I don't like the word 'spiritual' much but I think English doesn't have many useful equivalents. I found this passage in one of the essays of Nishijima roshi. — Wayfarer
What is real is much greater than what exists. Hard idea to get. — Wayfarer
One of my teams at work is called Spiritual Care and while that might sound delightfully vague, it does significant work helping people who are sick and in palliative care makes sense of death and loss and find hope and connection to others. So part of me uses the word without irony and without quotation marks. — Tom Storm
Reminds me of the 20% (forgot the actual figure) rule in hypertension: Only 20% of hypertensives are diagnosed. Of them, only 20% are actually treated. Of those treated, only in 20% is the hypertension actually cured. — Agent Smith
Thanks. Yes, spiritual can be problematic. As you say there are so few simple words that can be used as an alternative in a plain English discussion of such matters. — Tom Storm
One of my teams at work is called Spiritual Care and while that might sound delightfully vague, it does significant work helping people who are sick and in palliative care make sense of death and loss and find hope and connection to others.
And if one wanted to, one may add the crucial difference that in this case the evidence of cure seems to be absent ... — Apollodorus
The irony just goes on and on! — baker
I am building schools for girls in Islamic countries and studying the Qur'an. I think it is important to study all the holy books. As my friend Yaman always tells me, a good Muslim is a good Jew, and a good Jew is a good Christian, and so forth. I couldn't agree more. To some people this is a very daring thought.
I did the opposite of what all the other girls were doing, and I turned myself into a real man repeller. I dared people to like me and my nonconformity.
That didn't go very well. Most people thought I was strange. I didn't have many friends; I might not have had any friends. But it all turned out good in the end, because when you aren't popular and you don't have a social life, it gives you more time to focus on your future. And for me, that was going to New York to become a REAL artist. To be able to express myself in a city of nonconformists.
Yes, spiritual can be problematic. As you say there are so few simple words that can be used as an alternative in a plain English discussion of such matters. Happy to hear from anyone with a useable alternative. I think I generally use spiritual as an alternative to idealism. — Tom Storm
The pop singer Madonna grew up in the 60’s and 70’s. Though she had been a Catholic for most of her life, she joined a “Kabbalah” sect in the 90’s and later took an interest in Indian religion before taking up the study of Islam as well as getting herself a Muslim boyfriend. — Apollodorus
Of course, with characters like Madonna it’s difficult to tell if they are serious about something or they just do it for the publicity-driving “shock value” of their statements and actions. — Apollodorus
As an atheist who worships only nature, I view religions as vast symbol-systems far more challenging and complex than poststructuralism, with its myopic focus on social structures. Poststructuralism has no metaphysics and is therefore incapable of spirituality or sublimity. There has been wave after wave of influences from Asian religion over the century and a half since Emerson and Madame Blavatsky, but the resultant New Age movement is choked with debris—with trivia, silliness, mumbo-jumbo, flimflam, and outright falsehoods. The first step in any solution is a return to origins — to the primary texts of sacred literature, supported by art history and archaeology.
The religious impulse of the sixties must be rescued from the wreckage and redeemed. The exposure to Hinduism and Buddhism that my generation had to get haphazardly from contemporary literature and music should be formalized and standardized for basic education. What students need to negotiate their way through the New Age fog is scholarly knowledge of ancient and medieval history, from early pagan nature cults through the embattled consolidation of Christian theology. Teaching religion as culture rather than as morality also gives students the intellectual freedom to find the ethical principles at the heart of every religion. — Camille Paglia, Cults and Cosmic Consciousness
a soulless, physicalist world, — Tom Storm
...framed in contrast to some spiritual quality he can only imagine exists. Maybe clinging to fantasy casts the world as solulless physicalism, obscuring the miraclulous nature of everyday reality with gaudy decorations constructed from human imagination. — karl stone
Does enlightenment necessarily involve transcendence and higher consciousness as understood in spiritual traditions such as Hinduism and Buddhism? Would some include 'illuminated' figures from different traditions such as Jesus? Is there a difference between wisdom/self-realization and enlightenment? Does the word enlightenment hold any real meaning, or is it just a poetic umbrella term for a fully integrated and intelligent person? — Tom Storm
Not a terrible attempt at doing a reading of my OP. But I did mention there I was a half-arsed secular humanist. It might pay you to speculate what the other half might be...Here are the questions that have so far led to 26 pages of divergent responses. Why don't you have a go at something substantive? — Tom Storm
Worth noting that Paglia is a strong atheist. — Tom Storm
the miraclulous nature of everyday reality — karl stone
don't believe in the God that a lot of atheists dispute the existence of, but I'm not atheist. — Wayfarer
Well that's all very amusing — Tom Storm
do you have any views worth defending or do you just make bold claims?
I do, but it doesn't feel like I have a receptive audience! It's more like I'm being heckled!
— Tom Storm
What is a scientific truth? How is it true? — Tom Storm
I think some forms of ardent Darwinism end up sounding like idealism possibly based on some notion that certain dispositions and states of affairs are reified by the evolutionary process. — Tom Storm
I haven't the time or the patience to give you lessons in scientific method and epistemology! — karl stone
Do you not know? How absolute is your lack of knowledge on this subject? I haven't the time or the patience to give you lessons in scientific method and epistemology! — karl stone
I'm going to assume you are a high school kid. Go well, Son. — Tom Storm
More solid evidence you're an idiot! — karl stone
is extremely adept at disguising itself — Wayfarer
If by that you mean reality is complex, then I agree - which is part of what makes it so astounding. There are 26 letters on a keyboard, from which can be constructed about 200,000 english words, that can be strung into a virtually infinite number of meaningful sentences. Similarly, there are 118 chemical elements, and four fundamental forces - and that's before we get into quantum physics, from which all the diversity of life on earth is written. If you're not amazed by that - and feel some yearning need to string up philosophical fairy lights and set off fireworks to make reality special, then you're missing something — karl stone
This reminded me of Wittgenstein. — Joshs
All this 'being in the world, and sein und dasein - is metaphysical hocus pocus. Any philosophy worth reading begins with epistemology; and the epitome of epistemology is scientific method. — karl stone
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