A Basic Definition of Spirituality (of True Faith)

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

@Leonardo17

-This is an important point. But you can look at it this way:
 
I would not want to be in your car if you are driving after drinking to bottle of scotch or if you have had pills / magic mushrooms of anything like that. But would you be afraid of being in my car if I have meditated for 20 minutes before driving the car?
 
/ So there are some useful stuff there.

I don’t drink or take drugs. But if I did, yes - you should be terrified of getting in a car with me. As for the other, I don’t know how meditation affects you but (again) yes, I would probably be unconcerned about meditation affecting your driving.

I never said meditation can’t be useful. I took issue with your repeated claim that non-spiritual people can’t know anything worth knowing.

Boru

[Paraselene]

As great as knowledge can be, the wisest thing to accept is that there are some things not worth knowing.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

As great as knowledge can be, the wisest thing to accept is that there are some things not worth knowing.

Of course there are, but that varies from person to person. For instance, I find that my daily horoscope is not worth knowing.

Boru

[The Grand Nudger]

That’s a very serious possibility yes. But if I was convinced of that myself I would simply renounce to spirituality altogether and become an atheist like you guys. 

Judging by your comments about gods...you already are, my man.  We contain multitudes.  When you say that you don't believe that there's some divine person pulling strings in the background you're saying exactly what every single person here is saying when they say "I'm an atheist".  The rest of it is a tossup.  Very Online Atheists are extremely skeptical relative to atheism in general.  It's a product of our belief states (in this and so many other things) being challenged on a regular basis by both theists and other atheists.  That produces a community focused on analytics, hard science, formal logical explication.  However....most people who don't believe in gods do believe in many of the items those three things are very commonly set against.  The supernatural, the paranormal, various mind over matter schemes - the superstitious by any name.  Most atheists (again speaking for no one but myself.... here, we're a weird bunch) believe in something that maps to spirituality in their contexts, too.  

Renouncing spirituality doesn't actually make a person an atheist - consider all of the god believers with a dead faith life.  They strongly believe in gods but not spiritual things™.  In fact, in the us, that is THE context of conservative evangelical belief.  The baptist church explicitly and strictly rejects spiritualism™ as a matter of constitutional organization.  Also women talking to men like they know anything...in the next few days.  They strongly believe in gods but -also- believe that every "spiritual" whatsit is a crock of shit concocted by satan to tempt people away from the truth.  Being strongly predisposed towards some spirituality is, likewise, not an indication that a person is not an atheist.  I don't know if you've caught my many posts advocating for (and explaining all other religion by way of) a religion of nature.  Or the many interactions in which my fellow very online atheists note that the things I say and indicate a ceratin and unshakeable belief in can often (or even always, lol) come across as highly spurious and extremely familiar nonsense. That I talk about morality...just as one example...about is's and oughts and betterment in a way that, to them, sounds as though I'm taking notes from a pulpit somewhere.

Tyng it all up with a bow for you...and I've suggested this many times since you joined us...... alot of what you think you're arguing for (or against) with us..here..is actually a product of the theistic conditioning and framing you were brought up in. There are things you think are "atheist" that are not...and things that you think "atheists" don't or can't be which atheism does do, and we are. Gun to my head, if someone asked me to breifly explain you as you've communicated yourself to us here...I'd call you a progressive but superstitious atheist...and I don't mean that as a dig, just a description. I could probably sell you some crystals and a book on guided meditation, but I couldn't sell you on divinely sanctioned hate. You don't think there's a divine person to have hates to sanction in first goddamned place.....and that's a good thing.

[Ivan Denisovich]

As great as knowledge can be, the wisest thing to accept is that there are some things not worth knowing.

Even wiser is knowing that one knows nothing. Dude who supposedly said this is a symbol of wisdom to this day.

[Leonardo17]

Brian Sodding Boru:
 

“I don’t drink or take drugs. But if I did, yes - you should be terrified of getting in a car with me. As for the other, I don’t know how meditation affects you but (again) yes, I would probably be unconcerned about meditation affecting your driving.
 
I never said meditation can’t be useful. I took issue with your repeated claim that non-spiritual people can’t know anything worth knowing.”

 
I can reformulate this as “the more fundamental questions of life”.
 
Questions like:
 
- What do you do in a world in which we should have started reducing our greenhouse gas emissions at least 20 years ago but instead of investing these huge efforts into this energy transmission that is vital to almost all of us, politicians are doing basically nothing and seem to be focused instead on things like “Which Messiah that is destined to come during the apocalypse is the true Messiah”?
 
Or more simple basic questions:
 
- This life, existence, being or whatever is here. So what do you do with it once it is here?
 
(I mean very important questions with very important answers)
 
The Grand Nudger:
 

“Judging by your comments about gods...you already are, my man.  We contain multitudes.  When you say that you don't believe that there's some divine person pulling strings in the background you're saying exactly what every single person here is saying when they say "I'm an atheist".  The rest of it is a tossup.  Very Online Atheists are extremely skeptical relative to atheism in general.  It's a product of our belief states (in this and so many other things) being challenged on a regular basis by both theists and other atheists.  That produces a community focused on analytics, hard science, formal logical explication.  However....most people who don't believe in gods do believe in many of the items those three things are very commonly set against.  The supernatural, the paranormal, various mind over matter schemes - the superstitious by any name.  Most atheists (again speaking for no one but myself.... here, we're a weird bunch) believe in something that maps to spirituality in their contexts, too. 
 
Renouncing spirituality doesn't actually make a person an atheist - consider all of the god believers with a dead faith life.  They strongly believe in gods but not spiritual things™.  In fact, in the us, that is THE context of conservative evangelical belief.  The baptist church explicitly and strictly rejects spiritualism™ as a matter of constitutional organization.  Also women talking to men like they know anything...in the next few days.  They strongly believe in gods but -also- believe that every "spiritual" whatsit is a crock of shit concocted by satan to tempt people away from the truth.  Being strongly predisposed towards some spirituality is, likewise, not an indication that a person is not an atheist.  I don't know if you've caught my many posts advocating for (and explaining all other religion by way of) a religion of nature.  Or the many interactions in which my fellow very online atheists note that the things I say and indicate a ceratin and unshakeable belief in can often (or even always, lol) come across as highly spurious and extremely familiar nonsense. That I talk about morality...just as one example...about is's and oughts and betterment in a way that, to them, sounds as though I'm taking notes from a pulpit somewhere.
 
Tyng it all up with a bow for you...and I've suggested this many times since you joined us...... alot of what you think you're arguing for (or against) with us..here..is actually a product of the theistic conditioning and framing you were brought up in. There are things you think are "atheist" that are not...and things that you think "atheists" don't or can't be which atheism does do, and we are. Gun to my head, if someone asked me to breifly explain you as you've communicated yourself to us here...I'd call you a progressive but superstitious atheist...and I don't mean that as a dig, just a description. I could probably sell you some crystals and a book on guided meditation, but I couldn't sell you on divinely sanctioned hate. You don't think there's a divine person to have hates to sanction in first goddamned place.....and that's a good thing.”

 
- If you did I wouldn’t have a problem with that. Gandhi once said
"Do you think I am superstitious? I am a super-atheist,"
 
On the first paragraph: I remember an interesting movie in which the man had a daughter dying of Leukemia. Even as she was dying the man (an atheist) refused to let his daughter believe in any idea about the afterlife. After the girl died, he did the same to his wife who wanted to believe her daughter had become a sparrow or some other bird. Even then he expressed his hatred on religious authorities and claimed that without them, there would be a cure for his daughter’s illness.
 
/ So yes: Atheist can be very radical too.
 
On the second paragraph: Many churches have this hatred for new-age like spirituality. They see it as a work of Satan indeed. But the debate is still out. Personally, as someone who believes in “lowers energies” and “bad influences”, I really don’t think I’m under the ultimate negative energy of this level of existence. I can say that as someone who knows what he is talking about.
 
But yes: That’s what I am saying as well. There are these “religious” people who have simply lost contact with all forms of spirituality. Their “Religion” is actually an Ideology. Some archeologists and/or anthropologist use the term “ideology” to describe all sorts of cult phenomenon. But do you know why there is this revivalism of ancient religion (like Norse-Paganism for instance)? According to me: People want a more “connected” (hence more spiritual) relation with the divine. And one of the easiest way to do that is going back to nature and appreciating these various energies that are present within nature (which are referred to by them as Gods).
 
Third Paragraph:
 
- That’s ok with me. And I can re-quote Ivan denisovich above:
 

“Even wiser is knowing that one knows nothing. Dude who supposedly said this is a symbol of wisdom to this day.”

 
I’ve just seen a documentary on how the female cyclist team of Afghanistan was evacuated from there in 2021 by a Jewish (who I am learning is also in the close circle of Benjamin Netanyahu). In this world you have Mohammedans who are willing to murder young girls from their own country because they have committed the sin of riding a bicycle (the ones we all rode at least when we were kids) and a (probably atheist) citizen of Israel saves these 27-40 girls from these "followers of the Prophet" and offers them a free and unrestricted life in places like Canada and/or Switzerland.
 
So it’s not that I am a “this” or “that” it’s just that some of the designations that we all seem to have in this world have simply become empty words in this day

[The Grand Nudger]

You've got the general idea right......but you'd probably be surprised to find out how many of the pagan revivalist types are atheists. There's a broad understanding in the community that religions and spiritualities are (and can be continually) constructed...as ..mostly...quasi-reconstructionists. Certainly no wall between the two, as you would have it. The norse pagan end is usually less about nature and more about heritage, for better and for worse. Whole lotta white supremacists in that sub-group. It seems to me that you just use the terms to denote which x's you like and which you don't. A bad spirituality is a religion, and good spirituality is not a religion. To me, a spirituality is one's personal experience of the sense of the numinous. You can see how the white supremacists fit this because their connectedness comes from their (percieved, alleged, supposed) whiteness. A blood bond. A religion is what the community does about or with their spiritualities....which can be tasteful or distasteful, too.

For me, pagan spiritualities and religions..both decent and not so decent, just speak to my life experience better. I've spent most of it out there in the environment as a fighter or a farmer..and when I'm not doing that I'm dadding or foraging for fun, lol. So my particular brand of paganism is utterly and completely natural - it's how I experience the numinous, it's the way I see us all as connected to each other and to the universe. Not focused with or accommodating to super natures or superstitions or gods. IDK if I'd call it easy. I think it's probably alot easier to pick up a book about fortune telling and crystal healing and whatever flavor of quantum woo is popular on amazon.

It is interesting to note that there's nothing saying those things..as ridiculous and false as they are on their own grounds..can't also produce the sense we refer to as spiritual. Spirituality is truth neutral in that way, making the idea of a true spirituality or true faith a bit of an oxymoron. It's never really hurt religion or spirituality how often their contents prove to be demonstrably false. The point of them not being that they are true, but that we would make them so, if we could.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I can reformulate this as “the more fundamental questions of life”. 
 
Questions like:
 
- What do you do in a world in which we should have started reducing our greenhouse gas emissions at least 20 years ago but instead of investing these huge efforts into this energy transmission that is vital to almost all of us, politicians are doing basically nothing and seem to be focused instead on things like “Which Messiah that is destined to come during the apocalypse is the true Messiah”?
 
Or more simple basic questions:
 
- This life, existence, being or whatever is here. So what do you do with it once it is here?
 
(I mean very important questions with very important answers)
 

How you expect meditation to answer ‘fundamental’ or ‘very important’ questions? People have been looking for the ‘inner self’ since life become more than the never ending quest for the next meal, and these questions still remain unanswered.

I mean, your own navel-gazing and other practices may give you answers that satisfy you, but that really doesn’t begin to approach solutions to real-world problems.

Boru