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Old 09-27-2015, 05:58 AM
 
392 posts, read 247,006 times
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To use an analogy, the heart is the book entitled "Company Guidelines." Lifestyle is the constant editor of that book. The physical is the company employees who are always following the instructions on that book.
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Old 09-27-2015, 09:34 AM
 
Location: Northeastern US
19,750 posts, read 13,283,532 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Freak80 View Post
What is spirituality?

Does it have a commonly accepted definition? Or does it mean very different things to different people? There's the dictionary definition, but there seem to be different meanings depending on who I talk to.
I doubt most in the "spiritual but not religious" self-classification would be happy with ANY of the dictionary definitions (here, Merriam-Webster

Quote:
something that in ecclesiastical law belongs to the church or to a cleric as such
sensitivity or attachment to religious values
the quality or state of being spiritual
Their definition of "spiritual":

Quote:
of, relating to, consisting of, or affecting the spirit : incorporeal <spiritual needs>
of or relating to sacred matters <spiritual songs>
ecclesiastical rather than lay or temporal <spiritual authority> <lords spiritual>
concerned with religious values
related or joined in spirit <our spiritual home> <his spiritual heir>
of or relating to supernatural beings or phenomena
of, relating to, or involving spiritualism : spiritualistic
I think as it's usually touted, it carries the idea of an organic, non-legalistic, intuitive embrace of some form of transcendence of the material world -- usually highly personal and always very subjective and ineffable. It may or may not involve deities. Perhaps this is why dictionaries struggle to objectively and clearly define something that's inherently subjective and ethereal.

To me it just comes down to making stuff up to try to explain one's existential dilemmas.

Anything "spiritual" is not "material" and anything not material or natural is supernatural and anything supernatural is inherently outside the realm of rational discourse because it inherently can't be examined, verified or tested in any way shape or form. All such concepts are inherently non-falsifiable and can we can have no truly meaningful discussions about them.
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Old 09-27-2015, 11:03 AM
 
Location: USA
17,156 posts, read 11,298,767 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mordant View Post
I doubt most in the "spiritual but not religious" self-classification would be happy with ANY of the dictionary definitions (here, Merriam-Webster



Their definition of "spiritual":


I think as it's usually touted, it carries the idea of an organic, non-legalistic, intuitive embrace of some form of transcendence of the material world -- usually highly personal and always very subjective and ineffable. It may or may not involve deities. Perhaps this is why dictionaries struggle to objectively and clearly define something that's inherently subjective and ethereal.

To me it just comes down to making stuff up to try to explain one's existential dilemmas.

Anything "spiritual" is not "material" and anything not material or natural is supernatural and anything supernatural is inherently outside the realm of rational discourse because it inherently can't be examined, verified or tested in any way shape or form. All such concepts are inherently non-falsifiable and can we can have no truly meaningful discussions about them.


Why do you think people can't have discussions that are meaningful to them about their various ideas about the answers to existential dilemmas, just because you don't find meaning for yourself in discussing anything that can't [at this time] be verified to your satisfaction? (I disagree, by the way ... some of it can be examined and tested on a personal level.)

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Old 09-27-2015, 12:05 PM
 
Location: Northeastern US
19,750 posts, read 13,283,532 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Pleroo View Post


Why do you think people can't have discussions that are meaningful to them about their various ideas about the answers to existential dilemmas, just because you don't find meaning for yourself in discussing anything that can't [at this time] be verified to your satisfaction? (I disagree, by the way ... some of it can be examined and tested on a personal level.)
Why do you think that I think that? My entire point is that if I have a "spiritual" experience I might find great "meaning" in how I interpret it for myself but that is where the meaning inherently stops, at least for any other person interested in actual discussion grounded in some sort of shared reality.

The problem of course is that many people are not content to interpret their personal subjective experiences for themselves; they both make truth-claims (as opposed to belief-claims) about them, and, further, they assume that these truth-claims ought to have any currency beyond their own inner subjective awareness. Or, less obnoxiously, they make belief-claims but assume anyone would believe, presented with the same experience, which is of course, not at all the case.

I have gotten on just fine with a handful of "spiritual" people in cyberspace and meatspace who are clear on the fact that their beliefs are their beliefs and the meaningfulness of those beliefs are strictly personal to them. A majority however expect a fairly high degree of credulity from me that I am unable to provide.

As to some of it being examinable and testable "on a personal level" I assume you mean that if you have "spiritual" experience X via method Y, that if I or anyone else deploys method Y (correctly!) we will also have experience X and will further assign roughly the same significance to X. I would agree that this is possible simply on the basis that humans have various similarities, but that it is not universally true in practice because humans have various differences. I for example have taken a class in secular meditation and implemented all the methodologies presented but cannot say that I had similar outcomes to others in the class. And if I did have similar outcomes I cannot say that I would have had a similar response to or interpretation of that similar outcome.
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Old 09-27-2015, 01:05 PM
 
Location: USA
17,156 posts, read 11,298,767 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mordant View Post
Why do you think that I think that?
Well, you said "we" can have no meaningful discussion. It seemed you meant that as a blanket statement. Sorry that I misunderstood.

Quote:
My entire point is that if I have a "spiritual" experience I might find great "meaning" in how I interpret it for myself but that is where the meaning inherently stops, at least for any other person interested in actual discussion grounded in some sort of shared reality.
For any other person? See, it seems to me that, again, you're saying that there can be no meaningful conversation for anyone about those things because it wouldn't be meaningful to you. It is often meaningful to me to read about (and perhaps discuss) other people's experiences and their interpretation of those experiences.

Quote:
The problem of course is that many people are not content to interpret their personal subjective experiences for themselves; they both make truth-claims (as opposed to belief-claims) about them, and, further, they assume that these truth-claims ought to have any currency beyond their own inner subjective awareness. Or, less obnoxiously, they make belief-claims but assume anyone would believe, presented with the same experience, which is of course, not at all the case.
And then you have those people on this forum who say you shouldn't make a statement and say that it is your opinion, or your belief, or your best guess, because that is somehow dishonest. You can't win. Somebody is always going to be put off by how you express yourself, it seems.

Quote:
I have gotten on just fine with a handful of "spiritual" people in cyberspace and meatspace who are clear on the fact that their beliefs are their beliefs and the meaningfulness of those beliefs are strictly personal to them. A majority however expect a fairly high degree of credulity from me that I am unable to provide.
Okay.

Quote:
As to some of it being examinable and testable "on a personal level" I assume you mean that if you have "spiritual" experience X via method Y, that if I or anyone else deploys method Y (correctly!) we will also have experience X and will further assign roughly the same significance to X. I would agree that this is possible simply on the basis that humans have various similarities, but that it is not universally true in practice because humans have various differences. I for example have taken a class in secular meditation and implemented all the methodologies presented but cannot say that I had similar outcomes to others in the class. And if I did have similar outcomes I cannot say that I would have had a similar response to or interpretation of that similar outcome.
No. What I mean is that if someone has a "spiritual" experience, I can test it for myself if I so desire. Since spirituality is a pretty highly individual and subjective thing, my experience (or interpretation) may be the same and/or different than theirs, at which point I can decide for myself if it is something I want to take on board or not. Regardless, I often find discussions about spirituality interesting and meaningful to me.

Last edited by Pleroo; 09-27-2015 at 01:21 PM..
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Old 09-27-2015, 03:24 PM
 
63,431 posts, read 39,686,809 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mordant View Post
To me it just comes down to making stuff up to try to explain one's existential dilemmas.
Mordant. as the most reasonable and objective of my critics who use this accusation, I would appreciate an explanation of why you think it is appropriate to accuse people of "making things up?" That and the "dishonesty" nonsense of some of my other less reasonable adversaries border on "baiting or troll" behavior. I would never consider you as such, so I would appreciate an explanation of this repeated use of such annoying accusations.

Thanks, ~Mystic
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Old 09-27-2015, 03:55 PM
 
Location: Michigan
790 posts, read 2,311,845 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by LuminousTruth View Post
Spirituality for a lot of Christians I've witnessed seems to be "being high on ideas of ultimate creation and after-life and imagined worship of things "unseen" and outside our mundane world so that you can ignore the things around you (especially the ones you wouldn't be able or willing to do anything about anyway)."

In a psychology lab a cousin of mine worked in they defined Spirituality as a compound of feelings/emotions/believes of having
1. peace (i.e. feeling detached from extraordinary passions and agonies, etc)
2. meaning (i.e. understanding your place in your assumed cosmological model and loving it.)
3. and faith ( i.e. resilient hope, especially in the sense of a resilient loyalty to previous believes which are only strengthened by questioning and contradiction, regardless if through question avoidance, false rationalization, or anything else).
Peace, meaning, and faith. If we filter out the negative spin you are putting on it, I'd say your cousin is on the right track.

Meaning is the most important. Looking at the world scientifically, we see matter and energy rearranging themselves. Why some arrangements should be valued more than others is not a question that science can answer. Does it matter whether Meursault shoots the Arab on the beach or not? Does anything matter? If so, what and why? These are not scientific questions. We must look elsewhere for answers. That quest is what spirituality is about.

Spirituality begins with (or just is?) the rejection of nihilism.
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Old 09-27-2015, 04:10 PM
 
888 posts, read 451,285 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mordant View Post
Why do you think that I think that? My entire point is that if I have a "spiritual" experience I might find great "meaning" in how I interpret it for myself but that is where the meaning inherently stops, at least for any other person interested in actual discussion grounded in some sort of shared reality.

The problem of course is that many people are not content to interpret their personal subjective experiences for themselves; they both make truth-claims (as opposed to belief-claims) about them, and, further, they assume that these truth-claims ought to have any currency beyond their own inner subjective awareness. Or, less obnoxiously, they make belief-claims but assume anyone would believe, presented with the same experience, which is of course, not at all the case.
I think of spiritually as actions done to feed and/or manipulate one's emotions, including actions to influence the role of hormones and adrenaline on emotions, with an accompanying belief that there is an outside "spiritual" influence that has no biochemical/physical explanation.

Lots of folks can't distinguish between truth-claims and belief as you point out, not even for purposes of discussion, making it difficult to address spiritual effects logically. Many people believe there is some kind of a god or "spirit" (for those who believing spirits/ghosts aren't from of a god) as the underlying cause of the effects of their spiritual practices. They are unwilling to consider that, at least to an extent, manipulating their body's emotional responses is something within their control.

There's a lot we don't know about the unconscious and its effects on our emotions. Those who are reluctant to admit some heretofore spiritual practices do have a scientific explanation and are unwilling to look for additional scientific explanations for other effects, make discussion based on shared reality unlikely.

Including hormones and adrenaline as part of discussions about spirituality can make yoga threatening because it demonstrates that one can use one's mind and body to help control emotions and adrenaline. Hormones? They're more of a wild card, although there are things one can do to help manage their effects.
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Old 09-27-2015, 07:17 PM
 
Location: USA
17,156 posts, read 11,298,767 times
Reputation: 2375
Quote:
Originally Posted by TransplantedPeach View Post
I think of spiritually as actions done to feed and/or manipulate one's emotions, including actions to influence the role of hormones and adrenaline on emotions, with an accompanying belief that there is an outside "spiritual" influence that has no biochemical/physical explanation.

Lots of folks can't distinguish between truth-claims and belief as you point out, not even for purposes of discussion, making it difficult to address spiritual effects logically. Many people believe there is some kind of a god or "spirit" (for those who believing spirits/ghosts aren't from of a god) as the underlying cause of the effects of their spiritual practices. They are unwilling to consider that, at least to an extent, manipulating their body's emotional responses is something within their control.

There's a lot we don't know about the unconscious and its effects on our emotions. Those who are reluctant to admit some heretofore spiritual practices do have a scientific explanation and are unwilling to look for additional scientific explanations for other effects, make discussion based on shared reality unlikely.

Including hormones and adrenaline as part of discussions about spirituality can make yoga threatening because it demonstrates that one can use one's mind and body to help control emotions and adrenaline. Hormones? They're more of a wild card, although there are things one can do to help manage their effects.
You make it sound like it's an either/or proposition. From the reading I've done, many "spiritual" people acknowledge and understand the power of one's mind.
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Old 09-27-2015, 11:29 PM
 
888 posts, read 451,285 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Pleroo View Post
You make it sound like it's an either/or proposition. From the reading I've done, many "spiritual" people acknowledge and understand the power of one's mind.
I don't mean to say that spiritual people think of it as one or the other. Many spiritual people consider it a mix of the human mind and outside sources, but there are those who aren't willing to consider science being able to explain a lot of it because it's too threatening.

Personally, I don't think of spirituality as having anything to do with god or spirits because I'm an atheist. However, I do think there is an overlap between certain practices that some consider spiritual and others view as nothing more than ways to take care of one's emotions, minimize the effects of anxiety, and counter the undesirable effects adrenaline can have.
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