What exactly is the meaning of "spirituality" in your formulation? — Reformed Nihilist
So basically it's a feeling that one might be finally getting some answers to the questions that have haunted and plagued humanity since it first started philosophizing. — darthbarracuda
t's the feeling of being almost-at-home, but not quite, as if you're approaching some big discovery and part of the deal is that it's mysterious, and that once you finally arrive it'll all make sense, including why it had to be mysterious in the first place — darthbarracuda
Religion is the vision of something which stands beyond, behind and within the passing flux of immediate things; something which is real, and yet waiting to be realized; something which is a remote possibility, and yet the greatest of present facts; something that gives meaning to all that passes, and yet eludes apprehension; something whose possession is the final good, and yet is beyond all reach; something which is the ultimate ideal, and the hopeless quest. — Whitehead
Basically just any sort of feeling of belonging in the world or serving a higher purpose that is not immediately concrete and accessible but rather overarching and "cosmic", something that permeates everything and anything. That there is some "other" order to the universe that makes it all "make sense", justifies injustices and to which the aesthetic provides access to.
It's the feeling of being almost-at-home, but not quite, as if you're approaching some big discovery and part of the deal is that it's mysterious, and that once you finally arrive it'll all make sense, including why it had to be mysterious in the first place. Most likely this understanding would seem to reside after death, in some other realm or mode of existence, and which the journey to is life.
I'd say it's a deep, primordial desire to belong and see what it "all" is about, how everything hangs together, to comprehend the necessity of every thing that exists and grasp some grand, metaphysical mosaic of meaning. It's natural and inevitable but I think it's also commonly formed from desperation. It's not just a desire but a need, a demand, that the universe be welcoming and recognize the person. Or at least "open up" to their questions.
So basically it's a feeling that one might be finally getting some answers to the questions that have haunted and plagued humanity since it first started philosophizing. — darthbarracuda
To be devoid of spirituality is to be homeless. At least that's what it seems to me. — darthbarracuda
To make much ado about "spirituality" is to construct for oneself an ivory tower, paradoxically, made largely out of thin air, from which to look down upon the others below. At least that's what it seems to me. — Sapientia
Here's the problem I have with this response.You haven't really clarified anything. When you use the word "spiritual" do you mean "feeling of belonging"? or "serving a higher purpose"? or "almost at home but not quite"(which seems to be a contradiction to "feeling of belonging")? or "a deep, primordial desire to belong and see what it "all" is about"? — Reformed Nihilist
2) Maybe there is something to it, and no one has been able to explain it well enough for me to grasp their meaning. If it is either complex enough or subtle enough, perhaps I just missed it.
Now it's a little self serving, but I have been pretty good with complex and/or subtle ideas in the past, and my personal experience also lends weight to the first hypothesis, so that's the one I favor, but I keep my mind open to the second, or the possibility that there's another explanation that I haven't considered yet. — Reformed Nihilist
Thats just more calling me an asshole man, and then taking a stand on high as the one being appealed to as if i want something from you. — Wosret
What you believe isnt my problem. I enjoyed reading you a lot when i first showed up on the philosophy forum a decade ago. I thought that you were pretty cool shit back then. I even tried to talk to you, but you werent interested, so im more pleased than anything that im getting it now. — Wosret
Youre only like 4 hours from me as well.
I don't want to speak for ↪darthbarracuda, but I would say that all of the above are the definition that he's describing. The reason the concept might seem vague is because language has limits; human experience is wider than the scope of one single language's ability to describe experience. A concept that eludes a dead, musty dictionary definition is a concept that's more alive than most concepts. — Noble Dust
Seeing as though I have literally no clue what spirituality might reefer to if not to a dualistic nether-world where our vaporous homunculus reside, I am asking for a definition that at least gives me a succinct and graspable starting point... — Reformed Nihilist
Youre critiquing the way i say things rather than what i said. — Wosret
If you like irony, then I guess I'm saying that there are two kinds of people in the world, those that think there are two kinds of people in the world, and people like me. — Reformed Nihilist
Spirituality cannot be "defined" in the absence of its counterpart (materiality), and the same goes for materiality. There are many kinds of polar concepts like these (freedom:determinism, God:man, world:society, natural:artificial -- just to brush on other themes besides 'religion'). Matter:spirit is just another example. — Mariner
To the appeal that there's something to describe, outside of what can be described, I can only quote Wittgenstein "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent". — Reformed Nihilist
If it is part of a share experience, then we should be able to indicate to each other what it is that we share, put a word like "sprituality" on it, and voila! we have a meaningful word. — Reformed Nihilist
As far as the "dead dictionaries" and "alive concepts", it's a nice bit of poetics, but I don't see how it is actually a reflection of any state of affairs. — Reformed Nihilist
Seeing as though I have literally no clue what spirituality might refer to if not to a dualistic nether-world where our vaporous homunculus reside, I am asking for a definition that at least gives me a succinct and graspable starting point, and at the same time testing if whomever is answering has thought about the subject to the extent that they understand what they are proposing well enough to give such a definition. So far, I have not found that to be the case, but am always open to hearing it. — Reformed Nihilist
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