Getting drunk and playing poker could probably be classified in the general area of cheap thrills, could they not? Generally culminating in undesirable side effects also, such as hangovers, liver damage and financial loss. One does not need cosmic consciousness to know that.:bigsmile:

Getting drunk and playing poker could probably be classified in the general area of cheap thrills, could they not? Generally culminating in undesirable side effects also, such as hangovers, liver damage and financial loss. One does not need cosmic consciousness to know that.:bigsmile:

There is a difference between spirituality and religion, although they overlap in many respects. Spirituality is concerned with the search for experiential and inner truth, while religion expects conformity to the rules and regulations of a body of believers.

One of the first dogmas of Christianity was extra ecclesium nulla salus 'no salvation outside the Church'. It meant what it said, albeit with a certain amount of wriggle-room provided by the idea of 'the invisible church' as distinct from the visible one.

The attitude in Buddhism was different from the outset. According to legend, among Buddha's last words were the advice 'to be a light unto yourself. Work out your own salvation with diligence'.

So spirituality is distinct from having a good time, especially in a cheap or impure kind of way. So spiritual people don't do that?

I know some atheists that are spiritual.

I feel many theists assume a specific morality or a philosophy of all atheists as if athiesm is some life style or belief system, which it is not. [...]

I know some atheists that are spiritual.

Thanks for the input, but I'm still confused. I realize what the difference between religion and spiritualism is.

But as I've perused the recognized dictionaries, what I'm seeing as "spiritual" still had to do with the notion of the Spirit (or primarily those supernatural entities that have been labeled such).

What I typically hear are vague, non-descript phrases that are just something else renamed. Even some of your input here goes in that vein:

Some Abbreviated Concepts given as Spirituality:[INDENT] A "Unifying Spiritual Principle" -that sounds suspiciously like something from philosophy! You would want to keep away from that, don't know where it might end up.

But the fictional phenomena called "the Force" was "The Force" - as a matter of fact, George Lucus got the main mythological ideas for Star Wars from Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces. Marvellous book, I recommend it. In fact there is a rumour that Yoda was based on a Tibetan Rinpoche.

And ones inner self is their "Inner Self"
The idea of Experiential truth we call "Experiential Truth"
And a "Personal Relationship" is a "Personal Relationship" Inner truth = things you know are true in your heart that people in the world generally seem to ignore.

But... I don't call my cat "A Blender", I call him "A Cat"

So why are these things being called "Spirituality"? Help me understand here...
[/INDENT]Are we just taking other aspects of our existence and renaming/couching them as "spiritualism"? It sure sounds like it; and if that's the case, all we've done is applied a new meaning to an already established label with no value added and causing a lot of confusion. There still lingers the question: Aside from a religious context, what is spirituality?

I don't mean to come off as obstinate; but it seems to me this word has no real meaning except as a nice-sounding label that many seem to like bear regardless of substance. I well understand that this is a delicate, personal and important aspect for some of you and I highly respect the place it plays in your life. I'm just hoping to understand this trend/fad/characterization.

Again thanks - and thanks in advance for any additional insight

Thanks for the input, but I'm still confused. I realize what the difference between religion and spiritualism is. But as I've perused the recognized dictionaries, what I'm seeing as "spiritual" still had to do with the notion of the Spirit (or primarily those supernatural entities that have been labeled such). ...
I don't mean to come off as obstinate; but it seems to me this word has no real meaning except as a nice-sounding label that many seem to like bear regardless of substance. I well understand that this is a delicate, personal and important aspect for some of you and I highly respect the place it plays in your life. I'm just hoping to understand this trend/fad/characterization.

Again thanks - and thanks in advance for any additional insight

It's all good. A major part of the issue is that we are speaking about things that are out-of-scope for the verbal aspects of your intelligence.

What I typically hear are vague, non-descript phrases that are just something else renamed. [...] Are we just taking other aspects of our existence and renaming/couching them as "spiritualism"? [...] There still lingers the question: Aside from a religious context, what is spirituality?

I don't mean to come off as obstinate; but it seems to me this word has no real meaning except as a nice-sounding label that many seem to like bear regardless of substance. I well understand that this is a delicate, personal and important aspect for some of you and I highly respect the place it plays in your life. I'm just hoping to understand this trend/fad/characterization.

Again thanks - and thanks in advance for any additional insight

I checked out the article. That story that was told halfway down the page about the conversation between God and the Devil, was told by Krishnamurti when he dissolved the religious organisation that had been built around him - in 1927!

I think this column from the NYT a couple of years back is far more insightful: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/13/opinion/13brooks.html

The real challenge is going to come from people who feel the existence of the sacred, but who think that particular religions are just cultural artifacts built on top of universal human traits. It's going to come from scientists whose beliefs overlap a bit with Buddhism.In unexpected ways, science and mysticism are joining hands and reinforcing each other. That's bound to lead to new movements that emphasize self-transcendence but put little stock in divine law or revelation. Orthodox believers are going to have to defend particular doctrines and particular biblical teachings. They're going to have to defend the idea of a personal God, and explain why specific theologies are true guides for behavior day to day.

Researchers now spend a lot of time trying to understand universal moral intuitions. Genes are not merely selfish, it appears. Instead, people seem to have deep instincts for fairness, empathy and attachment.
Scientists have more respect for elevated spiritual states. Andrew Newberg of the University of Pennsylvania has shown that transcendent experiences can actually be identified and measured in the brain (people experience a decrease in activity in the parietal lobe, which orients us in space). The mind seems to have the ability to transcend itself and merge with a larger presence that feels more real.

Over the past several years, the momentum has shifted away from hard-core materialism. The brain seems less like a cold machine. It does not operate like a computer. Instead, meaning, belief and consciousness seem to emerge mysteriously from idiosyncratic networks of neural firings. Those squishy things called emotions play a gigantic role in all forms of thinking. Love is vital to brain development.

Thanks Jeeprs,

What "things" are you speaking of?

The claim is something to the effect of having some sort of personal relationship to something; this relationship probably has to be of a deeply respectful character; and its object cannot (knowingly) be another human being, nor can it be a collection of human beings, nor can it be any kind of human construction, no matter how impressive, such as science or art.

It is not a rejection of the notion of god or higher power or spirit but it is a rejection of organized institutional religion. It brings up the question about what a "religion" is or means...

I can't completely agree with this. I'm a big fan of Blake, who saw Life as Holy, and "God" as only existing within living beings (the usual kind.)

True, "spirit" is often associated with the supernatural, but for me it is not.

To recognize that love is the goal of life is "spiritual" in my opinion. And maybe it's even obvious. But maybe not. "God is Love" is for me the true kernel of Christianity, which is just a tradition, a husk. Now I take this "God is Love" idea literally. God is "just" a human emotion. But I feel that this human emotion is underestimated or presented by art (a potentially spiritual endeavor) as sentimentality or as something cheaper than it is. Art is or should be, in my opinion, an expression of love, a gift. Even science has its spiritual aspect. If one views the environment as part of man, and perhaps one should, an exploration of this environment can also be an act of love. Is curiosity love? I think it can be.

Well, love is not (I can't remember exactly how I put it) "another human being, or a collection of human beings, or a human construct", is it? So to worship love, in a sense, might well be spiritual; at least, it's not ruled out by my (loose, ad hoc) definition.

That's pretty much what I'm inclined to think, too, with the proviso that what I think about it may not be what it is. (Hence my interest in 'Zoe'.)

It shouldn't be forgotten, also, that Christianity started out as a rebellion against organised religion of all types (i.e. the pharisees, the Roman state religion) and that for the first couple of centuries uncountable numbers of Christians perished at the hands of authorities of all kinds, often in dreadful ways. Ironic, then, as I am sure you will all agree, that centuries afterwards the persecuted became the persecutors....

Not for me, either. I'm absolutely certain I have never expressed any belief in anything supernatural; and in my profile and in my introductory post I even went out of the way to repudiate any such belief.

I see Jesus, the character at least, as similar to Socrates. Two central characters for the West.

Yes, all we truly committed philosophers should go from door to door, urging strangers to "Accept Socrates into your life!"