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Whatsapp Many atheists point to an appreciation of the wonders of nature as a form of spirituality without religion.

Pondering why people continue to be religious in the 21st century, lifelong atheist Gary Bryson heads to a Sunday assembly and speaks to a secular pilgrim in an attempt to find an atheism that goes beyond the bald assertion that there is no God.

It's surprising the number of things that look like religion but are really just ways of thinking about the world and our place in it; things that are transcendent and have nothing to do with God.

I've been an atheist since I was 14 years old, and probably long before that. I became an atheist by default. An accidental atheist, if you like, because being an atheist takes conscious effort, and at 14 there were too many other things to be conscious of.

Dawkins spends a lot of time pointing out that many of the claims in the Bible are false. Well, that’s not entirely revelatory.

But I've often wondered if I'm missing something. Maybe I lack the spiritual gene? Maybe I don't have what it takes to experience the love of God or whatever it is that so many people around the world—in so many different ways—seem to experience with such little trouble?

I envy religious people, I really do. For the comfort and the certainty that's theirs: the big fluffy pillow of faith. What is it, this unseen, unprovable thing that enthrals so many, and can you be spiritual without it?

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Whatsapp The New Atheists; Christopher Hitchins, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett

Atheists come in all shapes and sizes, but the ones who make the most noise today are celebrities like Richard Dawkins, the poster boy of the so-called New Atheists.

'Dawkins spends a lot of time pointing out that many of the claims in the Bible are false. Well, that's not entirely revelatory,' says Sean Illing, who has published articles on Salon.com critical of the New Atheists. An atheist himself, he thinks their scientistic, evidence-based critique of religion is missing something.

'Science is interested in simply what is true. It doesn't really have an answer for meaning, the big questions: Why am I here? What's my purpose? What does it all mean? It's to New Atheism's discredit if they don't take seriously people's efforts to find answers to these questions, even if they're false, even if they're pure fictions.'

These existential questions fulfil something that matters, says Illing. 'If you're just going to dismiss that, you're not going to persuade religious believers that they can find answers in a different context that doesn't involve believing things that aren't true.'

Illing thinks that religion has hijacked spiritual experience. It's a difficult idea, precisely because we have such trouble defining terms such as 'spirituality', but what would an atheist spirituality look like?

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Whatsapp Sunday Assemblies meet around the world to enjoy secular talks, music and celebrate life

To find out, I took myself off to church. Not any old church, but Sunday Assembly, a monthly gathering for atheists seeking community. It felt like church, with an echoing hall, everyone sitting in rows, standing up to sing and passing the hat around for collection. Chris Ashcroft is a member of the Sydney meeting.

'Sunday Assembly is a community support mechanism,' he tells me, as the congregation lines up noisily for tea and biscuits. 'An opportunity for atheists to meet like-minded people.'

Not exactly rife with spiritual experience, then.

'Atheists can certainly have a spiritual experience,' says Ashcroft, an ordained Baptist minister who lost his faith over a long period. 'In fact, I don't think we have enough sense of awe at the beauty of a sunset or a sunrise.'

Related: Sunday Assembly sets foot in Australia

The wonders of nature come up time and again when atheists talk about spirituality. It's not surprising: if you believe that this life is the only one we have, the mysteries of the universe, the Earth and our place in it take on a different slant. If there's no ultimate answer to the big questions in the shape of God, then the questions become more important than the answers, the journey more meaningful than the destination.

On a glowing winter's afternoon at Sydney's South Head I meet Ailsa Piper, an author and playwright, and a secular pilgrim. Her book, Sinning Across Spain, recounts her journeys along Spain's ancient routes of pilgrimage.

'The idea of pilgrim is really a beautiful shape to contain things,' she tells me. 'It has that notion of movement and not necessarily reaching a destination. And really, you stop being a pilgrim when you get there.'

For Piper, like many of us, spirituality is about searching. 'I'd like to take the step into believing,' she says, 'but I think something would be lost in that, because the other options get cut off, and I like the idea that you can turn right or left and that the road actually isn't stopping anywhere.'

She tells me about a 1,300 kilometre walk she took that ended in Finisterre, on the cliff top shores of the Atlantic. 'When I got there I had this deep sense of what people for millennia were doing when they came to these places of edges, and feeling oneself so tiny in the face of things. It seems to me that's what religion calls us to understand, that our place in the world is not at the top of the chain of things.'

Is this a spiritual experience? Is it transcendental? Sean Illing thinks so.

'Anytime we're confronted with something that's awe-inspiring or overwhelmingly beautiful, or something that takes us out of ourselves and connects us with everyone around us, where that sense of self almost dissipates completely—I would call that transcendental.'

Ailsa Piper says she's on the side of mystery. 'I don't think I'll get an answer in this lifetime and I can live with that.'

I tend to agree with her. It seems to me that all of us—believers and unbelievers—are searching for the same thing. Some call it God, some call it truth, some call it science, some call it mystery.

I'm spiritual because I'm moved by the wonders of the universe, and because I find mystery in nature and in art and music. I'm just not a believer, but maybe one out of two is good enough.

The Accidental Atheist Listen to this episode of Earshot.

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