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Rifleman, I agree with you about the fundies. I doubt many would disagree with you aside from the fundies themselves.
Do me a favor, aside from the dictionary definition, look up where the term spirit originates. Now over time it has been changed and redefined. I am actually glad when I hear anyone say they had a spiritual experience regardless of their beliefs.
Fyi, I don't consider atheism to be a religion but a religious outlook or viewpoint.
My argument is for the individual that said they will define and use a word how they see fit.
I do not agree when anyone says that religion is bad as the poster before you did. Some are some aren't.
One thing I think many people mistake is that you need to believe in a higher being to be spiritual. That couldn't be further from the truth.
Wrong. You've co-opted the definition, just as thesists do with the term "evolution and species. When it works againat their strict, limited and unbending interpretation, they re-define it.
Here; let me help you:
spir·it·u·al [spir-i-choo-uhl] adjective
1. of, pertaining to, or consisting of spirit; incorporeal.
2. of or pertaining to the spirit or soul, as distinguished from the physical nature: a spiritual approach to life.
3. closely akin in interests, attitude, outlook, etc.: the professor's spiritual heir in linguistics.
4. of or pertaining to spirits or to spiritualists; supernatural or spiritualistic.
5. characterized by or suggesting predominance of the spirit; ethereal or delicately refined: She is more of a spiritual type than her rowdy brother.
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So...uhhhmmm.... so sorry; I don't see where it's ever strictly tied to a specific religious attribute or denotation. It's SIMPLY an etherial and personal feeling, one that is not necessarily physical, though it can also be based on that.
What? Where did you get that one? You seek to demean at every opportunity, don't you? A sad commentary on your points of view, that you are right and all else are wholly wrong in their larger, more accepting (but also more accurate...) interpretations. How arrogant and full of religious hubris.
You betcha! You go for it!
But when your intellectual point is entirely and demonstrably incorrect, can we use that against you? I'd say that's fair, wouldn't you? In this case, you have co-opted & then re-defined (in a very narrow sense) a term specifically for your own use. I call FOUL, and the world's dictionaries and thinkers back me up. You lose; it's called An EPIC FAIL in the debating biz.
Sure. So... what picks that strategy or faulty redefinition up out of the muck-rucking puddle you love to play in is that, of course, your Definition of Convenience fails all the basic requirements of a religion, whereas "spirituality" has been used by literally millions of speakers and authors to describe any situation that invokes a sense of wonder, awe and enjoyment, especially where more limiting language or definitions might fail to provide an adequate description. It is most certainly NOT limited ONLY to those events that can be directly tied to your rapidly disintegrating church paradigm.
So now then; following on your indefensible revisionary re-definition of atheism, I'm defining those religious fanatics who twist stuff for their own limited and intellectually dishonest goals to be unethical, arrogant and intellectually dishonest. Work for you?
Here: let's try some undeniably spiritual, but secular, quotes. OK? Read 'em carefully for religious content, why don't you? But brace yourself, imcurious; your limited intellectual understanding of spiritualism is about to be enlarged, if you'll let it be. You're welcome, btw!:
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Whether you grow something from seed or merely clip a perennial shrub, the contact with the wonders of the natural world will lift your spirits and the workings of Mother Nature will never cease to amaze you. Unknown
When one sees the tree in leaf, one thinks the beauty of the tree is in it's leaves, and then one sees the bare tree. Sarah Brana Barak
Nature is perfect wherever we look. Unknown
There is not one blade of grass,
there is no colour in this world
that is not intended to make us rejoice. John Calvin 1509-1564
'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view,
and robes the mountain in its azure hue. Thomas Campbell 1777-1844
The snow, the wind, the sun and the sounds of nature,
can all be reminders to you that
you're an integral part of the natural world. Wayne Dyer b.1940
When you're at peace with your life and in a state of tranquility, you actually send out a vibration of energy that impacts all living creatures, including plants, animals and even babies. Wayne Dyer b.1940
Nature shows us only the tail of the lion.
But I do not doubt that the lion belongs to it even though he cannot at once reveal himself because of his enormous size. Albert Einstein 1879-1955
I meant to do my work today, but a brown bird sang in the apple tree,
and a butterfly flitted across the field, and all the leaves were calling. Richard le Gallienn 1866-1947
Oft a little morning rain foretells a pleasant day. Unknown
Birds sing after a storm; why shouldn't people feel as free to delight in whatever sunlight remains to them? Rose Kennedy 1890-1995
And, though I could certainly go on...
Everybody needs time to reflect and contemplate,
and the most inspirational and peaceful place to do so
is in nature. Akiane Kramarik b.1994
Or finally, this highly spiritual piece I placed as the frontispiece in one of my scientific biology theses, from Henry Beston; "The Outermost House" [a truly secular essay, btw...] and truly one of my spiritual favorites (it refutes the arrogant Christian concept that we humans have some place of "spiritual and intellectual superiority" over the "lesser beasts", purely by virtue of the bible's claim that we occupy some favored position in God's universe. Which is just bovine waste product.:
"We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature, and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves.
And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear.
They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth."
Spiritual, no? Yes.
Get a life, guys.
This thread is not about religion. All posts about religion are off topic, as far as I'm concerned.
Rifleman, I agree with you about the fundies. I doubt many would disagree with you aside from the fundies themselves.
Do me a favor, aside from the dictionary definition, look up where the term spirit originates. Now over time it has been changed and redefined. I am actually glad when I hear anyone say they had a spiritual experience regardless of their beliefs.
Fyi, I don't consider atheism to be a religion but a religious outlook or viewpoint.
My argument is for the individual that said they will define and use a word how they see fit.
I do not agree when anyone says that religion is bad as the poster before you did. Some are some aren't.
One thing I think many people mistake is that you need to believe in a higher being to be spiritual. That couldn't be further from the truth.
Nowhere in the OP is "religion" discussed. That is not the subject of this thread.
Some atheists on this forum have advanced the idea that a person can be "spiritual" AND atheist . . .The word "spiritual" actually has divine connotations - I have posted definitions in the past. They are easily found online.
I just found this morsel which I think is interesting:
The word spirit or spiritual overlaps and has religious as well as non religious connotations, depending on who you talk to. It has no definitive meaning.
Personally, I get a little annoyed when I hear fellow atheists use the term "spiritual but not religious." I always thought that phrase pretty much boiled down to "I believe in hocus-pocus just as much as the next person but I just don't like to adhere to manmade religions." When I hear the term "spiritual atheist" I have no honest idea what it really means. It sounds and feels like a term to use when speaking with religious people so as not to offend them too much or to create too much of a backlash.
"What do you believe in?" The believer asks.
"Well, to be honest with you, I'm more of a spiritual atheist." The atheist responds.
"What does that mean?"
"Well, basically it means that... well... I don't know how to describe it except I believe in the spiritual but I don't like religion."
I remember having a conversation with an atheist a couple of years ago when I was still a Christian and he/she telling me that they didn't have a spiritual bone in their body. There's no such thing as a "spiritual atheist". Spirituality has everything to do with believing in a higher power, therefore if you're spiritual you CANNOT be an atheist.
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