework, subject to the same laws and boundaries as everything else. This conviction has not come to me quickly, nor was it forced upon me by bitterness or rebellion. Rather, it has been shaped by a long engagement with history, philosophy, and personal reflection. As David McAfee (2012) writes, “If there is a Creator-God, it has used methods of creation that are indistinguishable from nature, it has declined to make itself known for all of recorded history, it doesn't intervene in affairs on earth, and has made itself impossible to observe” (p. 41). In other words, if divinity exists, it is indistinguishable from natural processes, and therefore appeals to the supernatural add nothing to our understanding.
My journey away from biblical literalism began in college, when I first encountered history not as a collection of facts but as an interpretive discipline. Historians constantly debate, reinterpret, and reconstruct narratives from fragments of evidence. What I once saw as fixed truth revealed itself as contested and fluid. This recognition carried over into how I read the Bible: no longer as a literal account, but as a historical document shaped by context, culture, and human intention. Augustine of Hippo (c. 400/1998) himself, though a church father, cautioned against forcing scripture into scientific claims, noting that when believers misinterpret the natural world in the name of religion, “the disgrace is most disgraceful and to be avoided at any cost” (The Literal Meaning of Genesis, p. 42). Ironically, it was a religious thinker who reinforced my conviction that truth must rest in what can be tested and observed.
Naturalism does not deny mystery, but it locates mystery within the natural. To affirm that there is no supernatural is not to claim that we have mastered every corner of knowledge. The psychologist Carl Jung (1933/1964) argued that “the most intense conflicts, if overcome, leave behind a sense of security and calm that is not easily disturbed” (p. 75). For me, naturalism embraces conflict with the unknown without retreating to supernatural explanation. The fact that human cognition is limited by time, perception, and biology does not make the world less wondrous; it makes the task of inquiry all the more vital. The Stoics understood this well: Epictetus (trans. 1995) taught that “it is not things themselves that disturb us, but our opinions about them” (Enchiridion, 5). The naturalist disciplines himself to form opinions that align with evidence, not with wishful thinking.
One of the strongest temptations against naturalism is the charge of disenchantment, the fear that rejecting supernatural beliefs strips life of wonder. Jean-Paul Sartre once confessed, “Like all dreamers, I mistook disenchantment for truth” (1949/1992, p. 87). Yet this is precisely where I part ways with him. Naturalism is not a disenchanted worldview but an enchanted one, though its enchantment is grounded in nature itself. The birth of stars, the unfolding of evolution, the resilience of human culture — these astonishments require no miracles to inspire awe. As Albert Einstein (1931) put it, “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science” (p. 11). Far from emptying life, naturalism fills it with a richer, more honest wonder.
Ultimately, naturalism is not merely a rejection of the supernatural but a positive framework for thinking, living, and teaching. It offers a grounding that does not depend on unverifiable claims but instead grows out of evidence, history, and shared human inquiry. Karl Popper (1963) warned that “if we are uncritical we shall always find what we want” (p. 36), and naturalism responds to that warning by holding fast to critical inquiry. By insisting that reality must be approached on its own terms, naturalism affirms both humility and courage: humility in recognizing our limits, and courage in seeking truth without appealing to illusions. This is the shape of my naturalism — not sterile, but deeply alive.
Wonder Without Superstition
To many, rejecting the supernatural seems like a rejection of wonder itself. They imagine a cold, mechanical universe stripped of beauty and mystery. Yet my experience has been the opposite: in abandoning supernatural explanations, I have discovered a deeper sense of awe. Wonder without superstition is not diminished wonder; it is wonder that is honest, grounded, and more enduring. Carl Sagan (1980) reminded us that “we are a way for the cosmos to know itself” (p. 4). To see ourselves as the product of billions of years of cosmic evolution, rather than as the recipients of supernatural intervention, expands rather than contracts the horizon of meaning.
This sense of wonder arises not from miraculous events but from the ordinary processes of nature. The turning of the seasons, the slow erosion of stone, the resilience of a child learning to speak — all of these are worthy of reverence. As Aristotle (trans. 1999) wrote, “It is owing to their wonder that men both now begin and at first began to philosophize” (Metaphysics, 982b). Wonder, then, is the beginning of inquiry, not its opposite. By embracing the natural world in its intricacy, naturalism preserves the spark that gives rise to philosophy and science. Instead of seeing the world as disenchanted, I see it as a text that invites endless rereading, its patterns always shifting with the angle of light.
Still, I recognize the temptation to equate disenchantment with truth, as Sartre warned. The danger lies in mistaking the stripping away of illusion for the annihilation of meaning. Yet the absence of supernatural guarantees does not make life barren. Rather, it makes meaning something we must cultivate. The psychologist Abraham Maslow (1964) described peak experiences as moments of profound connection, joy, or insight, often arising in the most ordinary contexts: listening to music, walking in nature, or holding a loved one. These are not diminished because they lack supernatural sanction; if anything, their naturalness makes them more accessible. Wonder, in this sense, is not imported from outside the world but discovered within it.
Religious traditions themselves, when read symbolically, affirm this truth. The psalmist declares, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands” (Psalm 19:1, NIV). As a naturalist, I read this not as proof of a deity but as testimony to the human impulse to interpret the sky as meaningful. The language of religion reflects humanity’s ancient awe before the cosmos. The philosopher Baruch Spinoza (1677/2002), often accused of atheism, spoke of God and nature as one: “Whatever is, is in God, and nothing can be or be conceived without God” (Ethics, Part I, Prop. 15). For Spinoza, the divine was not supernatural, but the very order of nature itself. My own sense of wonder echoes this — a reverence not for the miraculous, but for the profound given-ness of the natural order.
In my own life, this wonder takes root in classrooms and museums. To stand before an artifact and imagine the hands that once shaped it, to listen to a student wrestle with history until it becomes personal — these are moments of wonder that rival any mystical vision. They require no leap into superstition, only a willingness to attend. Rilke’s admonition not to despise the ordinary comes back here: the ordinary world, approached with openness, becomes extraordinary. As Einstein observed, “He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed” (1931, p. 12). To live awake, with eyes open, is to embrace wonder without superstition.
Responsibility Without God
The question of morality often haunts conversations about atheism and naturalism. If there is no God to dictate what is right and wrong, what remains to guide human behavior? My answer is simple: responsibility remains, but it is responsibility without God. Morality does not evaporate when stripped of divine command; instead, it becomes more demanding. It becomes a human project, one built on reason, history, and shared life. As Immanuel Kant (1785/1996) argued, morality must arise from rational principles, not from fear of punishment or hope of reward: “Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law” (p. 421). In this sense, morality without God is not an absence but a call to deeper reflection.
History confirms that moral frameworks shift with time and place. What was once considered acceptable — slavery, the subjugation of women, religious persecution — is now condemned. Susan B. Anthony once noted, “I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires” (cited in Gaylor, 1997, p. 89). Divine sanction has too often justified cruelty. Recognizing morality as a human endeavor does not weaken it; it makes us accountable to one another rather than to unseen authority. We are forced to ask not “What does God require?” but “What kind of society do we wish to create?” and “What consequences will our actions bring?”
Psychology reinforces this view. Lawrence Kohlberg’s (1981) stages of moral development demonstrate that the highest forms of moral reasoning do not rely on obedience to external authority but on principled judgment. The individual at the post-conventional stage acts from a commitment to justice, fairness, and universal ethical principles — not divine command. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1974), writing from the gulags, declared, “One word of truth outweighs the world” (p. 27). For him, moral responsibility meant resisting lies even at the cost of freedom. His courage testifies that morality grounded in conscience and integrity can outlast even the most oppressive systems, without appeal to the supernatural.
Religious traditions themselves sometimes point in this direction. The Hebrew prophet Micah asked not for ritual sacrifice but for justice, kindness, and humility (Micah 6:8). Jesus, when pressed for the greatest commandment, placed love of neighbor at the center (Mark 12:31). These teachings resonate even when stripped of divine authority, for they express human truths: societies thrive when justice and compassion guide them. The philosopher Martha Nussbaum (2011) describes this as the cultivation of capabilities — fostering the conditions under which people can live with dignity. Responsibility without God is not less, but more: it places the weight of justice squarely on our shoulders.
As a teacher, I feel this responsibility acutely. William Arthur Ward once wrote, “The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.” This ladder of teaching captures the moral stakes of education: shaping not just knowledge but character. In the classroom, there is no divine hand to correct injustice or comfort a struggling student; there is only my responsibility to act with integrity. To live morally without God is to accept that the burden of truth, justice, and compassion rests with us. Far from being a loss, this is liberation: the freedom to build societies on reason and empathy, and the challenge to do so without excuse.
The Ordinary is Enough
One of the persistent temptations of human life is to believe that meaning lies elsewhere — in another world, another time, or another state of being. Religion has long offered the promise of transcendence, of finding fulfillment beyond the ordinary. Yet I have come to see that the ordinary is not a deficit but a gift. To live fully within the boundaries of time, body, and circumstance is not to resign oneself to poverty of meaning, but to discover richness exactly where one stands. Rainer Maria Rilke (1903/1992) urged: “If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it… for to the creator there is no poverty and no poor indifferent place” (p. 14). The ordinary is not lacking; it is our perception that fails to meet it with imagination and care.
This recognition rests on a naturalistic view of existence. If there is no supernatural realm to escape into, then the only possible fulfillment must be found here. That realization might appear bleak, but in practice it sharpens attention to the immediacy of life. Jean-Paul Sartre (1943/1993) confessed, “Like all dreamers, I mistook disenchantment for truth” (p. 112). His words remind me that cynicism is not honesty but a failure of vision. To reject illusions need not lead to despair; it can open the way to gratitude for the ordinary. The cup of coffee carefully poured, the conversation with a friend, the quiet rhythm of a classroom — all are sufficient in themselves when approached with openness.
Psychology underscores this insight. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1990) described flow as the state in which individuals lose themselves in an activity, fully absorbed and fulfilled. Flow does not occur in extraordinary circumstances, but in ordinary ones: working, teaching, gardening, or playing music. Abraham Maslow (1964) similarly spoke of peak experiences arising in daily life. These moments of transcendence are not supernatural interruptions but natural fruits of attention and engagement. The ordinary is not a lesser category of experience but the very medium in which depth, meaning, and joy occur.
Even religious traditions acknowledge this. The Benedictine motto ora et labora (“pray and work”) was not a call to escape the mundane, but to sanctify it. Monasticism, at its best, has understood that sweeping floors and tending gardens are as holy as prayer. The Hebrew Bible places wisdom not in the heavens but in the marketplace (Proverbs 1:20-21). The Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius (trans. 2006) urged himself to “do what nature now requires” (Meditations, 6.1), reminding us that dignity lies in embracing the duties of ordinary life. When detached from supernatural claims, these voices still bear witness: the ordinary is sufficient, if only we have the eyes to see.
In my own practice, I return to this daily. I find meaning not in extraordinary visions but in small, grounding rituals: brewing tea, walking through familiar streets, spending time with students, or sharing silence with a cat purring at my side. These moments are not preludes to something greater; they are the substance of life itself. The ordinary is enough because it is all we have, and because within it lies inexhaustible richness. As the poet Walt Whitman (1855/2007) declared in Leaves of Grass, “I find no sweeter fat than sticks to my own bones” (p. 31). To embrace the ordinary is to affirm life itself, without need for transcendent guarantees.
Humanism and the Collective
Humanism provides a philosophical framework for living without reliance on supernatural authority, while still affirming the dignity and worth of human beings. For me, humanism is not merely an abstract doctrine but a lived recognition that meaning is built together, not alone. If naturalism grounds my worldview in the physical universe, humanism grounds my commitments in community. Ronald P. Carver (2000) expressed this vividly when he wrote: “I believe that I should try to increase the happiness of everyone by caring for other people and finding ways to cooperate” (p. 2). This captures the essence of humanism: the recognition that life is not a solitary pursuit of truth, but a shared project of building flourishing societies.
History demonstrates the power of collective human endeavor. The Renaissance itself was not the work of isolated geniuses but of communities of scholars, artists, and patrons who fostered a culture of learning and innovation. The humanist motto ad fontes (“back to the sources”) was not simply about individual study but about reviving a shared cultural heritage. As Erasmus (1516/1997) argued, humanism’s goal was to bring wisdom into public life, not hoard it for the few. Likewise, Susan B. Anthony’s insistence that religious authority often masks human self-interest reminds us that moral progress is achieved collectively, through debate, struggle, and reform. Humanism insists that individuals can err, but through community, ideas can be tested, refined, and carried forward.
Psychology confirms that human beings are inherently social creatures. Lev Vygotsky (1978) emphasized that learning occurs first on the social plane before being internalized. Meaning, in this sense, is co-constructed: what I call “my truth” is always shaped by the voices of others. Viktor Frankl (1946/2006), reflecting on his time in concentration camps, observed that survival often depended on a sense of connection — to loved ones, to a community, or even to humanity at large. “The salvation of man is through love and in love” (p. 37). Humanism, then, is not a luxury but a necessity, rooted in the very structure of our psychological and social existence.
Religious traditions themselves frequently underscore the collective. The Christian notion of the “body of Christ,” the Jewish emphasis on covenant, and the Buddhist sangha all testify to the need for community as the context in which moral and spiritual life unfolds. While I may not accept the supernatural frameworks of these traditions, I find their communal insights compelling. They reveal a truth larger than doctrine: that human beings thrive when bound together in webs of responsibility, care, and shared practice. Karl Popper (1963) warned against uncritical acceptance of theories, yet his emphasis on open societies suggests that communities committed to dialogue are our best hope for progress.
In my own life, this takes shape most clearly in teaching. The classroom is a collective space where meaning is constructed in dialogue. It is not enough for me to hold my own views; I must provide students with the tools to explore theirs, and to do so within a respectful community. Humanism in this sense is not only philosophy but pedagogy, a way of nurturing the conditions under which students can flourish as individuals embedded in a society. To be humanist is to accept that my life is bound to others, and that the meaning I construct is inseparable from the meaning we construct together.
The Mystery and the Limit of Mind
To reject the supernatural is not to reject mystery. In fact, mystery grows sharper when stripped of illusion. Within a naturalistic framework, mystery is not the intrusion of divine will but the recognition of the boundaries of human cognition. We are finite beings, confined by biology and history, able to perceive only within certain ranges of time, space, and sense. Blaise Pascal (1670/2005) once wrote, “Man is but a reed, the weakest in nature; but he is a thinking reed” (p. 29). His paradox still holds: our strength lies not in conquering mystery, but in knowing it exists. To live religious but not spiritual is to live with reverence for the limits of the mind — honoring the unknown without projecting gods into it.
Philosophers across traditions have emphasized these limits. Immanuel Kant (1781/1998) drew a hard line between phenomena — what can be known through experience — and noumena — what lies beyond possible perception. Søren Kierkegaard (1843/1992) described faith itself as a “leap” into the unknown, though I depart from him by refusing the leap. Instead, I accept that some realities will remain inaccessible. Susan B. Anthony’s distrust of religious certainty reminds me that claims to know God’s will often mask human arrogance. Mystery, approached with humility, guards against dogmatism. Karl Popper (1963) echoed this when he cautioned that uncritical acceptance of evidence risks illusion: mystery requires skepticism as much as awe.
Psychology, too, illuminates human limitation. Daniel Kahneman (2011) has shown how cognitive biases shape perception, blinding us to what lies beyond our narrow heuristics. Carl Jung (1959/1990), though often mystical in tone, acknowledged the unconscious as a vast unknown within ourselves, a reminder that mystery is not only “out there” but also within. Cognitive science reinforces what philosophy has long intuited: the brain evolved not for perfect truth but for survival. As a result, our intellect is bounded, making the pursuit of certainty often more dangerous than the acceptance of limitation.
Religious traditions frequently refract this truth through story and symbol. The Book of Job resists easy explanations of suffering, concluding with a recognition of human smallness before the vastness of creation. The Tao Te Ching warns, “The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao” (Laozi, trans. 1963, p. 1). These texts gesture toward mystery not to encourage supernaturalism, but to underscore humility. Mystery becomes, in this sense, a discipline: a constant reminder that not all things are for us to know. Even secular figures like Albert Einstein (1931) affirmed, “The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science” (p. 11).
For me, this recognition shapes daily life. I do not expect to solve the riddle of death or consciousness, though I remain open to what future science may reveal. I imagine possibilities — such as digital consciousness — but recognize that even these will carry their own boundaries, foreign to what it means to be human. Mystery, therefore, is not a failure of intellect but its horizon. It defines what it means to be religious without being spiritual: not clinging to dogma, nor dismissing wonder, but accepting with dignity that the universe exceeds me. To live with mystery is to live fully human.
Truths Plural: Science and Morality
Truth is not singular but plural. Scientific truth provides one indispensable mode of understanding, grounding us in the material realities of the universe. Yet it is not the only kind of truth humans live by. Moral, aesthetic, and historical truths carry a different kind of weight: they shape how we live, not just what we know. To confuse one for the other is to miss the richness of human existence. Stephen Jay Gould (1999) called this the principle of nonoverlapping magisteria: science and morality address different domains. While I do not follow Gould in every detail, I share his conviction that truths of the laboratory and truths of the heart both deserve recognition. Scientific truth explains the origin of life; moral truth guides how we ought to treat it.
Scientific truth is provisional, evolving as evidence accumulates. Karl Popper (1963) argued that scientific theories are never final; they must be falsifiable and open to revision. This humility is science’s strength: it accepts its limits. Yet moral truth functions differently. It is not about prediction and control but about value and meaning. Aristotle (trans. 2009) in the Nicomachean Ethics observed that ethics deals with what can “be otherwise” — questions not of necessity but of human flourishing. To ask what justice is, or how to live well, is not reducible to equations or data. Instead, these are truths lived and tested across generations, shaped by cultures and histories.
Psychology reveals how deeply moral truths are embedded in human life. Lawrence Kohlberg (1981) described moral reasoning as developmental, evolving through stages that reflect both cultural norms and universal capacities. Jonathan Haidt (2012) has shown that morality arises from multiple foundations — care, fairness, loyalty, authority, sanctity, liberty — that societies weight differently. This helps explain why moral truths appear subjective: they emerge from context. Yet their persistence across history suggests something deeper: some values, like compassion or fairness, repeatedly reassert themselves because they enable stable societies. In this sense, moral truths are not absolute, but they are enduring.
Religious traditions have often served as carriers of moral truth. Even when their metaphysical claims are rejected, their ethical teachings often remain compelling. The Hebrew prophets denounced injustice; the Buddha taught compassion; Jesus emphasized love of neighbor. These are not supernatural revelations but historical articulations of values that societies have tested and retested. As Susan B. Anthony warned, dogma often masks human desire — but this does not nullify the moral wisdom embedded in tradition. It simply means that moral truths must be sifted critically, retaining what is life-giving while discarding what no longer serves.
For me, the recognition of multiple truths prevents reductionism. Science gives me awe before the vastness of the cosmos; morality gives me guidance in the classroom, with students, colleagues, and family. Beauty, too, carries its own truth: a painting by Rembrandt or a poem by Rilke cannot be falsified in Popper’s sense, yet they tell truths about human experience more powerfully than data sets. To be religious but not spiritual, for me, is to honor these plural truths without collapsing them into one. Scientific truth keeps me honest; moral truth keeps me human. Together, they shape a life lived in integrity.
Ritual, Practice, and the Sacred Ordinary
Ritual is one of the most enduring marks of religion, yet it does not require belief in the supernatural to hold power. To be religious but not spiritual, in my sense, is to embrace ritual as grounding, connective, and meaningful within a naturalistic framework. Whether it is brewing coffee, structuring a morning routine, or reciting prayers, ritual transforms the ordinary into the sacred. Émile Durkheim (1912/1995) argued that ritual is the glue of social life, turning private acts into communal bonds. Even stripped of metaphysical claims, ritual offers order in a world of flux. It makes time tangible and allows meaning to be enacted rather than simply believed.
Philosophy underscores this dimension of practice. Aristotle (trans. 2009) taught that virtue is formed through habit: what we repeatedly do shapes who we are. Pierre Hadot (1995) described ancient philosophy itself as a “way of life,” sustained by spiritual exercises — reading, reflection, dialogue — that were not supernatural but formative. These insights suggest that ritual, whether religious or secular, serves to embody values. Repetition is not empty; it engraves meaning into flesh and memory. My attraction to monastic liturgy, even as a nonbeliever, stems from this truth: structure anchors the self.
Psychology affirms ritual’s role in human well-being. Research has shown that rituals reduce anxiety, increase focus, and strengthen group cohesion (Hobson et al., 2018). Anthropologist Bronisław Malinowski (1948) observed how ritual flourishes in uncertain contexts, helping humans face what they cannot control. For me, ritual provides that anchor. Meditation, with its deliberate attention to breath, reminds me of my finitude. Teaching, with its rhythms of the school day, is itself ritualized: bells, lectures, discussions, and reflections form a patterned life. These practices do not transcend the natural; they affirm it.
Religious traditions frame this vividly. The Catholic Mass, Buddhist zazen, Jewish Shabbat, or Islamic salat each turns ordinary time into sacred time. Even when I reject their supernatural claims, I remain drawn to their form. As T. S. Eliot (1943/1971) wrote, “We had the experience but missed the meaning, and approach to the meaning restores the experience in a different form” (p. 59). Ritual allows us to re-approach meaning, not through belief but through practice. It is not about explaining the cosmos but embodying a response to it.
In my own life, the sacred ordinary emerges through small acts: the care with which I prepare tea, the quiet of early morning reading, the purring of cats curled nearby. These are not supernatural moments, but they are sacred in their capacity to root me in life. They remind me, as Rainer Maria Rilke (1903/1993) once counseled, that to live poetically is to “transform the world into within.” To be religious but not spiritual, then, is to recognize that ritual, habit, and daily practice can sanctify life without invoking heaven. The sacred is not elsewhere; it is here, in the ordinary rhythms that give shape to existence.
In Closing
In tracing these commitments, I return to the conviction that life’s richness does not depend on belief in the otherworldly but on the ways we cultivate meaning here and now. To be religious but not spiritual is to recognize that science and morality, symbol and ritual, history and personal practice all interweave to form the fabric of existence. None alone is sufficient, but together they allow for a life lived with integrity, humility, and purpose. The sacred is not distant but present — in coffee brewed with care, in the classroom where young minds encounter history, in the rituals and stories humanity shares across generations. My journey is one of accepting limits while embracing meaning, of refusing the supernatural while cherishing the symbolic, and of seeking to live fully within the natural world.
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