(February 15, 2025 at 9:10 pm)Belacqua Wrote:

(February 15, 2025 at 12:35 pm)Leonardo17 Wrote: Leonardo17- Agreed: I also have to add that actually I don’t know that much. All that I am saying is that all spiritual people need to demonstrate at least some of the dynamics that I have been trying to describe here. It does not matter if they are old school or new school or that they belong to this religious denomination or that religious denomination. One thing that turns me immediately away from anyone in an instant if it’s not present for instance is if they are not humble. 

Still, I would respect anyone making a serious effort to be more thoughtful of others, more peaceful, more grateful and appreciative. Those are difficult things.

So you wouldn't consider Randian objectivism or Nietzschean ethics a spiritual path?

(February 15, 2025 at 9:48 pm)Angrboda Wrote:

(February 15, 2025 at 9:10 pm)Belacqua Wrote: Still, I would respect anyone making a serious effort to be more thoughtful of others, more peaceful, more grateful and appreciative. Those are difficult things.

So you wouldn't consider Randian objectivism or Nietzschean ethics a spiritual path?

Good question. I'm not sure. 

I guess I've been associating spirituality with unselfishness, but maybe there are different kinds of spirit. 

Could you make an argument (even for the sake of argument) as to why those things are spiritual?

Spirituality is the politics of religion.

(February 15, 2025 at 9:52 pm)Belacqua Wrote:

(February 15, 2025 at 9:48 pm)Angrboda Wrote: So you wouldn't consider Randian objectivism or Nietzschean ethics a spiritual path?

Good question. I'm not sure. 

I guess I've been associating spirituality with unselfishness, but maybe there are different kinds of spirit. 

Could you make an argument (even for the sake of argument) as to why those things are spiritual?

I think it's an open question that interrogates what we mean by spirituality. There are many Randian objectivists for whom Rand's system is religious dogma.

If one doesn't like those, then what about Scientology. It seems the ostensible goal of Scientology is to fine-tune the mind / spirit for optimum flourishing. Stated that way, what is the goal of unselfish spiritualities?

(February 15, 2025 at 10:28 pm)Angrboda Wrote: I think it's an open question that interrogates what we mean by spirituality. 

Yep, I think that's what it comes down to. We answer the questions when we define the word.

First I'd say we could make a distinction between the ethical meaning and the ontological meaning. 

So ethical spiritual vs. material would be about what you value in your life. Do you want to be a good person or do you want good stuff. 

The ontological approach would claim that spirit is a separate thing from matter. People who believe this might go for life-after-death or something like that. Their practices for living spiritually might be the same as those of ethically spiritual people, but they would see it as grounded differently.

So far I've been thinking of the former more ethical meaning. I think that a strict scientist who believes in ontological materialism could still be spiritual in the sense of wanting to be a good person first and foremost. This would mean that the choices he made in life would be determined by what is best for other people and the world. 

(On the old Amazon forums there was a very spiritual lady who swore by meditation and several new-age kind of practices. It turned out that she worked making high-tech guidance systems for the weapons industry. So personally I felt that her spirituality was fake -- perhaps a way of assuaging guilt. But I'm sure she meant what she said.) 

Quote:If one doesn't like those, then what about Scientology.  It seems the ostensible goal of Scientology is to fine-tune the mind / spirit for optimum flourishing.  

Here I guess it depends on what you think of Scientology. Someone who thinks it's real will hold that he's improving his spirit. More skeptical people might well think he's a dupe who's giving away his money to unscrupulous people. 

I lean more toward the second option, but I've never really looked into Scientology.

(February 15, 2025 at 11:05 pm)Belacqua Wrote:

(February 15, 2025 at 10:28 pm)Angrboda Wrote: If one doesn't like those, then what about Scientology.  It seems the ostensible goal of Scientology is to fine-tune the mind / spirit for optimum flourishing.  

Here I guess it depends on what you think of Scientology. Someone who thinks it's real will hold that he's improving his spirit. More skeptical people might well think he's a dupe who's giving away his money to unscrupulous people. 

I lean more toward the second option, but I've never really looked into Scientology.

Is that fundamentally different from any other religion?

(February 15, 2025 at 11:20 pm)Angrboda Wrote:

(February 15, 2025 at 11:05 pm)Belacqua Wrote: Here I guess it depends on what you think of Scientology. Someone who thinks it's real will hold that he's improving his spirit. More skeptical people might well think he's a dupe who's giving away his money to unscrupulous people. 

I lean more toward the second option, but I've never really looked into Scientology.

Is that fundamentally different from any other religion?

Good point!

So let's take (temporarily, tentatively) the definition of spirituality to be "a value system which emphasizes first and foremost efforts to be more grateful, appreciative, aware of and connected to other life in the world, and humble about one's place in the world." 

Then any religion (or ideology, or political commitment) which met this definition would be spiritual. 

And we all know that sometimes religion does the opposite. It has been known to make people less connected to people unlike themselves, and prouder about their own group. So when it does those things it's unspiritual and bad. Ideologies and passionately-held commitments can have such effects. 

But I recognize that I've worked up a definition of spirituality here which is different from how many people use the word.

"Bad spirituality" is still spirituality. The politics of religion becoming plainly apparent in that list. That's one possible value system we might find, but there are more..and alot of them, even in the development of what we might consider to be paragon candidate ideologies...arose from martial cultures and were very much used as pretext for eliminating barbarous tribes. Such was the case for jainism, for example.