Thanks for the info. I will definitely get that book.

Thank you for responding to my post. Your and others have convinced me that it is not appropriate to use the word spiritual when attempting to explain one's view of atheism. So, I have chosen to us the word enlightened. If that word is not appropriate, to connote an atheistic sense of spiritual and enlightened, please, if you can, give me a similar word that would be acceptable to most atheists.
Also, I don't understand why you say there's no secular morality in religion.. In the Ten Commandments there is the commandment "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbors's wife. One does not have to believe in God, to obey that injunction.
Also, I need another word for sacred acceptable to most atheists - perhaps valued? but valued doesn't seem to have the gravitas of expression that sacred has.
Also, why would it be particularly wrong for an atheist to co-op religious words? What about the words heaven and hell, which are used in religions, but they also have secular understandings.
As you infer, finding the appropriate, while not offending someone is very difficult.
Thanks again

@Tomm You aren't offending me, particularly since I didn't offer any brilliant alternatives. It's a hard problem. As @VictoriaNotes points out in quoting Sam Harris, even "spiritual" was at one time a less religiously loaded term, but that was a VERY long time ago.

I did not say there is "no secular morality" in religion, just that religion claims to be the author and protector of morality when morality doesn't originate with religion to begin with, it's a work product of society. Society, via laws, social pressure, taboos, conventions and more, determines what is beneficial or harmful to its continued existence; this is morality. When religion says "do not covet your neighbor's wife" it is parroting something that was already there from the host society (and in this instance, something that is fairly universal in all societies). Everything religion claims is moral is either already present in society or is some religious embellishment on top of that, that society either doesn't care about or is willing to tolerate.

Think about it: if any religion diverges in its moral code significantly from the moral code of its host society, it would be ... immoral and would have to be sanctioned as such. Religion likes to fancy that it is dragging society along with its morality kicking and screaming, when in fact it is society that's dragging religion along. It's society that tells the Roman Catholics to stop molesting children and blaming victims and it's Australian society that put that molesting senior Bishop in prison this week. It's society that tells televangelists you can't bilk people. It's society that shamed that megachurch in Texas into letting flood refugees into their building last year.

As to alternative words, let's have that conversation here. I'm not the arbiter of what should or shouldn't offend or please other unbelievers. It's late and I'm not going to have any good ideas in that regard tonight, but I'll try to pick up this thread tomorrow and offer some ideas.

Thanks again for you thoughtful comments. Here's my situation. I've written a book on my atheist understandings and I'm now in the process of editing it. I don't wish to alienate substantial members of the atheist community by any Christian-tainted verbiage I use because that would cloud any consideration, for the understanding and validity of my original ideas. I find atheist apologists woefully deficient in attempting to explain existence, the purpose for existence and how we, as atheists should be able to confidently deal with these ontological questions. I find that atheists, in general, use physical evolution as the answer for human conscious existence. To me, that is absurd as believing a god created us. To me, it's just as logical to believe that we were seeded here, by ancient aliens; but, that wouldn't explain where the aliens came from.
Incidentally, if you think of any non-religious synonyms I could us, I also need a synonym for soul. In my book I refer to the soul of the universe. Also, suppose I had a sick atheist friend, who was hospitalized due to an accident. I send him a get-well card and sign it "With atheist blessings;" do you think that would be inappropriate, for an atheist to say? I sincerely don't know; I am relatively new to the environment of atheism. Also,, based on the feedback to my post,, I have redacted and replaced all references to the words spirituality, spiritual, sacred, hell, and heaven, This stuff can be very confusing.

@Tomm I remember when I was still in the Catholic church, years ago, there was a move to neutralize gender specific words. A group of nuns at my parish got rid of their habits and wore normal clothes. There was on octogenarian who would read from scripture during the mass and I was astounded how quickly she neutralized all the paternalistic words. I strongly believe a language can shape us (this is also a part of our evolution). This is the science of linguistics. I hate the word atheist as this has so many negative connotations and in public I use words as secular, non-religious, free thinker and so on. I also try to make people aware of the negative idea behind the word 'less' (godless or childless). I prefer god free and child free (replace less with free). I have read and heard there are some that don like any religious sounding words and try to find other words (I tried to find a link but it will take some time). Blessings can be replaced with positive thoughts or feelings. There is no such thing as a soul but one can say inner being. Scientists have also discovered there is no such thing a 'race' (we are all basically the same with some cultural and minor cosmetic differences. The proper word is 'tribe'. When certain words come up I try to be creative.

Thanks again for your input. The general problem is that words mean things, and the they mean have different interpretations to various mental outlooks. The challenge is to create a new meaning for existing words. I like your idea for god free instead of godless. With your permission I'll use it in my writings. Your say there is no such thing as a soul. However, what if I define soul as our individual consciousness.

                                                            Happy trails (in place of blessings)

I think "transcend" is a perfectly fine choice. There are no religious connotations to the word itself. You can transcend a bad childhood experience or personal limitations such as physical disability that are commonly thought to prohibit certain activities for example, and there's no religious connotation to that. I am surprised that Christians object to the use of such an areligious word that, ironically, they themselves have hijacked for certain purposes.

"transcendent" has no actual religious meaning at all, it is one of those words hijacked by the church and claimed for their own, to be transcendent is just to have climbed over or surmounted, past participle of the verb to transcend, which no one associates with religion at all.

Good comment, may have to delete my use of the term spiritual. I use the term spiritual, for myself, based on my ontological beliefs. I believe our true existing reality is immaterial, thus having no physical body, form, or substance and this understanding agrees with Webster's definition of spiritual. However, thus far, it seems most atheists believe that spirituality cannot be associated with each other. I will look for another term to express my ontological understandings, rather than spiritual. Thanks for your comment.