Using the word Spiritual

[Anomalocaris]

In my opinion, "spirituality" is a half-way house for people who are still recovering from religion.

Being “spiritual” is often just a make belief haven from whence the mushy brained can assert a distinction without any meaningful difference from the rather perjoritive description of being “religious”.

It is in exactly the same category of confession without atonememt as “god but not religion”, “nondenominational”, or “bible based”.

[robvalue]

Maybe "I'll make you spiritual" could be a new kind of threat?

[emjay]

There are some uses of the word I don't mind:

"The little wascal has spiwit"
"Has what sir?"
"Spiwit"
"oh yes, he did sir"
"no no, spiwit... bwavado... a touch of dewwing-do"
"oh er, about eleven sir"

[vulcanlogician]

[robvalue]

(Since I mentioned this earlier...)

It seems like me doing any kind of critique of "the moral landscape" would be entirely redundant. I knew it was flawed at its core, as it's simply Harris asserting his own ideas of morality as somehow objectively true and correct (No True Scotsman); but if this video is anything to go by, it's actually a really garbage book. I'm rather shocked and disappointed. His attempts to hand-wave away Hume's guillotine are weaker than I thought.

[Joods]

I used to describe myself that way, after I no longer attended any church, but still believed on god.

For an atheist to use that term, I think, would have to imply that they aren't really an atheist at all because they still believe in some form of a deity. Honestly, it's just a term that I feel is used by people who are like I once was.

[robvalue]

I think here in England there would probably be quite a lot of atheists who would call themselves spiritual, as they fuck about with crystals, talking to the dead, "energy", all that jazz. Atheism is getting on for 50% of people here now, and far from all of them are sceptically minded.

[sdelsolray]

How many atheists here use that word to describe yourselves? How would you define it? I'm hesitant in using it because the word has a lot of supernatural baggage.

Well, the definition of "spiritual" in the dictionary suffers from root infection, i.e., it uses the root of the word (spirit) in the definition.

The definition of "spirit", again from the dictionary, has well over a dozen definitions, some overlapping and some quite distinct.

I would think use of the words "spirit" or "spiritual " are susceptible to confusion.

That being said, a few of the definitions for "spirit" (and implicitly "spiritual") deal with religion, metaphysics and associated woo woo.

Once a speaker/writer uses the word, and is clear that they are speaking/writing from the religion/metaphysics/woo woo perspective (good luck at getting many of them to be so clear), then the conversation can proceed.

[vulcanlogician]

^^^ Yup. With no definition, the thread becomes meaningless...

OP: Do you consider yourself to be "spiritual"?

"No. I'm not because I'm using the word to mean [this]"

"Yes. I am spiritual, because (to me) the word means [this]."

etc... etc... etc...

[Reltzik]

I'll echo what lots of others have said here.

"Spiritual" is often taken to mean something supernatural, which I would not describe myself as. Even if it might have a meaning (linked to something emotional or contemplative) that can coexist perfectly with a naturalist view and which even might apply to me, I would still not use the word "spiritual" because so many people would so quickly misinterpret what I was saying. Instead, I would use different words to convey the same concept with less confusion.