What does it mean to be spiritual?

[SerenelyBlue]

Human beings don't have spirits.  We only have the physical brain.  So what does spiritual actually mean?

[TrueFreedom]

4 hours ago, SerenelyBlue said:

Human beings don't have spirits.  We only have the physical brain.  So what does spiritual actually mean?

This is not the forum to make such claims or begin with such assumptions. Do you equate consciousness and ego with "physical brain?"

[SerenelyBlue]

17 minutes ago, TrueFreedom said:

This is not the forum to make such claims or begin with such assumptions. Do you equate consciousness and ego with "physical brain?"

Hey, wait a second.  I don't mean any disrespect.  Sam Harris uses the word spirituality and I think it is ill used, since he doesn't believe in spirits.

 

I am not making any claims.  It is the truth.  Everything originates in the physical brain.  Ego, consciousness, you name it.

[SerenelyBlue]

Sorry I think I brought up the wrong topic.  I just wanted a definition.

[midniterider]

Here's a possibility:

 

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/spiritual-wisdom-secular-times/201103/what-is-spirituality

 

My view of spirituality is that it is a deep emotional connection to something. You might worship it. You might just commune with it. It might be a God, a spirit, a dead relative, nature, whatever. Maybe you just  take a moment to meditate. Enjoy the moment...without thoughts. 

 

Spirituality isn't about reason, critical thinking, or logic. It's about getting some sort of emotional meaning out of whatever practice you do. You do it because it makes you feel good to do it. Not because someone else says you should. You do it your way.

 

A spiritual practice does not have to be based in reality. It can be totally imaginary. Just make sure you are the one in charge of it. Don't abandon reason in favor of spirituality. Like everything, practice spirituality in moderation.

[LogicalFallacy]

13 hours ago, TrueFreedom said:

This is not the forum to make such claims or begin with such assumptions. Do you equate consciousness and ego with "physical brain?"

 

Personally I don't see a problem with the claim or questioning. I think its entirely valid.

 

[Edit: Fuego clarified the objection to the OP below]

 

Also Serenely blue is  not making some ad hoc assumption. Everything we have discovered thus far about humans leads us to reasonably conclude that we are physical beings, and whose consciousness and thought is a result of the physical brain. There is nothing observed in which consciousness operates absence a brain.

 

Given that, what is spirituality?

 

The Late Christopher Hitchens said on Transcendence and the numinous: "It’s innate in us to be overawed by certain moments, say, at evening on a mountaintop or sunset on the boundaries of the ocean. Or, in my case, looking through the Hubble telescope at those extraordinary pictures. We have a sense of awe and wonder at something beyond ourselves, and so we should, because our own lives are very transient and insignificant. That’s the numinous, and there’s enough wonder in the natural world without any resort to the supernatural being required." (Christopher Hitchens)

 

So he is basically saying you can find things spiritual without resorting to an actual belief in spirits etc.

 

I quite like midniterider's explanation. I would add that in my opinion, spirituality is something that is internal to our being, within our physical brains, as opposed to some external hitherto undiscovered force.

[♦ Fuego ♦]

I do not know what to do with the claims of reincarnation, tales of children relating details of lives they claim to have lived previously. So far, if the tales are being related accurately, those seems to be the most compelling thing I've seen that suggests there is more going on than the physical. My wife has all kinds of beliefs about this and that, and I entertain them while treating the majority of them with great skepticism. To state categorically that we are only physical seems dogmatic, though it has the best proof so far. I don't know that this is an area that is particularly easy to study, unless one makes the assumption that brain processes are a reliable indicator of being. It is certainly the most obvious and measurable, particularly as the brain is progressively degraded through disease or surgery.

 

(This forum is dedicated to the kind treatment of "spiritual" ideas, thus the statement that starting with that assumption is a violation of the point of this section of the forum)

[SerenelyBlue]

Well thank you for answering my question.  My mindset has evolved to such an extent that I tell the truth.  I may be blinkered, but somehow I doubt it.

The decription Logicalfalacy gave by Christopher Hitchens appeals to me.  I get that awe and wonder by looking at the universe.  So in a sense I am also spiritual.  Thank you all.

[SerenelyBlue]

I apologise to people in the spirituality section for starting my original post in that matter.

[midniterider]

This section needed some life. LoL

[florduh]

What does it mean to be "spiritual?" It depends on whom you ask, just like with those who identify as Christians, Jews, Muslims or Buddhists. It means whatever one says it means.

 

[Margee]

S.B., This would be my goal but I'm certainly not there yet. 

 

[midniterider]

Here's a nice simple article on rolling your own spirituality:

 

https://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-6449/5-Tips-to-Forging-Your-Own-Spiritual-Path.html

[LogicalFallacy]

If we take a quote from Yoda:

 

"For my ally is the Force. And a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter. You must feel the Force around you. Here, between you, me, the tree, the rock, everywhere! Yes, even between the land and the ship."

[Joshpantera]

 

We had discussed this book elsewhere. 

 

Spirituality without religion and what that can mean. Especially around 9:00 forward

 

 

[SerenelyBlue]

Thank you Joshpantera

[midniterider]

22 hours ago, LogicalFallacy said:

If we take a quote from Yoda:

 

"For my ally is the Force. And a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter. You must feel the Force around you. Here, between you, me, the tree, the rock, everywhere! Yes, even between the land and the ship."

 

Master Yoda, a wise one indeed.

[Orbit]

Ex-Christian doesn't necessarily mean atheist. From this forum header: "In this one area of Ex-Christian.net, each individual who has adopted an alternative spiritual expression should feel encouraged to freely express any experiences, thoughts, or opinions without fear of being brow beaten, harshly criticized, or condemned. "

 

So there's not a problem discussing spirituality, but there would be a problem to "atheist evangelize" or to try to convince people spirituality doesn't exist.

 

In fact, the topic of "What is spirituality?" is a fascinating one. I suspect it means different things to different people and I think it is just one of the limitations of the English language that the word is hard to pin down. What is spirituality without religion? It could pertain to the very complex world of our feelings and emotions; our personal psychology; or the search for inner peace. It's not very helpful to tell someone who is searching for inner peace that everything originates in the brain. Describing the parts of an engine doesn't describe the elation of the ride.

 

Whatever causes our emotions,  or our personal psychology, we have to deal with the effects it has on us as full human beings. It does no good to tell a troubled person that they are lacking in oxytocin at the moment; states of mind can't be reduced to chemistry because we have to make psychological sense of that chemistry--and because the causal arrows can go the other way, with a thought causing a change in brain chemistry. It's  a dialectic, a feedback loop, and it's complicated. We are complicated, and I think "spirituality" is the name given for our struggle to cope with that complexity.

[Ellinas]

In simple terms, I would say it is a willing quest to explore understand the hidden corners of our minds in which our more uncomfortable psychological needs reside.

 

It's not for the fainthearted.

 

It's summed up in a line of the ancient inscription at Delphi.  "Know thyself".

 

You don't need to believe in "spirit" to go that road.  Neither do you have to take seriously any claim either for or against a non-physical reality.  But you do need a readiness to consider points of view that may prove challenging to your own belief system, one way or the other.

[Voice]

What is spirit?

 

[Orbit]

6 hours ago, Voice said:

What is spirit?

 

Spirit is a religiously loaded word. I'm not sure what it means outside of a religious context, I suppose it would differ depending on who you ask. There are pantheists and panenethists who believe that everything is a manifestation of a spirit, in other words to simplify, that the universe is God (but not the Abrahamic God). Animists believe that rocks, trees, water, everything in the natural world has an invisible essence they call "spirits". To a Christian, I think it usually means an eternal soul.

 

People outside of a religious tradition might use it was a shorthand for a person's essence, their psychological makeup. I'm sure you've heard the phrase "they broke his spirit" meaning they took some of his joie de vivre away, some of his basic humanity away. I think when the word "spirituality" is used in contrast to "religion" it takes on these kinds of shades of meaning.

[Joshpantera]

I think that our connection to that which is eternal, that which is at the base of the existence of everything, is simply the fabric and structure of existence itself, as Alan Watts described it in his, "Out of Mind" series. Any mythological direction towards the eternal, whether descriptive terms like spirit or soul are being used, ultimately break down to this underlying factor which is common to everything in existence. It's drawing our attention, through myth and mythological symbols and terminology, to an underlying truth is as deep as deep can get. 

 

And this flows out of the scientific and philosophical discussion I've been having with LF and dissillusioned. This is the spiritual implication that follows the discussions on infinite and eternal cosmological models, a bottomless past by necessity, even the infinite replication paradox of inflationary theory. These things set the stage for the mind to visualize and try and conceive of and categorize never beginning, never ending existence itself. And it's unavoidable, as we've been establishing point by point. Upon realizing these things, so too is it apparent that we are each personally interconnected with the existence of existence itself and therefore just as bottomless, just as eternal in very specific ways. And this is the great mystical and spiritual realization of eastern philosophy and the mystical western strains. It's about self recognition, the eternal principle realizing and understanding itself as seeing, knowing and experiencing through the medium of existing human beings which are capable of seeing, knowing and experiencing. 

 

Fixed beginnings are, illusory for the most part. Check me on that. Read the discussions in question. 

 

 

Quote

Human beings don't have spirits.  We only have the physical brain.  So what does spiritual actually mean?

 

The above can answer that question. In short, the physical brain IS part of what is essentially meant by, "spiritual." Not understanding the depths of the issue leads to the sort of confusion going on in the opening post. If we're to use this forum to sharpen folks up on ex christian spirituality, then let's do it. Let's put on demonstrations of it's power. People are inclined to favor that which is powerful, not weak and fragile and easily mowed down. And unfortunately certain religious leaders and belief systems have presented the public with very weak, very fragile and easily mowed down renditions of what is spiritual and what is "spirituality." But those weak renditions do not own it. There's more to it than just that. Again, refer to the depths of our discussion in the science section. 

 

@SerenelyBlue

 

I'll show you the brazen ballsy aspect of it if you'd like, it's dominant oriented factors. And what it can do when applied correctly. This isn't just sissy ass, New Age fantasy stuff. There's some real power behind it. And it involves grabbing the reigns and not simply letting people mow down spirituality with straw men assertions, from platforms of ignorance. People can be dominated by this stuff when applied correctly.