To be devoid of spirituality is to be homeless. At least that's what it seems to me.

One would think that spirituality could be expressed in many different ways; some overt, others covert. Some alone, some with others. Either in a special building, or in nature. Someone could have a mystical experience playing the piano. Not being silly, just trying to broaden the definition a little.

I'm curious. What exactly is the meaning of "spirituality" in your formulation? I don't consider myself to be spiritual (nor homeless), and I consider the word "spiritual" to be best translated as "psuedo-religious" in most uses. You mean something else I assume?

What exactly is the meaning of "spirituality" in your formulation? — Reformed Nihilist

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.

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

Very well said. That idea of being 'at home in the Universe' is a very important one; a hallmark of a lot of 20th century art was just that sense of the lack of that. Max Weber called it the 'disenchantment of the world', saying that, by contrast, for religious cultures, the world is like a 'great enchanted garden'.

I think one difference between 'spirituality' and 'religion' is that the former is self-directed, questioning, and exploratory, whereas the latter tends towards being about the regulation and direction of such feelings according to collective norms. But they intersect at many points, so it is hard to keep them completely separate.

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

from Science and the Modern World.

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

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"?

With all due respect, it seems to me that you don't really know what you mean, and that the word "spiritual" has become a linguistic placeholder that has the performative function of replacing the word "religious" while escaping some of the connotations that are associated with that word.

Perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps you were trying to offer context, and in doing so obfuscated the meaning of the word. If that is the case, could you give me just your working definition of spirituality. The kind that might be found in a dictionary? You know, just a one or two sentence description, perhaps with a synonym? I can dig deeper if I need clarification from there.

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.

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

I think those of us who are not spiritual (I don't think I am anyway) are sometimes a little too dismissive. I have often asked for clarification on what people mean by spirituality, and I get two types of answer. The first is the that spirituality is an element of religious belief. Literally pertaining to one's spirit or soul. There's no use talking about spirituality with someone who believes in that sort of dualism, if you do not (and I don't), unless it is solely for the purpose of discussing the dualism itself.

The second type of response I get is like darthbarracuda's. It describes spirituality in vague terms, and always includes an appeal to mystery and the unknown. I've never had much luck in getting clarification from this type of response, so I have a few hypotheses as to why:

1) When I let go of my religious faith, I did it in steps. I was first a christian, then a doubting christian, then an agnostic, then a pantheist (I didn't even know what it was called at the time), then "spiritual but not religious", then a weak atheist, and now just an atheist. Each of these steps represented both a change in my thinking about how the universe worked, but I think more importantly, they represented the way I looked at myself, and these changes happen gradually, and on a continuum. When I considered myself "spiritual but not religious", it was not because I wanted to construct an ivory tower, but because I wasn't ready to let go of the part of my identity and worldview that believed in the possibility of magic (which I now realize is an inherently incoherent notion).

or

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.

The root meanings of the words spirit chi and atman are all breath. The animating principle, chakra, energy, force, power, life.

Irony is a beautiful thing. The religious are the real physicalists, always tracing things back to personal experience, revalation, feeling, profession and confession, the individual, and in the case of protestantism, the complete denial of any intermediation between the individual the thr divine, the truth.The irreligious are the real immaterialists, believing first hand accounts and introspection the be worthless, the collective over the individual to take precedence (protecting the poor helpless ones from the way eviler way dumber individuals than us enlightened few) that the truth is handed down from on high, and are mouth piece repeaters of shit theyve heard from trusted authorities, that they take on pure faith in the benevolence of the process and judge your intelligence and goodness on how precisely you repeat the same things. Think how worthless flawed and wicked the individual is, and do not dare to compare oneselve with the holy geniuses and arbiters of truth, which were all just born great and predestined to do all that they do.

I laugh... and they cry.

And you sit outside it all, watching, but not belonging, the lonely man of insight, seeing the folly of everyone else?

I see the folly of myself, and only through that the folly of mankind. But i guess just insinuating my unbelievable arrogance is a good enough retort.

It wasn't necessarily meant as a retort. Just trying to get some clarity about your tone (to what degree you were speaking tongue in cheek), which wasn't apparent to me. It seems as though it wasn't meant tongue in cheek (or I'm still not getting the joke). In which case, my next response is a critique:

Your writing style uses the language of certainty on subjects that are usually, and for good reason I think, spoken of in terms of personal opinion or subjective view, or with other forms of linguistic humility. To say that you see the folly of mankind, without any modifiers, like "what seems like folly to me" or "I see X folly in Y element of mankind", implies that you have a vantage not granted to the rest of us, where you see all the folly of mankind unerringly, with perfect fidelity. Why should I believe that you possess such insight? What makes your proclamations distinct from those of a babbling fool?

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

I don't want to speak for , 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.

But, if you'd like my (unsolicited) single-sentence definition of spirituality, I'd put it something like this: "the inner life of the outer experience of the world".

? 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. Im just answering the question about spirituality, and then expanding on the ironic implications. 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. Youre only like 4 hours from me as well.

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

Kudos to you for that; it's rare to find atheists around here with that mindset.

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

If I was calling you an asshole, I'd call you an asshole. I was critiquing your writing, not you.

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

I actually appreciate that. I remember you from the other forum, but I don't remember having anything to talk about with you specifically. For all I know, I might have had the same impression of your writing style back then, I don't recall. I certainly don't remember thinking badly of you. Like you probably remember, I'm a pretty critical guy, so...

Youre only like 4 hours from me as well.

Cool. In Alberta? I've moved around the province, from Ft. Mac to Calgary.

Youre critiquing the way i say things rather than what i said. Saying things with confidence and authority is pretty hot you know? Thats the ideal of how the logos presets itself, and the ladies fucking love it, lol. I highly doubt that im impressing many dudes, but ill bare that horrible burden.

I doubt that you thought much of anything of me if i didnt make much of an impression. Being taken account of is better than being the good one. Im worried about being true to myself and being conscientious, not being agreeable or congenial. Being the most liked is a narcissistic ideal.

Yeah i lived in calgary for a year, then sangudo for a year then leduc for seven months then back to sangudo for two years and now ive just moved to whitecourt because my sister and her kids are out here. I like being close to family, they empower me.

I even tried to talk to you, but you werent interested... — Wosret

Well, if you react like this...

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

Like i said, i dont mind being unlikeable. Looks like im not best bud material. Doesnt make me factually mistaken, or unreasonable.

Like i said, i dont mind being unlikeable. Looks like im not best bud material. Doesnt make me factually mistaken, or unreasonable. — Wosret

It's not about being unlikeable. I've recently been called snotty and a bully. It's that what he said deserved a better reply, in my assessment.

What can i say to that? I ought to have sounded less confident and added more couching to avoid being perceived as too arrogant? Im not appealing to him, so i dont give a shit about that.

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

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". If it doesn't have a lexical meaning, then it is literally meaningless. 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. If, however, it is some private experience for which there is no analogous experience between people, then it isn't something that can be spoken of. Language is necessarily a shared phenomena.

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. I'm not asking for a regurgitation of a dictionary definition, I'm asking for a dictionary style of definition. The reason I am doing that is that dictionary definitions are succinct, if not all encompassing. 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.

What can i say to that? — Wosret

You could say: "You're right. I was wrong to hastily rush to the judgement that he was just calling me an asshole".

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

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.

The only way for a mind to grasp one of these poles is not to try to define it "from the viewpoint [or, vantage point] of the other"; it is rather to envisage the mindset which produced both concepts -- a mindset which experienced something compact out of which the two concepts could be developed and, centuries later, contrasted. It is not a "primitive" mindset -- primordial would be a better word.

Youre critiquing the way i say things rather than what i said. — Wosret

They're not wholly separate things. What you say becomes apparent in how you say it. Everything you said in the first post I commented on has a morsel of truth to it, but was all presented as extremes. "The religious are the real physicalists, always tracing things back to personal experience, revalation, feeling, profession and confession" and "he irreligious are the real immaterialists, believing first hand accounts and introspection the be worthless, the collective over the individual to take precedence". In my experience, religious people act in a variety of ways, and look at the world in a variety of ways, as do the irreligious. They are not monolithic, nor are they kind enough to fit squarely into an one or two line description neatly.

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.

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

That's brilliant! (Y)

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

That's the dualist definition I am familiar with and understand clearly. It is the most common use of the term by those who ascribe to a religion. I am asking about what the term means by those who don't necessarily ascribe to, or are unwilling to commit to, that sort of dualism.

Edit: At that point, I can choose to engage in a discussion about the finer points of dualist/monist/functionalist/etc. conceptions of the universe, or I can just accept that in a very real way, I live in a cognitively different world, and wish you all the best.

I was wrong that he was critizing the way i said it and not what i said?

This is all just rhetorical. No ones got nothin.

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

It's a nice quote, but overquoted. It's actually a tautology. But I don't know, maybe that was his point. But I'm not saying that there's something to be described that can't be described; there's something to be described that illudes proper description in the way that rational or analytic philosophy demands. If these rational demands are the demands you place on experience, then the concept of spirituality will illude you, let alone the experience of it.

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

We do have that; I was affirming Barri's descriptions as something I share (that may not have been obvious). That doesn't mean we can define those shared experiences in the same way we define our experience of "when I hit my knee on the table, it hurts".

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

We think of concepts as things (that's a metaphor) that we grasp with our minds (the mind grasping is another metaphor). When we do this, we generally begin with the assumption that concepts are like the objects we grasp with our hands (we don't think this in a literal sense, but in order to think about concepts, we have to think about them as "things", which they are not). But the meanings of words change, which is to say that concepts change. Virutally all words have their beginnings in metaphor; see Owen Barfield's History In English Words and Poetic Diction. When I say words are alive, I'm just using a further metaphor, in the same way we use metaphors to think about anything at all. So, it may be nicely poetic, but so is the entire structure of thought. That's my point about "living" words and "dead" dictionaries. I think it applies when we're trying to pin down an illusive concept like "spirituality". As mentioned, the root of the word is "breath"; another metaphor, or an original likeness?

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

Fine, have you had a look at mine?