Alright, can you elaborate on that some more?
What is our true identity?
Elaborate where? On what, specifically? You gotta help me out here! I'm serious. I read that and had the whole story unfold before me. Again, I'm not gonna be able to download on you -a personal weakness. Make me walk you through it. Anyway, my summary found in the OP is below. Below that is an elaboration on concepts found in the initial post. It gets closer to expalining who/what we are.
Atheist spirituality: you're the coolest thing in the universe: alive, smart, you're an awesome creature. You've been given a gift, a place of honor, use it wisely. Make yourself worthy of the honor you've been given by treating all life, your kin, with dignity and respect. Laugh, play, dance, explore... Enjoy this life, it is precious. Give it your all, it's the only one you got. Grow and learn, you are young, born of the stars, fulfill your destiny with your technology and frolic with them once again. I believe spirituality is the key to saving the world because of these types of teachings. Atheist spirituality teaches the kinship of all species, not just humanity. Its underlying teachings include humanity is gifted and beautiful. That we are capable. That our destiny is bright and our time here is precious. That this is our only home and we should take care of it. That all forms of life have value. That a healthy and happy humanity requires healthy and happy world/ecosystems... Spirituality is the strongest force on this planet. It can, has and does define the past, present and future of our being and domain. No other manifestation can make such an impact on our world because nothing else can inspire us like it can.
I argue humanity extends beyond this geologic era. Humanity isn't defined by Homo Sapien; Homo Sapiens and Homo Sapiens Sapiens are merely steps along our path. The past, present and future of our lineage defines us, not merely our current form. Also mentioned above, our lineage extends all the way back to the origin of life on this planet. We are not alone. Every form of life on this planet shares common ancestry. A significant portion of my spirituality extends from this one fact. All life is kin. My extended family doesn't end with distant cousins I've never met. Nor is it completely contained within humanity. My extended family includes all life on this planet.
Please completely ignore any and all religious/deistic/metaphysical connotations this statement may carry because I'm finding it hard to come up with a more appropriate description: the existence of life on this planet is nothing short of a miracle. Life itself is the most intrinsically valuable form matter can take -we have yet to find anything that remotely compares and getting there is not easily done.. For most of Earth's history, life existed as single celled organisms. A billion years ago, Earth didn't have cool things like bugs and ferns. There were no little critters scurrying around. The complexity of all life found here didn't extend into mulitcellularism in that period. It would take another 400 million years before life here made the leap into multicellularism and that step is not compulsory. It's not hard to imagine multicellularism being just as challenging to achieve as the advent life itself. The fact we've achieved both on this planet makes makes this world one of the most noteworthy locations in the entire universe. Multicellualrism quickly led to profound diversification. This Cambrian Explosion laid the foundations for all sorts of intriguing specimens. Five hundred million years later, we had bugs and ferns and all sorts of critters scurrying about. That history alone endears this planet to me. From life's modest beginnings, this world's family diversified into forms and survival strategies that we may never fully comprehend. I think part of the issue with fully comprehending any species is we must understand their context, how they fit into the ecosystem. Fully understanding any ecosystem it not easily done. However, we can be certain that every species developed partially as a response to interaction with other species.
A wise man recently shared a bit of wisdom from The Bible with me: "As Iron sharpens Iron, so one man sharpens another." Proverbs 27:17 That phenomenon is not limited to iron and men. That aptly applies to species interaction throughout Earth's biologic history. Around 200,000 years ago, modern humans arose. Modern humans, behaviorally, as it's described, were on the scene closer to 50 thousand years ago. We got here partially through genetic directives and survival strategies but all that ultimately points to our interaction with other species. We didn't just happen, we were made -by our kin. On some level, we owe our expression of existence to virtually every other species on this planet.
Now let's talk about spirituality. With a few simple observations we can gain a lot of perspective on where we came from. Subsequently, we can give a lot of context to our identity. Who are you? You're part of a profoundly wonderful and complex legacy that has existed for ages. Your brethren crafted you to be one of the finest specimens in existence today. And we have been there to contribute to making other species develop their potential as well. It is a web of beauty. One of the most beautiful parts of that story is sentience. Sentience is probably inevitable once multicellularism occurs, given enough time and opportunity for diversity. Life has a tendency to build upon existing complexity, data processing is only gonna get better. So, we probably shouldn't be too impressed with dolphins or ourselves, the many of the other animals may not be far behind us. Well, ok, we do have a lot of cause to be pleased with ourselves. After all, we are sentient; and dolphins don't seem to be in a position to develop technology. We are the most gifted species known to exist. We didn't make ourselves so cool, everything else did. My spirituality is deeply engaged with that fact. Like, wow; thank you world! Thank you, Earth. A deep and very special thanks is reserved for all other species, my family... I'm eternally grateful
Religion got something right about spirituality, it does embody itself everywhere. Everything you experience is an expression of humanity, an expression of more distant relatives, or an expression of the universe in which we all live. Everything has spiritual relevance. For me, a backpacking trip is going home; it is heading back into the environment from whence I came. A concert touches my being deeper than merely rock'n out. Look at what we do there! That is human exuberance at some of it's finest. Music is the heart and soul of our species:
“All that mankind has done, thought, gained, or been; it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of books.” -Thomas Carlyle
That applies equally to music. The essence of our being is expressed in its variety. I'm almost willing to build an argument that it is pure spirituality.
-the endeavor to understand and identify one's self with their origin and relation to the universe. If you want to know who you are, just look around.