Showing posts with label spirituality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spirituality. Show all posts

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Joy and Wisdom, and Purpose.

Joy and Wisdom? - Beliefnet:

"As I never had the problem of living with God myths and life after death worries, I discovered both joy and wisdom around 2 when every 'Why?' was met with an answer or a 'Lets find out!' I have never stopped asking 'Why?' and having to take charge of finding out for myself has provided a never ending source of joy, wonder, spirituality (the reward mechanism in the mind for special discoveries) and I trust wisdom. The fact that I have a limited time to do it all, just makes it more exciting and challenging.

The other source of joy and wisdom is the intelligent, educated society that I have chosen as my own personal 'village.' Every time am able to help make that village a little better, by helping new people find their way in it, or by teaching which is the best way to wisdom, I find not only joy but meaning and purpose in the finite life that was nurtured by my parents.

Gods and other fictions are great sources of wisdom, a compelling story is the best way to learn, but it is important to remember that the weaknesses of the protagonist whether called God, or Gandalf, or Batman, are as important as their strengths, as they all are all of us writ large."

Monday, September 13, 2010

Spiritual but Not Religious

Common ground? Maybe we can all get along after all. - Beliefnet:

"Spirituality is a natural human response to awe and wonder at unusual things that can be used as landmarks. Constellations, Rock formations, etc. Also for unusually beautiful and centering phenomena like rainbows, a beautiful sunrise or sunset, or just the Milky Way on a crystal clear night in a non light polluted area. The shamans and that little vuvuzela in the fancy dress in the overdecorated balcony will try to co-opt this natural response into the service of God, but spirituality came first and God was created later. But since God can be a centering phenomenon as well it is not a surprise that this co-opting is common. Theists are welcome to their God based spirituality, I will take the naturally generated stuff straight."

Monday, August 9, 2010

Continually Seeking God

Continually Seeking God:
The Talmud reads, 'Never pray in a room without windows.' Never pray without the world in mind, in other words. The purpose of the spiritual life is not to save us from reality. It is to enable us to go on co-creating it.
- Joan Chittister

God or no god the best reason for spirituality that I have ever heard.

Saturday, July 24, 2010

Spiritual but Not Religious

Spirituality and humanity - Beliefnet: "Jul 23, 2010 -- 3:01AM, wrote:

Spirituality has to do with seeking improvements to one's spirit, to achieve such values as tranquility, joyfulness, meaning in life, wisdom, and generally any improved vantagepoint on life. That's spirituality in a nutshell.
eudaimonia,
Mark
Eudaimonist
One of the best definitions of "Spirituality Without Religion" I have seen.

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Spirituality

Spirituality and humanity - Beliefnet:

Spirituality is 'just' an evolved reward mechanism, in the same way that breathing is 'just' a way to stay alive. Spirituality came first as we see in cave paintings and archeological figurines. The shamans came later and figured out how to make a buck by selling people something they already had, created God to bottle it in, then tossed the bottle into heaven so nobody could look too closely at it.

Friday, May 14, 2010

Atheist Spirituality

Beliefnet - Article from Science Daily

I don't see how any idea that contradicts reality can be considered spiritual. To my mind spirituality MUST conform to reality, otherwise it creates inner and external conflict.
F1fan

My spirituality, which is independent of any deity supernatural or otherwise, frequently contradicts reality. There is no conflict. A rainbow or a sunrise has no meaning in reality. Both are easily explainable expressions of optical phenomenon. But sunrises and rainbows are reasons for me to get out of bed to appreciate the challenges and rewards of living yet another day, to do what I can to make it as meaningful as a sunrise or a rainbow. Rainbows especially as it takes both sun and rain to make one. Although a great sunrise will have both sun and clouds. But then clouds are just a meteorological phenomenon with no meaning and the sun is just a large thermonuclear reaction with even less meaning. It takes spirituality not reality to give meaning to either.

Of course in reality I am just another animal getting up every morning to eat and avoid being eaten, perhaps to live long enough to breed, and insure that the resulting children also get up every morning to eat. Perhaps I can help them avoid being eaten, and maybe I can even give them a reason to get up every morning. But of course none of that has anything to do with reality.

Monday, April 19, 2010

Spiritual Bullying.

Bully Believers - Beliefnet

Intellectual capacity and sophisticated concepts have little to do with spiritual discernment. One may be able to penetrate deeply into spiritual realities but lack the means to adequately express interpret it. This is attacked by critics of religion as an “unreasoned basis for belief.” Such critics are indeed 'bullies.'
Merlin

"Intellectual capacity and conceptual reasoning can be as important to spiritual discernment as any other input including God and religion. Spiritual discernment is necessarily personal, and paraphrasing Heinlein: one person's spirituality is another person's belly laugh. Neither the laughter or the spiritualist are bullying. If the spiritually is not strong enough to stand up to the belly laugh, maybe there is something wrong with the spirituality. The belly laugh is not bullying, but claiming that the spirituality is protected because it is 'Religion' is."

This is the asymmetry of the religious in the public sphere. They can knock on my door to peddle their God, but if I ridicule it or even suggest there are other ways of looking at the issue, I am being a bully and trashing their sacred concepts. Somehow because God is involved I am supposed to roll over say "that is nice," take a tract and say have a nice day. Not likely. I would just as soon have an pusher knock on my door and say "Want a hit?" At least hesh wouldn't be offended if I said "no, and the next time I call the cops." Why does God give Herm pushers special protection in the real world? Hesh doesn't of course but the pushers think they have it. The First Amendment gives them the right to push their shit, and it also gives me the right to call what they are pushing shit.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Spirituality

Spirituality - Beliefnet

I work in the most beautiful place in the world [Yosemite]. I feel a connection whenever I'm there, which is daily. It's a feeling that I am where I belong. I'm home.
mountain_man


If you quoted that to a random sample of English speaking people, and asked them to describe the feeling in a single word, the word would be spiritual in most cases regardless of religious preference or lack thereof.

Trying to eliminate 'Spiritual' from their speech and damning its use as a purely religious word is a stupid and losing battle by atheist fundamentalists. Even for religious people spiritual will frequently be used in a secular context. Words acquire meaning by usage not by what Humpty-Dumpty wants them to mean."

I certainly agree with his assessment of Yosemite, if not his fundamentalism about it. However, it is a place where you can hardly ever turn around without encountering a spiritual moment. It is my nomination for Forrest Church's Cathedral of the World. There is something there for everybody.

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Human Spirit

Life after death? - Religion and the Human Mind - Beliefnet Community

Exploringinside:

"Humans have spirit and don’t have a soul. I believe spirit is a mental faculty that is experienced though the results of its function. Spirit bridges the gap between reason and emotion, allowing the “aha moments” to surface. Spirit guides and helps employ our senses of empathy and benevolence.

The words 'spirit' and 'spiritual' refer to real aspects of human experience, namely the mental aspects of human life. 'Spiritual values' are those values that fulfill the needs of human consciousness [rather than the survival needs associated with those things such as food, water, warmth, etc that sustain the body.] For example, the determination to strive toward one’s goals is generated from human spirit.

An encounter with art that calls out our emotions and sense of life, but that does not primarily address any physical need, is a spiritual encounter.

Information that just 'pops' into a person's consciousness is identified as coming from the function of intuition, another of the mental faculties."

Thanks EI I wish I had said it.

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Unitarians v Universalists v atheists

Unitarians v Universalists: "Mar 29, 2009 - 04:53AM, RevDorris wrote:

The children are in a state of rebellion against those who would want us to deny the existence of God. They want a return to God centered worship and open spiritual training and development.
Rev Dorris


I am am one of those children rebelling against those who deny God in UU churches. I find those churches where God is a three letter word, never to be said out loud or even lusted after in the heart to be sterile exercises in community building and frequently social action, both of which are desireable but IMO have nothing to do with spiritual growth. A Sunday morning gender inclusive Rotary meeting or Elks club.

For a UU church to gain my support it must be a diverse community of Paul denying Christians; hopefully a few ex-Jews that still cling to their Jewish roots and ritual; Pagans who wish to share and enrich their spirituality with the 'Unitarians' who only have one God; maybe a smattering of others who found other traditional religions too confining, and a few atheists to remind all that God is not necessary for spirituality.

And the sine qua non for me is a music program where no spiritual music is forbidden. Catholic Prayers? Jewish hazzanut? Buddhist Chants? Lutheran Hymns? Bring 'em all on. These folks have had hundreds if not thousands of years of refining the music that connects people to their higher being whatever that is. And believers are needed to bring the passion, in the best sense of the word, to the music."

I am glad to hear from Rev Dorris that the children are rebelling. I quit rebelling a while ago and found other ways to feed my spiritual needs without a pile of rocks (or bricks) and a guy in a fancy dress to help. I was not happy to do so, but I never was into Rotary and found my social needs satisfied in other venues than churches. Social action was much more satisfying with direct participation unguided by the guy in the fancy dress and politically correctness of the causes. I was usually ahead of the UU's in political correctness and got tired of pulling them along.

I found the internet early on as a source of spirituality APOD for example, and since most of my social group was scattered all over the country email was an early substitute for coffee hour.

I think churches of all denominations need to be aware of and beware of Web 2.0. Any church that doesn't have a Web 2.0 site based on DRUPAL or the equivalent is probably going to have to build one or die. And soon.

Monday, January 5, 2009

Spirituality vs. God

Society Without God :

"Spirituality is not belief in God. Spirituality is not belief in gods. Spirituality is not belief in the supernatural. Buddhism is a god free and largely supernatural free spiritual culture.

Spirituality is the wonder and joy of being alive and trying to make sense out of the world we live in. It is true that promoters of God or gods can hijack this wonder and joy and attribute it to God or gods, and create the impression that spirituality is identical with a supernatural God. But those of us who celebrate our spirituality without God, who can find joy and wonder in an electron micrograph or a fractal algorithm or an APOD image or thousands of everyday wonders presented to those alive enough to notice, need no supernatural omnipotent alpha humanoid for spiritual experiences. The natural world is more than adequate."

Friday, October 3, 2008

Is God just spiritual experience?

Why Athism? - Beliefnet Forums: "I don't think spiritual experience is supernatural at all. I think it is a basic, indeed primitive human need. But I also see no reason not to strip God of all of Herm supernatural accretions, and use God as a referent for spiritual experience.

I will admit that disambiguation from the supernatural omnipotent alpha humanoid may be a greater challenge than I am up to, but I have come to the conclusion that God and that spiritual experience are one and the same. I also think it is what theists are trying to convey with their blather about God being the beauty of the cosmos, or a pretty sunset, or a butterfly."

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Circular Double Rainbow

Past the bridge on the Mist Trail as Vernal Falls gets near, the gorge fills with mist. The AM sun is normally ahead and to the right. If you stop and turn around in the bright sun in the morning you will see mist bows arching over the trail behind you.

One morning when the mist was particularly heavy (record runoff for the Merced) I turned around and found a perfect double circle mist bow starting at one of my pockets and ending in the other.

I ruefully thought that the legendary pot of gold was a bit of small change at one end of the bow and a few bucks at the other. But the bows themselves were priceless.