spiritual but not religious

[AFTT47]

Greetings! 

I grew up Christian and was turned off by the dogma in my fundamentalist church, however I was left wanting to believe in some form of divine being because this was a major part of my upbringing and shaped my early experience with the world. Later I became interested in Buddhism because of its ties to spirituality without directly affirming an existence of god. 

Is it possible to be spiritual but not religious, and if so could someone still be considered an atheist?

"Spiritual" is a meaningless word to me. It is simply a loaded term merely to say, "I have an intense sense of awe when I think about certain things."

Yeah, I think that's accurate. I think most of us probably get that, "intense sense of awe" sometimes. It might be triggered by laying on a mountain top, far away from city lights while looking up at a dark sky under pristine conditions. I used to get that sometimes on very calm days out on the ocean over the Florida Keys where there were all these beautiful shades of turquoise over the shallow reef. Or maybe it's something more primal like an intense, sexual experience. I may be off about the third because my memory doesn't really go back that far.

Most of us have had intense, emotional experiences in our lives and I get the temptation to label them with words like, "spiritual." In the end, it's just emotion though. No need to assign it some mystical quality. I think one can still appreciate and treasure those experiences without doing that.