Secular Spirituality

For all things philosophical.

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Conde Lucanor
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Re: Secular Spirituality

Post by Conde Lucanor »

"Spirit" usually I don't mind, but "spiritual" and "spirituality" I tend to avoid. I'd rather use the appropriate psychological terms: intellectual, emotional, affective, social, etc.
Dubious
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Re: Secular Spirituality

Post by Dubious »

I like Jung's definition of spirit even though other definitions are possible
Spirit, like God, denotes an object of psychic experience which cannot be proved to exist in the external world and cannot be understood rationally.

This is its meaning if we use the word “spirit” in its best sense.

Once we have freed ourselves from the prejudice that we have to refer to concepts of external experience or to a priori categories of reason, we can turn our attention and curiosity wholly to that strange and unknown thing we call spirit.

Spirit and Life
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Greta
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Re: Secular Spirituality

Post by Greta »

Note to -1- ... I truly do believe that I have been granted the good things in life by a greater conscious anthropomorphic entity.

Back in the day I used to called him "Dad" :) Seriously, m'laddio, your attention seems to be so caught by the s-word that you forgot about the preceding s-word - "secular". People seem to read the term as secular SPIRITUALITY :lol:


Dubious wrote: Tue Jan 23, 2018 1:24 amAs expected from Tyson who in this video stops thinking, surrendering to a sentiment and its feel great conclusion. He's always interesting but also a showman with an outstanding ability to impress not unlike Billy Graham; he clearly knows what side his bread is buttered on...
Greta wrote: ... You have, in your criticism, captured the nub of the issue - "surrendering to a sentiment". Correct! Surrendering to positive emotions is pretty well the crux of spirituality. Is the emotion directed towards mythological entities representative of certain aspects of the human character, or is it aimed towards nature? Or sporting teams, for some.

... we'll have to find another term ... "Retention of 'childish' enchantment with reality" or "Preference not to take the wonders of life for granted".
Dubious wrote:As for what particular positive emotion there is in knowing that we're made of star dust is somewhat beyond me.
Understanding of our past and origins. The connection of all things and a sense of unity. I'm sensitive and easily amused. Contemplating the structure of an atom, the nature of life, of geology etc delights me but bores most people, yet they might love travel but I find it mostly stressful. These different aptitudes and ways of engaging reality harks back to earlier chat about the value of diversity in human society.

Dubious wrote:We've all had it sensing an abdication of ego in the presence of some experience which seems to envelop us.
Yes, as I mentioned earlier, I think everyone is "spiritual" to some extent, no matter how they interpret what they do. Most of us at some stage lose ourselves in activities, are enchanted by things, people or events, feel deeply grateful for aspects of, or all of their lives, and so forth. I also don't think it important whether one realises that they are being spiritual (at least to the definition of some); it's nice to be ever more aware of the nature of our doings, but it's not as essential as the actual doings and the intent behind them.


Belinda, I agree re: "not taking things for granted". It's so easy to take everything for granted that doesn't pertain to success in human society - there's a tree *yawn*, grass, sky, roads, houses ... all ignored, just givens.

It's harder, but very satisfying, to stop and really observe a local tree ... this life form jutting out of the earth round like a giant hair, the absorbent roots reaching down for water and stability while connecting with underground strands of fungi to communicate chemically with other trees. The thin strip of life watered by capillary action that runs up the tree, surrounded and protected by layers of its hardened dead "ancestor" sapwoods. The living part sprouting through as individual leaves, pushed by the body of the tree into an optimal position, which often includes a slow-motion wrestling competition with other trees, etc etc etc.

That is just one tree and we've only just started. How about a blade of grass or a small lizard? Or the mind-boggling precision engineering of the machines with which we are communicating? Or have a look at your hand - we are funny looking things when you think about it. We are surrounded by marvels and potential interest if we have the space, opportunity, energy and inclination to enjoy them.
Dubious
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Re: Secular Spirituality

Post by Dubious »

Dubious wrote: As for what particular positive emotion there is in knowing that we're made of star dust is somewhat beyond me.
Greta wrote: Tue Jan 23, 2018 11:00 pm Understanding of our past and origins. The connection of all things and a sense of unity. I'm sensitive and easily amused. Contemplating the structure of an atom, the nature of life, of geology etc delights me but bores most people, yet they might love travel but I find it mostly stressful. These different aptitudes and ways of engaging reality harks back to earlier chat about the value of diversity in human society.
Understanding and contemplating is fine but they don't usually lead to some spiritual identity with star stuff when it's realized that everything derives from the same elements. If I'm not a "citizen of the universe" made from IT, a phrase often used by Sagan, what am I a citizen of...if citizen is the right word to use?

With the overdone spiritual emphasis given to the mundane fact that all is star-stuff by Sagan and his imitator, Tyson, let's not forget that what gets flushed down the toilet and dumped in landfills is also star-stuff or stardust to be more poetic!

Sorry if this ruins the poetry of "stardust"!
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Greta
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Re: Secular Spirituality

Post by Greta »

Dubious wrote: Tue Jan 23, 2018 11:50 pm
Dubious wrote: As for what particular positive emotion there is in knowing that we're made of star dust is somewhat beyond me.
Greta wrote: Tue Jan 23, 2018 11:00 pm Understanding of our past and origins. The connection of all things and a sense of unity. I'm sensitive and easily amused. Contemplating the structure of an atom, the nature of life, of geology etc delights me but bores most people, yet they might love travel but I find it mostly stressful. These different aptitudes and ways of engaging reality harks back to earlier chat about the value of diversity in human society.
Understanding and contemplating is fine but they don't usually lead to some spiritual identity with star stuff when it's realized that everything derives from the same elements. If I'm not a "citizen of the universe" made from IT, a phrase often used by Sagan, what am I a citizen of...if citizen is the right word to use?

With the overdone spiritual emphasis given to the mundane fact that all is star-stuff by Sagan and his imitator, Tyson, let's not forget that what gets flushed down the toilet and dumped in landfills is also star-stuff or stardust to be more poetic!

Sorry if this ruins the poetry of "stardust"!
No problem. We are allowed to be different :). It's not the fact that we are the debris of supernovae that is mundane IMO but your mindset has been deliberately flatlined.

Unless your comment was mainly just to make a point, it would seem that you have moved past wonder at the "childish things" of nature, that you felt the wonder as a child long ago and see little reason to revisit all that under some romanticised notion of "secular spirituality" :) Others, however, are more inclined to be psychonauts than practical, more interested in revisiting the reverie because, just as having fumbling sex a couple of times in your teens tends not to satiate the sex drive for a lifetime, a child's wonder at the world won't necessarily satisfy a lifetime's need for wonder.

Of course, if we need to expend most of our energy on work, kids, spouse, tight finances, mortgages, extended family, formal education, a demanding job with a driving boss then, yes, there may not be time or the energy to "stop and smell the roses". If, however, there is space in one's life, then to not stop to wonder about ostensibly insignificant things for the joy of it would seem to be a dutiful habit carried over from years of conditioning by life's demands (as listed above). Some will be worried about being seen to be too self-indulgent and/or unproductive.

I remember how relatively desensitised - "work toughened" - I was by the time I retired. Retirement for me has been a process of re-sensitisation, where "trivial" details of life become interesting and the practicalities of human society, for decades the be-all-and-end-all for me, seem ever more like mere froth and bubble.
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Greta
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Re: Secular Spirituality

Post by Greta »

Dan Dennett speaks eloquently about secular spirituality: http://bigthink.com/videos/daniel-denne ... irituality
Nick_A
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Re: Secular Spirituality

Post by Nick_A »

"Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars — mere globs of gas atoms. Nothing is "mere". I too can see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see less or more? The vastness of the heavens stretches my imagination — stuck on this carousel my little eye can catch one-million-year-old light. A vast pattern — of which I am a part... What is the pattern or the meaning or the why? It does not do harm to the mystery to know a little more about it. For far more marvelous is the truth than any artists of the past imagined it. Why do the poets of the present not speak of it? What men are poets who can speak of Jupiter if he were a man, but if he is an immense spinning sphere of methane and ammonia must be silent?" ~ Richard P. Feynman

"Beauty is the only finality here below. As Kant said very aptly, it is a finality which involves no objective. A beautiful thing involves no good except itself, in its totality, as it appears to us. We are drawn toward it without knowing what to ask of it. It offers its own existence. We do not desire something else, we possess it, and yet we still desire something. We do not know in the least what it is. We want to get behind beauty, but it is only a surface. It is like a mirror that sends us back our own desire for goodness. It is a sphinx, an enigma, a mystery which is painfully tantalizing. We should like to feed upon it, but it is only something to look at; it appears only from a certain distance. The great trouble in human life is that looking and eating are two different operations. Only beyond the sky, in the country inhabited by God, are they one and the same operation. ... It may be that vice, depravity and crime are nearly always ... in their essence, attempts to eat beauty, to eat what we should only look at." ~ Simone Weil

The secular spiritualist will limit themselves to what concerns Richard Feynman. Those who intuitively know there is more than just the mask we experience will be attracted to what Simone Weil has written and will have a greater appreciation for spiritual potential
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Re: Secular Spirituality

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Nick_A wrote: Thu Jan 25, 2018 5:47 pm The secular spiritualist will limit themselves to what concerns Richard Feynman. Those who intuitively know there is more than just the mask we experience will be attracted to what Simone Weil has written and will have a greater appreciation for spiritual potential
I think we ought to get a court order for Nick_A to "cease and desist" from starting any sentence with the word "secular". He could still use the word in sentences, just not as a first word.

This constant repetition is driving me bonkers.

The religious spiritualists will limit themselves to what concerns Simone Weil. Those who intuitively know there is no more than a mask we experience will be attracted to what Richard Feynman has written, and will have a greater appreciation for material potential.
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Greta
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Re: Secular Spirituality

Post by Greta »

Nick_A wrote: Thu Jan 25, 2018 5:47 pm
"Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars — mere globs of gas atoms. Nothing is "mere". I too can see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see less or more? The vastness of the heavens stretches my imagination — stuck on this carousel my little eye can catch one-million-year-old light. A vast pattern — of which I am a part... What is the pattern or the meaning or the why? It does not do harm to the mystery to know a little more about it. For far more marvelous is the truth than any artists of the past imagined it. Why do the poets of the present not speak of it? What men are poets who can speak of Jupiter if he were a man, but if he is an immense spinning sphere of methane and ammonia must be silent?" ~ Richard P. Feynman

"Beauty is the only finality here below. As Kant said very aptly, it is a finality which involves no objective. A beautiful thing involves no good except itself, in its totality, as it appears to us. We are drawn toward it without knowing what to ask of it. It offers its own existence. We do not desire something else, we possess it, and yet we still desire something. We do not know in the least what it is. We want to get behind beauty, but it is only a surface. It is like a mirror that sends us back our own desire for goodness. It is a sphinx, an enigma, a mystery which is painfully tantalizing. We should like to feed upon it, but it is only something to look at; it appears only from a certain distance. The great trouble in human life is that looking and eating are two different operations. Only beyond the sky, in the country inhabited by God, are they one and the same operation. ... It may be that vice, depravity and crime are nearly always ... in their essence, attempts to eat beauty, to eat what we should only look at." ~ Simone Weil
The secular spiritualist will limit themselves to what concerns Richard Feynman.
How would you know? Mind you, Feynman was plenty spiritual. You dismiss his words above as if just a abstraction, without understanding, taking what's said seriously, but his words are deep.

I like Weil's observation about operating with a light and careful touch, something I have thought about myself. On a societal level that's a lesson yet to be learned. However, parts of SW's quote are ungrounded, seemingly distracted by solipsism and politics. For instance: "A beautiful thing involves no good except itself, in its totality, as it appears to us. We are drawn toward it without knowing what to ask of it". This is a misrepresentation, a strawperson. Both Simone and you would be more in touch with reality if you had more respect and appreciation for the sentience of others; there's a lot more going on with others than you suppose, than the outside shell. People are not the sum total of the face (and words) they present to you and fit far less neatly into stereotypes than you suppose, and their responses more complex and sophisticated.

You know how you feel that you don't neatly fit into any stereotype? Most people feel that way.

Meanwhile, secular spirituality is obviously not just about "beauty", reflections of light, emanations of sound waves or particular chemical combinations. This appreciation for nature does not come from being attracted to shiny objects but from deep consideration of the nature of things, with each new fact being weird and wonderful when considered deeply enough. Then you find these weird & wonderful facts building on other facts upon more facts and again and again ... the scale of it blows your mind. It's more than a human brain can compute.

At that point some feel discomfort and irritation about this and decide to devote mental space to more immediately practical things. The more curious amongst us, though, are more likely to feel joy and awe to be party to this incredible edifice of reality - to be an incredible edifice oneself.

Meanwhile all of this ticks along beautifully without one needing to do anything but a little drudgery, and one need not have a clue what's going on. However, the more we learn, the more astonishing and curiosity-provoking reality becomes, and the more we can make informed decisions in dealing with it.
Nick_A
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Re: Secular Spirituality

Post by Nick_A »

Greta
Meanwhile, secular spirituality is obviously not just about "beauty", reflections of light, emanations of sound waves or particular chemical combinations. This appreciation for nature does not come from being attracted to shiny objects but from deep consideration of the nature of things, with each new fact being weird and wonderful when considered deeply enough. Then you find these weird & wonderful facts building on other facts upon more facts and again and again ... the scale of it blows your mind. It's more than a human brain can compute.
From the OP:
Secular spirituality emphasizes humanistic qualities such as love, compassion, patience, forgiveness, responsibility, harmony and a concern for others.[7] Du Toit argues aspects of life and human experience which go beyond a purely materialistic view of the world are spiritual; spirituality does not require belief in a supernatural reality or divine being.[5]:1098 Mindfulness and meditation can be practiced in order to cherish, foster, and promote the development of one's empathy and manage selfish drivers of behavior, with solicitude and forgiveness. This can be experienced as beneficial, or even necessary for human fulfillment, without any supernatural interpretation or explanation. Spirituality in this context may be a matter of nurturing thoughts, emotions, words and actions that are in harmony with a belief that everything in the universe is mutually dependent. Scholar Daniel Dennett suggests spirituality as connected to "aweand joy and sense of peace and wonder," explaining "people make a mistake of thinking spirituality... has anything to do with either religious doctrines... or the supernatural," instead claiming spirituality can be and is often entirely secular.[8]. However critics [9] [10] suggest that because 'secular spirituality' does not reference theistic, supernatural or any 'other-worldly' constructs it cannot be truly considered spirituality — without some non-ordinary /supernatural element, the dissenters argue that spirituality boils down to being nothing more than a synonym for humanism.
From the point of view of Plato’s divided line, Richard Feynam writes of the visible realm below the line and Simone Weil is writing of the intellectual realm above the line. Richard Feynman is using one quality of mind while Simone respects its value but is drawn to experience the intellectual realm from the intuitive higher quality of mind. Secular spirituality responds to stimuli received below the line while human consciousness is drawn to experience reality above the line. Secular spirituality will call it supernatural but it is just the norm for human conscious potential.

For anyone curious about what is meant by the divided line, this link should explain it

http://www.john-uebersax.com/plato/plato1.htm
Belinda
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Re: Secular Spirituality

Post by Belinda »

A straight line is the shortest distance between two points (Euclid)

Plato was rational as I think all agree. A line divided into sections is nevertheless a line, the shortest distance between two points.

Nick's cumbersome dualism is therefore not the philosophy of Plato :"a straight line is the shortest distance between two points".

Euclid and Plato were both mathematicians who were inspired by Pythagoras, same school,of thought; and Euclid lived after the lifetime of Plato.
Dubious
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Re: Secular Spirituality

Post by Dubious »

”Greta” wrote:Dan Dennett speaks eloquently about secular spirituality: http://bigthink.com/videos/daniel-denne ... irituality

What means spirituality but to travel beyond the immediate purlieus of one’s feelings and emotions, to range beyond its visible light, penetrating into its more hidden ultraviolet regions. There are no limitations to the core meaning of “spirituality”. Preceding it with another word such as “secular” limits its reach. Can the word be divided in this manner without contradiction? What is specifically secular or theistic about spirituality?

Secular spirituality is an oxymoron which flat-lines the very idea of itself. Spiritual experiences do not need to be modified into secular or theistic as distinct from the other.

”Greta” wrote:No problem. We are allowed to be different . It's not the fact that we are the debris of supernovae that is mundane IMO but your mindset has been deliberately flatlined.
Yes! And as you say it was done with intent by noting the sub-zero reality which only warms to more agreeable temperatures through the imagination.

”Greta” wrote:Unless your comment was mainly just to make a point, it would seem that you have moved past wonder at the "childish things" of nature, that you felt the wonder as a child long ago and see little reason to revisit all that under some romanticised notion of "secular spirituality"
It’s not often I quote the bible:
When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
”Greta” wrote:Others, however, are more inclined to be psychonauts than practical, more interested in revisiting the reverie…
What are reveries usually composed of but sentimental reminiscences; a traveling backwards instead of forwards.

”Greta” wrote:I remember how relatively desensitised - "work toughened" - I was by the time I retired. Retirement for me has been a process of re-sensitisation, where "trivial" details of life become interesting and the practicalities of human society, for decades the be-all-and-end-all for me, seem ever more like mere froth and bubble.
A renewal in one’s latter years is certainly a blessing offering confirmation to some after long experience of what is most valuable compared to what was most necessary.
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Re: Secular Spirituality

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Belinda wrote: Fri Jan 26, 2018 10:46 am A straight line is the shortest distance between two points (Euclid)

Plato was rational as I think all agree. A line divided into sections is nevertheless a line, the shortest distance between two points.

Nick's cumbersome dualism is therefore not the philosophy of Plato :"a straight line is the shortest distance between two points".

Euclid and Plato were both mathematicians who were inspired by Pythagoras, same school,of thought; and Euclid lived after the lifetime of Plato.
In my language the line (a straight line) was always thought to be infinite. A short line, with two endpoints, thus, a line with finite length, in my language was called "a segment" or "line segement" ("szakasz").

I wonder if this is true in the English language.

I appreciate that in English there may be colloquial equivalencies to strict names of geometric shapes and objects.
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Re: Secular Spirituality

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”Greta” wrote:I remember how relatively desensitized - "work toughened" - I was by the time I retired. Retirement for me has been a process of re-sensitization, where "trivial" details of life become interesting and the practicalities of human society, for decades the be-all-and-end-all for me, seem ever more like mere froth and bubble.
A renewal in one’s latter years is certainly a blessing offering confirmation to some after long experience of what is most valuable compared to what was most necessary.
[/quote]
Ha! I was desensitized by a debilitating mental disease, starting at around age 13. Or diseases. Now in my sixties, for the first time in 50 years, I am re-living impressions of my childhood moods, harkening back to my pre-diseased state... they are not as vivid, not as long-lasting, but just as pleasant and wonderful.

Unfortunately this revival of occasional experiences of joyous and rapturous childhood moods lasted no more than about a few months. There may be a diagnosis, pending still a few invasive tests, but I may have developed a serious physical illness. Until I know for sure, I don't think I'm going to have any more of these flashes of the past. For a fact, I feel really sick from time to time, almost inexplicably... for instance, when I cough, or when I exert pressure on my bowels in the washroom, I feel dizzy and sickened.

At the most acute phase of my mental debilitation, still in my teens, I listened to a Deep Purple song from Machine Head, and balled my eyes out every time when I heard it.

The song was called "Pictures of Home", together with another song, almost a continuation, "Super Trouper", from the band's immediately next album released (in chronological order), "Who Do We Think We Are". "Super Trouper" was a more positive song, in lyrics, it pointed at a brighter future. In my life it actually actualized; but like I hadn't expected, only many, many, many years later.

One of the many reasons I don't believe in the supernatural and to a degree in spirituality, is the fact that life is much too random. There is no just or justifiable reward-punishment system on Earth; it is explicable only by science, and without a moral overtone. The faiths and spirituality all imply a moral world order, which simply does not exist.

In the Bible, the Book of Job is about exactly that. It teaches the readers of the Bible that no matter what, God after all does not stand up to His promise; that life is random, and you may argue about it with your God, that won't change the situation.

"When I was back there, in seminary school... there was a person there who put forth the proposition, that you can petition the Lord with prayer.

Petition the Lord with prayer.

PeTItion the Lord... with prayer??

YOU ... CAN NOT PETITION THE LORD WITH PRAYER!!!" -- Jim Morrison, of the Doors.

Many of us suspect that this is so because the Lord does not exist, and the entire Bible is nothing but a set of propagandist, or else merely well-intended, but basically dimwitted instruction books. The forerunner to the "For Dummies" series, in a way, with today's knowledge less all kinds of knowledge humanity accumulated, resulting with the dim grasp of reality that was prevalent in the minds of all people back 1985 years ago.

And folks take it as gospel, and search for meaning and lessons in it... and they have to apply more and more explanations, because the stories in the Bible make less and less immediate sense... except these people are committed to a belief, which is unbelievable beyond belief.
Belinda
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Re: Secular Spirituality

Post by Belinda »

-1-, The Book of Job illustrates how a man (Job) loves what he holds to be good despite his own failures and misfortunes.
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