Quick Poll - Do you believe in God?

[Little Rik]

Your analysis miss something very important.
You should have asked...........IF YOU ARE NOT SURE 100% WHY YOU CONTINUE?
I continue because the results are coming as my work in that sense go forward and the
more it goes forward and the more the results are coming so why should i give up even if i am not 
100% sure?
Before i engaged in spirituality my life was an absolute disaster.
Now i am in charge of my life.
Now i am in control while before the body-mind control me.
Is this not a good reason to continue?
Wonder why that is? 

Confirmation bias, most likely.  Since giving up spirituality and religion, my life has changed for the better, but religion and spirituality have had little to do with it.  I have taken control of my mind-body-whatever and have taken charge of my life, and religion and spirituality were simply casualties along the way.

In other words, your life could have followed its particular course with or without "spirituality."  You would simply have given it a different name and you'd be none the worse off.  You would assign all good things to that factor and assigned any bad things to another, and that factor would become the engine of your success.  As we learn more and more about the human mind, we are whittling down that particular bastion of ignorance and another gap will shrink until it's too narrow to fit god into.

They say that the ways to reach Rome are many so i guess it is possible to reach the goal in many ways.
Spirituality has many ways.
I think that the best way is yoga but there are also many other ways.
Suppose a bad person change his-her way to deal with life for the better.
It will lead to a better person.
That is also a way to advance towards the goal of life.
I guess you mean just that so you too are advancing toward the goal of life.
By improving your life knowing or unknowing you engage in spirituality.
Your mind may think that all this has nothing to do with spirituality but it does indeed.
Why would you try to get better and better if there wouldn't be a goal?
Your consciousness like anyone consciousness is not at peace with finite goals that is why
it push you toward the infinite and the infinite is your real YOU.
You never thought about it Ton, did you? 

[Tonus]

By improving your life knowing or unknowing you engage in spirituality.

All this does is dilute the term.  You can point at anyone's attempts at self-improvement and call it "spirituality."  That's fine with me, since it gives people the freedom to apply it to anything, whether it involves gods or just plain old human ingenuity.  If everything is spiritual, then spirituality is nothing special.  Glad we settled that.

[Whateverist]

By improving your life knowing or unknowing you engage in spirituality.

All this does is dilute the term.  You can point at anyone's attempts at self-improvement and call it "spirituality."  That's fine with me, since it gives people the freedom to apply it to anything, whether it involves gods or just plain old human ingenuity.  If everything is spiritual, then spirituality is nothing special.  Glad we settled that.

I don't think of myself as spiritual but apparently I have been 24/7 all my life.  

[robvalue]

I'm very spiritual, in that I'm completely open to someone (a) telling me what the fuck it means then (b) demonstrating it is something other than imagination or metaphor.

So far no one has done that, but I'm very spiritually receptive to the next person who wants to try. Same with any supernatural stuff, same with anything. I don't count personal experiences I have no way of verifying as a demonstration of anything.

[Little Rik]

By improving your life knowing or unknowing you engage in spirituality.

All this does is dilute the term.  You can point at anyone's attempts at self-improvement and call it "spirituality."  That's fine with me, since it gives people the freedom to apply it to anything, whether it involves gods or just plain old human ingenuity.  If everything is spiritual, then spirituality is nothing special.  Glad we settled that.

Have you ever try to remember something that you knew but at the moment you forgot?
It happen to all of us in fact.
You try, try and try again.
Something after trying it come in your mind very fast.
Other time it come after sometime, other time just doesn't come or it come after few days.
Where do you think it come from?
If the mind is one it should come straight away not after sometime.
As i already said before the mind is a bit like an onion.
Layers after layers.
They form the onion so there is only one onion but the layers are many and are a bit different one an other.
The outside layer taste a bit different from the core of the onion.
Try if you don't believe.
The mind is also only one but as the onion has got several layers.
The outer mind is not as the inner layers of the mind or the core of the mind or the superconscious mind.
When the outer mind can not remember something it try to penetrate the inner layers of the mind because it is there
that the knowledge is stored so when you try to remember something that your outer mind can not give you all you do
UNCONSCIOUSLY you ask for help to your inner layers of your mind.
And again unconsciously you think that because the mind is one what you get with your outer layer of your mind is all you can get.
Wrong Ton.
Your inner layers of your mind carry a lot more knowledge that you think and if you go deeper and deeper inside you will find more and more.
An old saying goes that........we humans can only perceive less than 1% of the total existing knowledge.
An other old saying goes that.......if you want to know all you got first to know yourself.
When you say that.........spirituality is nothing special ..........you just don't really understand how the system works.
Spirituality is  not only getting at the core of the real I or the core of the mind but to realize who you really are.
By getting better and better every day you unconsciously get at the core of your inner I but by doing the work
unconsciously without knowing where you are heading it is very easy to get lost and when you get lost you have to 
struggle to find your way again.
But you never know Ton if you are very good with directions you may find the way back very easily.
Sometime it works but most the time it doesn't. 

[Tonus]

Have you ever try to remember something that you knew but at the moment you forgot?
It happen to all of us in fact.
You try, try and try again.
Something after trying it come in your mind very fast.
Other time it come after sometime, other time just doesn't come or it come after few days.
Where do you think it come from?

It comes from the brain.  Most likely the hippocampus.  Why turn to something that we cannot possibly study or understand (because we cannot even confirm that it's real) when there is already something that we can study and research and come to understand (the human brain) without resorting to mysticism?

When you say that.........spirituality is nothing special ..........you just don't really understand how the system works.

I am going by your own description of it.  If I don't understand it, it's because you don't know how to explain it.  And again, that's fine-- it's what we would expect from something that is made up and for which there are many conflicting explanations.  On the other hand, science has rules that helps to reduce --and often eliminate-- that confusion and bias from the research.  Science is understanding the human brain better and better each day, while "spirit" remains a confusing jumble in spite of a head start of many centuries.

[robvalue]

Yes, we have a subconscious, which is more "us" than our conscious self is, you could say. Conciousness is the store front to the illegal gambling den in the back where the real action is. We're the pencil topper to our own brain.

If you want to call that your spirit, then fine.

[Little Rik]

Have you ever try to remember something that you knew but at the moment you forgot?
It happen to all of us in fact.
You try, try and try again.
Something after trying it come in your mind very fast.
Other time it come after sometime, other time just doesn't come or it come after few days.
Where do you think it come from?

It comes from the brain.  Most likely the hippocampus.  Why turn to something that we cannot possibly study or understand (because we cannot even confirm that it's real) when there is already something that we can study and research and come to understand (the human brain) without resorting to mysticism?

When you say that.........spirituality is nothing special ..........you just don't really understand how the system works.

I am going by your own description of it.  If I don't understand it, it's because you don't know how to explain it.  And again, that's fine-- it's what we would expect from something that is made up and for which there are many conflicting explanations.  On the other hand, science has rules that helps to reduce --and often eliminate-- that confusion and bias from the research.  Science is understanding the human brain better and better each day, while "spirit" remains a confusing jumble in spite of a head start of many centuries.

Ton, the brain is something material.
It allow the mind to function as a car would allow a driver to move.
The car wouldn't move unless the driver decide to start the car and push the accelerator and the driver couldn't drive unless he would sit in a car.
From this we can deduce that they need each other but we also can understand that the vehicle is not in a condition to decide anything.
You keep on citing the brain as the one who is in charge but in reality is in charge for nothing so if you really want to understand something in this
context you really should deal with the mind not the brain.
And to understand the mind you got to explore the inner layers of it.
Physical science can a little bit that is why the knowledge in this regard is so little.
But the more they study the sooner will understand that they need a different type of science to penetrate the inner layers of the mind. 

[FatAndFaithless]

A little late to the party, but in response to the OP: No.

[Tonus]

You keep on citing the brain as the one who is in charge but in reality is in charge for nothing so if you really want to understand something in this
context you really should deal with the mind not the brain.

Researchers have been able to map out the areas of the brain responsible for various aspects of the mind by studying which areas 'light up' when people are thinking or reacting in various ways.  I'm not concerned with whether the brain is "in charge" or whether the mind is.  They're part of the same system.  The car/driver analogy is designed to explain how the mind is a wholly separate entity that can exist apart from the physical body, but once you go there you are in the realm of metaphysics, which you have admitted cannot be studied in any consistent or verifiable manner.  I don't worry about the stuff that cannot be tested, much less researched in a consistent manner.  And the more we learn, the more we find that the mind is just a function of the brain, not a metaphysical construct.

I see no reason to chase after ghosts, when science has proven capable of finding the answers if given enough time and enough freedom to work unhindered.