I'm open to talk about religious matters in a way that, I'd suggest, you're not. — mcdoodle
I thought your answer to him, like your answer here about 'profound', sought different substitutes or meanings for the word 'spirituality' because you don't like it and its connotations. — mcdoodle
If you don't want to use the word, well, fine. — mcdoodle
Would it be fair to say that in the same way that an average Joe sees the world through the lens of "naive realism", that what you're talking about as the unified outlook on the spirit/matter question pre-Descartes might be described as "naive monism"? That people in general neither saw a distinction between the two, nor did it occur to anyone to question if there should be a distinction. Is that correct? Is that what you are suggesting I need understand before I can understand what spirituality is? — Reformed Nihilist
I'm contending that there are good reasons not to use the word as it has more recently come to be used (to refer to something non-specific, non-religious, inherently mysterious, and conceptually ill defined), at least, or perhaps especially, in the context of philosophy, as it leads to equivocation. That's it in a nutshell. — Reformed Nihilist
the same problems seem to apply to the study of them as to spirituality: too many proposed indices, a lack of underlying consensus, arising from the lack of an agreed theoretical framework, but with some good work being done all the same. — mcdoodle
because more people than before avow that they are spiritual but not (conventionally) religious. This is the opposite of equivocation: people are using the word to clarify their feelings about the world — mcdoodle
And this ugly construct (X-according-to-Y) becomes less ugly once we realize that the intersection of the understanding of the great Y's in the history of mankind is luminous for meaning -- that the poets, prophets and philosophers basically agree on the meaning of spirit, and that the way for us to understand it is to follow their lead. — Mariner
the problem with the common use, not a specialized use of the term — Reformed Nihilist
the word as it has more recently come to be used (to refer to something non-specific, non-religious, inherently mysterious, and conceptually ill defined), at least, or perhaps especially, in the context of philosophy, as it leads to equivocation. — Reformed Nihilist
Common use just is common use. I live near an old hippy town, there's a lot of vague spirituality around there, man. Be the change that you want to see in the world. Cleanse the toxins. Manage with NLP. These things aren't my scene, I'm too pedantic and particular to tolerate the vagueness of it, but people are going to use the words they're going to use. Is it contributing to some harm? Do you think it's somehow anti-intellectual? — mcdoodle
As I indicated in writing about changing funeral options, I've found a growing acceptance of non-religious spirituality a blessing in ways like that, because when it comes to funerals, I don't want to have to choose between the rigid alternatives of Christian and anti-religious humanist. — mcdoodle
You're sure you're not an anti-religious humanist who yearns for that lost clarity? — mcdoodle
Also found this quote:
“Although most people never overcome the habit of berating the world for their difficulties, those who are too weak to make a stand against reality have no choice but to obliterate themselves by identifying with it. They are never rationally reconciled to civilization. Instead, they bow to it, secretly accepting the identity of reason and domination, of civilization and the ideal, however much they may shrug their shoulders. Well-informed cynicism is only another mode of conformity. These people willingly embrace or force themselves to accept the rule of the stronger as the eternal norm. Their whole life is a continuous effort to suppress and abase nature, inwardly or outwardly, and to identify themselves with its more powerful surrogates—the race, fatherland, leader, cliques, and tradition. For them, all these words mean the same thing—the irresistible reality that must be honored and obeyed. However, their own natural impulses, those antagonistic to the various demands of civilization, lead a devious undercover life within them.”
― Max Horkheimer, Eclipse of Reason — Noble Dust
You may have a point. Maybe he was just sneaking in a jab at the "well informed cynics" ('intellectuals" too selfish to be left-wing) and the rest of the passage was aimed at a fictional ideal dummy. But there are some problems with his argument nevertheless. His fictional dummy or bad guy is "never rationally reconciled to civilization," yet I'm guessing the spirit of this book is itself as odds with the civilization that the author found himself him. His "dummies" are guilty of being too comfortable, which is to say reconciled, though perhaps not articulately. On the other hand, I completely agree that people as a rule identity with race, fatherland, etc., but I'd include communism, critique, etc., as surrogates that also belong on the list. Hork is certainly more sophisticated than the average flag-waving Joe, but he still seems wrapped up in a secular version of religion. This talk of "suppressing and abusing nature" is the give-away. It's more or less anti-human. It's one thing to defend Spaceship Earth as our habitat and life-support system and another thing to personify Nature as a victim. The magical thinking is concentrated there. (I'm more or less neutral on this go-humanity issue. My motive for reacting is largely an aesthetic distaste for the form of his rhetoric, its moves.)It looks like you read the word "cynic" in the quote and based your entire argument from there. If you re-read the quote, "well-informed cynicism" was just one briefly mentioned aspect of the type of person Horkheimer was describing, not the basis of that type of person's views. — Noble Dust
has anybody mentioned Romain Rolland's Oceanic Feeling yet? For me, that's as good an attempt as I've seen to capture what spirituality is about.... — andrewk
Freud argues that the "oceanic feeling", if it exists, is the preserved "primitive ego-feeling" from infancy. The primitive ego-feeling precedes the creation of the ego and exists up until the mother ceases breastfeeding. Prior to this, the infant is regularly breastfed in response to its crying and has no concept that the breast does not belong to it. Therefore, the infant has no concept of a "self" or, rather, considers the breast to be part of itself. Freud argues that those experiencing an oceanic feeling as an adult are actually experiencing a preserved primitive ego-feeling.
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