I don't get what you mean by "it exists" or "it doesn't exist". I thought the argument was over definitions. Obviously the traits that I've picked out to characterize spirituality do exist, you just don't like my use of the term.

I think I'll just quote wikipedia here,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirituality
So the bolded parts are what you have a problem with. Ok, fine, but as you can see they are not necessary conditions and the rest is basically psychological maturity.

This construct has no reliable criteria of measurement and hence you find that within each dictionary there is a different definition of it. It's just not there. All it is, is a synonym for real existing constructs like self-actualization, as well as gaps in scientific understanding. Why insist on describing yourself with a word that conveys no real coherent/reliable meaning? Almost every person you say to "I am very spiritual" will take that to mean something different.

Could it be because being viewed as 'being spiritual' is the modern fad for the more mature person? as a way of coming across as 'cool/enlightened'? when in reality, they're mainly full of bs?

I don't know.

No, I reject your position that because people who experience this [whatever it is...] can't come to a consensus about its meaning, then it doesn't exist. I reject that "no consensus" = "cannot be measured"

It can be measured, but that doesn't mean it is easily defined, or that people from different backgrounds will agree with the definitions-by-example of others.

To me, it does mean a kind of oneness with the universe. I don't believe in spirits however. I only use the word spiritual for lack of a better one.

Now I can go off and start describing some cosmic force or flow that in my giddier moments feel I can almost ride to enrich my life. But I won't, because I can't defend that and it would put me in the same camp as a theist. Mostly what I mean is that we quite literally ARE the universe. The atoms in our body were forged from stars. That somehow makes me feel in tune with universe. Call it spiritual or whatever you want.

The problem is that you can't measure the characteristics of the construct. The lack of consensus emerges naturally, from this core problem. How do you go about measuring and comparing people's spiritual experiences, or what they mean? It's very difficult to, so how can you know if they are indeed 'spiritual' or if they are just 'rare experiences' that people attach their own meanings to and call them 'spiritual'? If this term wasn't in the vocabulary would people still call them 'spiritual' or just 'rare' or 'unusual'? The term spiritual obviously has roots in religious tales and fables, and now that it is part of our own vocabulary, no one seems to be questioning its validity, even in a time where we have modern science...

What reason do we have to believe that this construct exists, when it's characteristics cannot be pinned down or measured? when people use it to mean whatever they want it to mean? Why do we tag these experiences as 'spiritual' rather than just 'unusual'?

I think you're going about this in a very Spock-like (the Vulcan, not the baby doc) way. Humanity is not at the point where we will consider all phenomena from a 100% logical perspective. We will probably never evolve away a spiritual outlook, given that it's likely evolved in to begin with.

When atheists like Dawkins, Hitchins, and Harris talk about their own numinous experiences, I think we have to give them credence. If you've never experienced this, it will be very hard for you to understand it, but it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Using a Persinger Helmet, we can stimulate the brain to produce these exact numinous/spiritual feelings in most people. They will then interpret those feelings based on their worldview. Buddhists will feel a oneness with the universe, Christians will "sense" a spirit presence or oneness with God, or claim a near-death experience. Atheists will feel a greater connectedness with... I don't know... life, the universe, their own mind? In this sense, this phenomenon can be measured and induced in the brain. But that still doesn't mean we can narrow it down to a definition that gains consensus.

As for the bolded part of your quote... meh, if you can't get a fundamentalist believer to accept the mountains of evidence of the fossil record and radiometric dating, how are you going to get them to accept that their talk with God was really just an over-excitement of the temporal lobe?

I've been talking about specific "spiritual" experiences, but if we consider a general spiritual outlook on life, I think this is pretty close.

Many people have been programmed from birth to be religious. But as they get older and are exposed to science and logic they start to experience a bit of cognitive dissonance. They have believed for so long, and they don't want to become an outcast in their family and/or community, but they feel kind of silly still believing in the Easter Bunny. Add to that the degree to which atheists harp on the corruption of religion, and the easy cop-out to shut everyone up is to say, "I'm not religious, but I am spiritual."

Spiritual growth is different from education and human development.

It's sad that people let the world dissuade them from listening to the experts on spiritual growth and let unknowledgable biased outsiders influence them.
Then again it could be God's timing.

Btw a lot of people haven't been religiously "programmed" from birth.

There's a lot more competition from deprogramming religious elements in society from education and television than there is time spent on "programming" religion.

Also a lot of people believe without attending church at all.

And it's likely people spend ten to twenty hours in front of the boob tube "deprogramming" for every hour in church.

Quote: "Canadians watched television for an average of 22.7 hours per week in the fall of 1997."
Statistics on TV Viewing Habits (1994-2000)
http://www.media-awareness.ca/englis...ing_habits.cfm

I understand if you object to these observations.

Apparently a lot of people are politically dedicated to atheism and think it should be promoted at all costs.

Yes, indeed. Human development and self-actualization has nothing to do with spiritual growth. It involves being honest with oneself, regarding the quality of evidence out there, and having a decent standard required to warrant a belief. It has nothing to do with spirituality and everything to do with reason, logic, and a love for the universe as it is, despite it's refusal to conform to your precognitions of what it ought to be. This is being one with the universe. An unconditional love, regardless of the viciousness of evolution, and the struggle of daily life. An unconditional love, regardless of the frailty and fragility of life. An unconditional love, regardless of the knowledge that your short moment in the current of time will not 'transcend' into an after-life or any other pre-cognition you may find comforting. An unconditional love, regardless of it's carelessness about justice, moral order, or accountability. This is human development, and this is being one with the universe that is, rather than the universe you want it to be.

I think people should be able to have both. Spiritual growth and self actualization and it's quite likely one helps the other.

From The Perennial Philosophy by Aldous Huxley:

The Buddha declined to make any statement in regard to the ultimate divine Reality. All he would talk about was [z] Nirvana, which is the name of the experience that comes to [x] the totally selfless and [y] one-pointed. […] Maintaining, in this matter, the attitude of a strict operationalist, the Buddha would speak only of the spiritual experience, not of the metaphysical entity presumed by the theologians of other religions, as also of later Buddhism, to be the object and (since in contemplation the knower, the known and the knowledge are all one) at the same time the subject and substance of that experience.

I think that’s about as succinct a definition of the spiritual process and experience (devoid of religious dogma) you’re likely to find. Now a religious person could basically take the same process, following x and y as her particular religion ascribes, like “love thy neighbor as thyself” and “love God with all your heart” and believing z to be a union with or in the presence of God. So we have a Buddhist who is spiritual but not religious and a Christian who is spiritual and religious.

So I guess I don’t see what’s so confusing to you. I mean I don’t see anything more troubling about there being many spiritual paths than there being many religions, since all those spiritual paths basically entail the claim of some sort of higher or deeper reality that is outside the scope of scientific enquiry.

It's even more sad that people let their church dissuade them from listening to geologists about geology, and physicists about physics, and biologists about biology, and mathematicians about probability, and astronomers about astronomy, and historians about history, and geneticists about genetics, and on and on and on.

Many haven't, but a much larger number have. You're inside the bubble so you can't see it.

Though I disagree with you about the quantity of time exposed to this "deprogramming" that the typical christian persecution complex imagines, the truth is that the religious programming starts in the child's most formative years. By the time a child gets the most basic education about biology, they've had well over a decade of programming that "God did it."

I don't object to your observations, I disagree with the conclusions. I'm not politically dedicated to atheism, I'm dedicated to logic and verifiable facts. Sometimes that causes me to reject fairy tales.

Persecution complex, huh?

Of course, you didn't mean to wound with that observation?

Let me give you a hint. The tongue is an instrument. You can use it to communicate usefully or you can use it to hurt someone or dominate them.

You sounded like Sam Harris above.

No one with any brains would ever trust a Sam Harris because wounding people verbally is abusive and the end doesn't justify the means.

It's like fraternity hazings today. Most university presidents don't allow it today because you have no guarantee that the character of the person hazing another person is of a high enough calibre to do it safely.

I wasn't trying to offend you. I thought it was common knowledge that many religious people claim persecution over anything that isn't their faith.

It isn't really a religious thing, either. A few years ago, one of the professional basketball teams was the pre-season favorite to win the championship. They won almost all their games, and had a pretty easy time in the playoffs. But in the final series they hit a bit of a bump... maybe lost one of their home games or something--I don't remember. So they go on to win the championship series 4-1 or 4-2. After the last game, a player from the winning team is whining to the reporters, "Everybody doubted us, but we showed them! Nobody believed in us, but we shocked the world!"

There is a strange phenomenon in the world today (maybe it's just in the US, I don't really know) that people seem to need to believe that they're persevering and overcoming great odds, even if they actually have a really easy time of it. We all like to believe we're something special, religious people just take is a step further and believe that they have a spirit in the sky paying extra special attention to them; counting the hairs on their head.

I was listening to the Frank Pastore show (conservative religious guy) on the radio a while ago. He and callers were talking about offensive bumper stickers, etc... they didn't like "truck nuts" (cast-iron replicas of a male scrotum) hanging from the back of pickup trucks. They also had a big problem with the Darwin fish bumper stickers. But what they really got upset about, calling it the most offensive, and "I HATE those.... why do they have to shove that in my face?!?!?", was these coexist bumper stickers.

I had to look it up when I got home, and these are the objects of their hatred, the examples of the great persecution that Christians have to live with each day--having this filth thrown at good Christians all the time. Oh the horror!



There are dozens of examples of this complex. It's not surprising, when you are taught to believe that you are the center of the universe. But the collective blood pressure of all religious people could be lowered five points if they just realized that it's not all about them.

That gay couple walking down the street holding hands... they're doing it because they want to. They didn't stand in their window with binoculars, waiting for you to appear so they could shove their gayness in your face. This is hard for some religious people to accept, but they actually weren't thinking about you at all!

When you share your views of God with someone, and they share their views of naturalism with you, that's not persecution!

Anyway, I really do apologize if the comment offended you. It wasn't my intent. I didn't think you'd be offended anymore than I was when you implied that my feelings were nothing more than 'political dedication', as if I couldn't reach an opinion different than yours from a position of internal honesty.

On the other hand, if you're offended... you kind of proved my point.

What's more self affirming of internal honesty than crusading for a cause?

Just be certain your cause is noble because someone may put you to the test.

Spiritual means you are more astutely aware of the real intricacies of the world. Or something. Whatever sounds nice.

Like say... empiricism means you'll note that being hit by a car might kill you, a spiritual person might note that relying merely on harsh materialism might dull to the beauty of the universe and ultimately lead to a sad life not worth living.

It really is the catch-22 of metaphysics.