I was raised without
religion. Never minded one bit. I thought it was silly, and told my friends so who clung to faith.
However, there were two (far removed) times that my
arguments exascerbated the doubts of two different friends enough for them to decide that they no longer believed in their God(s). They developed a brand of
despair and
rootlessness: one adopted
atheism militantly, reading
manifestos and joining mailing lists - the other decided
buddhism was the way to go, and submerged his personality in that conversion.
I was disturbed at playing a part in removing some sense-making part of their lives, and disassembling beliefs that had been useful in their lives, which allowed them to do what they did - design, bike riding, music - secure in their sense of their world.
In college, my mind was blown at least once a semester by the deconstructing powers of anthropology: everything that was accepted was called into question. Nothing was true. This was the point i realized that i would have to choose those things i needed to believe in, and try to knit something together, some faith of my own, and employ the doublethink, knowing that it was invented and believing it to be true. All truths are invented in some sense, but that is not my point.
My point is that the lowest spiritual denominator is that spirituality makes sense of the world, whether in an atmospheric, impressionistic way, or through a rigid unquestionable translation of phenomena. We need sense: without it, we are powerless to act in the world.