This old chestnut, again

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Bearing in mind the non-existence of gods, atheists actually have a better claim to the term 'spirituality' in applying it to 'ethereal aspects of mindfulness.'

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An atheist, by the very definition, does not believe in the existence of deities and will therefore use the term 'spirituality' in a manner of their choosing, even if it gets the goat of a deist.

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I think you need to be a little wary of pulling out the deluded card in a religious thread.

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The error here is to presume we need to 'claim' it, as though the word belongs to the religious folk.

And by 'objecting' to atheists using it, kind of suggests it gets your goat.

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An atheist could play the 'deluded' card in every conversation with a theist and would invariably destroy every communication. So saying atheists are deluded for using the word spirituality kind of sticks in the gullet.

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Then why object?


"I just object to the term “spirituality” being used to describe such meditative processes."

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If I could answer this, since it's a convenient question to answer, I'm not trying to get anyone's goat, I don't even particularly like goats. All I'm asking is, since you say that you accept that what we might for now call a higher state of consciousness exists through normal brain function, whether we believe in a god or not, what would you call this in an atheist? If you think that theists have a monopoly on the words 'spiritual' or 'spirituality', give us another word we can use so that we don't get hung up on semantics.
To use a rather cliched example, if an atheist like myself sees a beautiful sunset, I might say that it 'moves my spirit', which seems fair enough to me, but if you object to the 's' word, give us another one which doesn't offend your literary sensibilities.

@indonesia-phil said
If I could answer this, since it's a convenient question to answer, I'm not trying to get anyone's goat, I don't even particularly like goats. All I'm asking is, since you say that you accept that what we might for now call a higher state of consciousness exists through normal brain function, whether we believe in a god or not, what would you call this in an atheist? I ...[text shortened]... if you object to the 's' word, give us another one which doesn't offend your literary sensibilities.

To me, a person's spirit (with or without God) is their very essence, the thing that carries them through life.

In this sense, even the proverbial goat has spirit.