Spirituality as an atheist?

[Reflex]

I suppose you've not discovered the concept of the ineffable ... which rather calls into question the substance of your judgement, if true. And if you indeed have come to understand the con el of the ineffable, your seeming inability to integrate it with your concept of spirituality makes me wonder how substantive your thinking is.

I'm on my phone and can't watch your video, but I should think that someone making such authoritative pronouncements on the spirituality of others ought to be capable of making his point in his own words.

In any event, I disagree with your conception of the subject, and find word salad unconvincing.

The feelings associated with finding out you have cancer are ineffable, so your statement about the concept of the ineffability is fatuous (I was using the words 'vacuous' too much).

Anyway, to what do you attribute the ineffable?

I attribute it to Spirit understood as the vital principle or animating force within living things and indeed the whole universe. 'Spirit' can also refer to a fundamental emotional and activating principle determining one's character or the state of a person's emotions. There are, of course, other definitions, but these are the most applicable in the context of this thread unless you have something else in mind.

One cannot, as an atheist, attribute the ineffable to 'spirit' in the first sense because God is spirit. And as far as I can see, what's left is an unstructured pile of emotional goo without content or direction.

[Cyberman]

Nobody is concerned about how far you can see; only what you can demonstrate. For instance, you keep stating that "God is spirit". How do you know this and is there a way to test the claim?

[Whateverist]

Spirituality is the kind of escapism which allows its practitioners to feel not only good about themselves but better than others.  Not a fan.

[Whateverist]

I suppose you've not discovered the concept of the ineffable ...

Nope. The sure sign of having encountered the ineffable is shutting the hell up.

[Thumpalumpacus]

I suppose you've not discovered the concept of the ineffable ... which rather calls into question the substance of your judgement, if true. And if you indeed have come to understand the con el of the ineffable, your seeming inability to integrate it with your concept of spirituality makes me wonder how substantive your thinking is.

I'm on my phone and can't watch your video, but I should think that someone making such authoritative pronouncements on the spirituality of others ought to be capable of making his point in his own words.

In any event, I disagree with your conception of the subject, and find word salad unconvincing.

The feelings associated with finding out you have cancer are ineffable, so your statement about the concept of the ineffability is fatuous (I was using the words 'vacuous' too much).

Anyway, to what do you attribute the ineffable?

I attribute it to Spirit understood as the vital principle or animating force within living things and indeed the whole universe. 'Spirit' can also refer to a fundamental emotional and activating principle determining one's character or the state of a person's emotions. There are, of course, other definitions, but these are the most applicable in the context of this thread unless you have something else in mind.

One cannot, as an atheist, attribute the ineffable to 'spirit' in the first sense because God is spirit. And as far as I can see, what's left is an unstructured pile of emotional goo without content or direction.

Firstly, the feelings aroused by cancer diagnoses are certainly explicable using language. My son's mother, a breast-cancer survivor, has over the years given eloquent voice to her feelings.

As to what I attribute as the source of the ineffable -- the truly ineffable, not your thoughtless tossed-off example -- I'd say it is because the language we speak doesn't possess the words to express the feeling in question accurately. That is, after all, the crux of the problem, and it needs no deeper attribution, you obvious longing notwithstanding.

Finally, you clearly misunderstood my point: The spiritual is a result of the ineffable, not the other way around, in my view.

[Reflex]

Firstly, the feelings aroused by cancer diagnoses are certainly explicable using language. My son's mother, a breast-cancer survivor, has over the years given eloquent voice to her feelings.

As to what I attribute as the source of the ineffable -- the truly ineffable, not your thoughtless tossed-off example -- I'd say it is because the language we speak doesn't possess the words to express the feeling in question accurately. That is, after all, the crux of the problem, and it needs no deeper attribution, you obvious longing notwithstanding.

Finally, you clearly misunderstood my point: The spiritual is  a result of the ineffable, not the other way around, in my view.

Firstly, I'm happy for your son's mother, but I am not so eloquent as to voice my feelings in a way others can relate to -- and I'm a cancer survivor twice over.

I agree with respect to the limitations of language, which is why the language of religion is largely allegorical rather than univocal. Nevertheless, logic isn't reduced to impotency because of it.

Finally, that the spiritual is a result of the ineffable may very well be true, but attributing it to (ineffable) mechanism or chance, which are the only logical alternatives to it's source or cause being something personal (i.e., God), has logical consequences which are spelled out by Alan Watts in Behold the Spirit.*

*Behold the Spirit was one of Watts' earliest works. His ideas were refined in later works, but never in a way that stands in contradiction to this earlier work.

---

Spirituality is the kind of escapism which allows its practitioners to feel not only good about themselves but better than others.  Not a fan.

If that's true for theists, then it is also true for atheists like Tyson.

[drfuzzy]

ok.  I may as well add my two cents worth.

Spirituality.  Well.  If you're really talking about appreciation for life, for exploration, for amazement at the unfathomable scope of the known universe, well, we can hope that all of us are capable of taking a few moments to feel that awe - that awareness that we are small and insignificant and should be grateful to be alive.  I'm not sure that has anything to do with the supernatural.  That type of appreciation is, hopefully, a part of just being human.

But if you're talking about entities that have abilities that we can't prove or describe, about entities that just MIGHT be out there somewhere - eh, that's just another way to claim that god exists.  It's a very, very weak claim.

My experience of "spirituality" is that of former theists that want to believe in god or gods . . . but want to break away from mainstream religion.  So they reach for whatever version of "woo" that seems viable.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Finally, that the spiritual is a result of the ineffable may very well be true, but attributing it to (ineffable) mechanism or chance, which are the only logical alternatives to it's source or cause being something personal (i.e., God), has logical consequences which are spelled out by Alan Watts in Behold the Spirit.*

Thanks for your kind words about my ex-. She's a good woman, a dear friend, and a great mother.

1) The language of religion fails to express the ineffable, too. It's a sort of Platonic thing, language: the words are the shadows on the cave-walls, and the emotions are the actual things those words seek to describe. The process is inherently imperfect even with everyday thoughts, concepts, or things; and that's not even considering the fact that in using language, you are seeking to communicate with another mind, which adds yet another layer of interpretation on the conversation. So when you experience the ineffable and attempt to eff it (), you are using a language that isn't equipped to deal with those sorts of rare and intensely personal events, sending it out in words to a listener and reader, and you have to hope that your words capture that experience. Then you have to hope that your listener or reader imbues your words with the same connotations and denotations such that a sense of your ineffable experience is transmitted to their mind. The language of religion uses the same words as the rest of the world. Some of them have special religious connotations or denotations; all that is is religion modifying the language to suit its purpose. And even then it fails.

2) As for whence spirituality, you forgot the person experiencing the feelings. Simply asserting that it must be "(ineffable) mechanism or chance" doesn't mean that that is true. It's entirely possible for someone to have feelings arise directly out of themselves, and still be mysterious. Do you honestly think people always know why or even what they feel, or how to express their feelings precisely, or even generally at times? How do you explain, then, the psychotherapy industry, which is based on getting people to the roots of their emotions? When I watched my son being born ... man, I still can't tell you exactly what I was feeling. And I'm a writer, who uses the language as a plaything. Finding your god in the limits of language doesn't seem very convincing, to me.

Furthermore, if you're going to posit your god as a source of anything, you're going to have to demonstrate his existence. I don't dabble in myth and am not interested in poisoning this discussion with PIDOOMA assertions.

So far as I'm concerned, you're welcome to pontificate on the spirituality of others when you experience their emotions. Until then, the circumspect thing to do is limit your discussion to your own spirituality, if you have any.

[Little Rik]

Spirituality = the search for the spirit within.
The spirit concern is not the booze but it is the real YOU so spirituality is the work involved to discover the real you.
We wrongly think that the real me is what i feel to be right now but no.
The more we enter the consciousness the more we understand that is a lot lot more but the talk could go on and on.
The same apply to the consciousness.
The search continue until our consciousness merge in the infinite one and that represent the end of the search.  

Well, I completely reject that notion of spirituality, on the basis of being absurd and unfounded. 

It strikes me that people believe in "supernatural" forces; "Supernatural" or "magic" or belief in "holy spirit" or anything supernatural for that matter, is literally just replacing what you don't know with something made up. That sort of spirituality is literally just making shit up, or tricking yourself into believing in your imagination.

Having an imagination is actually a really good thing, but it's really important to separate in your head what is real and what isn't.

This is what i call total confusion.
Spirituality has nothing to do with imagination.
Spirituality is not something external.
God is not external.
It is all within.
The seed (spirit) if allow to sprout take the same form as the plant or tree that generate it in the first place.
Spirituality is none but the work to allow this seed to germinate and take the form of the originator (God).
Now i guess your intellect tell you that when you don't know something you think and think in the hope that something come up.
Where do you think this or these information come up from other than from your inner consciousness?
What this means?
It just means that deep within there is a mine of knowledge.
The more we put this mine in the position to allow us to extract more knowledge and consciousness the more we can get.
When you say.... "Supernatural" or "magic" or belief in "holy spirit" or anything supernatural for that matter, is literally just replacing what you don't know with something made up.........it just show how confused you are.
When you think and work on your intellect you get useful information not something made up.
Spirituality is not interested in something made up.
When the seed is allow to sprout it give the real tree of life not something made up.  

[DespondentFishdeathMasochismo]

Little Rik, you're on a fucking atheist forum. What the hell are you doing?