RE: spiritual but not religious
March 30, 2019 at 10:51 am
(This post was last modified: March 30, 2019 at 10:52 am by Brian37.)
(March 29, 2019 at 5:23 pm)yogamaster Wrote: Greetings!
I grew up Christian and was turned off by the dogma in my fundamentalist church, however I was left wanting to believe in some form of divine being because this was a major part of my upbringing and shaped my early experience with the world. Later I became interested in Buddhism because of its ties to spirituality without directly affirming an existence of god.
Is it possible to be spiritual but not religious, and if so could someone still be considered an atheist?
"Spiritual" is a meaningless word to me. It is simply a loaded term merely to say, "I have an intense sense of awe when I think about certain things."
You don't need to use the word "spiritual" to say you react to a loved one's hug, or your pet cat, or a beautiful sunset our mountain view.
In real biological terms, our senses create chemical reactions in our brains when we think about things we see as positive or comforting, that in turn can have the positive effect of boosting our immune systems. But those perceptions can at the same time be very false, like a kid who truly believes in Santa.
Yea, I have intense feelings when I see beauty in nature. But I simply do not assign those things to superstition or cliche words. There is no magic to life. Life also has very horrible destructive things in it too. It isn't that I want negative things to happen, just a fact of reality in that we observe them.
I don't have a "spiritual" feeling about volcanos or tornados killing people, much less serial killers or cancer.
There is lots of good in life for sure, but still just as natural as anything bad that can happen. "Natural" does not mean always desirable, just in that it is observable.
