Redefinition of "Spiritual"

by proplog2 5 Replies latest jw friends

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  proplog2

  It's OK for modern thinkers to use archaic terms if we can show the term has use in our contemporary scientific world.

  Science tries to explain the behavior of "things" (including animals). The latin word "anima" means spirit or breath. Ancient man was also scientific in orientation. Ancient man just didn't have enough "information". So he imagined some invisible force (breathlike, windlike) that moved or "animated" things. Another name for this type of belief is "animism". Modern religion tends to look down on this belief as being childish. Disney has made a fortune on the idea that tea pots, clocks and rocks can be brought to life.

  The concept of "spirtuality" emerges from this background and it becomes the stew-pot for all the invisible stuff behind and in the "material" stuff. Because of this we have the dichotomy Spiritual-Material

  To the modern thinker there IS something very important that isn't "material". INFORMATION.

  Happy is the man conscious of his need for INFORMATION. Just as ancient man saw that there is more than meets the "eye" modern man seeks to accumulate knowledge and information NOT just "material".

  Modern thinkers also have something similar to FAITH. They have induction.

  Wikipedia defines induction: " Induction or inductive reasoning, sometimes called inductive logic, is the process of reasoning in which the conclusion of an argument is very likely to be true, but not certain, given the premises. It is to ascribe properties or relations to types based on limited observations of particular tokens; or to formulate laws based on limited observations of recurring phenomenal patterns."

  Which is more likely? Redfining "spiritual" as "information" or abandoning the term "spiritual" altogether?
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  1914!

  Doesn't the WTS provide "spiritual information" already? Or do they only ever call that "spiritual food"?
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  Gopher

  I don't know if "information" is broad enough. For example, you can provide a lab rat with "information" that it will get a morsel if it presses down on a lever (if you can equate information with knowledge).

  To me what is spiritual is that which gives life meaning, as opposed to merely sustaining it (as physical or material things would do).

  Thus "spiritual" does not mean religious for all people. Other people take their meaning from other things.

  Spiritual is whatever nourishes the spirit.
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  Narkissos

  The etymological (and philosophical) sense of "to inform" (i.e., giving form, shape or structure to something from within) is indeed quite close to some ancient concepts of "spirit" as organising and animating matter.

  However, the modern scientific application of the common concept of "information" (= message carried by signs) is fraught with the same anthropomorphical problems as many older descriptions of phenomena (through the concept of "laws," for instance). We (metaphorically, at best) project our practice of language communication onto the non-human world, and we read theimage of our language-based mind (or consciousness) into everything.

  From this perspective, "information" seems closer to the Greek concept of logos (word, message, mind, reason) than to that of pneuma (spirit). Should I try to "redefine" the latter I would rather explore the tracks of "emptiness" and "movement".
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  proplog2

  Spiritual is whatever nourishes the spirit.

  I want to avoid tautologies like that.

  Information (Spiritual) is what adds to (nourishes) your knowledge (Spirit)
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  RAF

  If you take a dictionnary for the same word you may have different definitions ... so it all depends on which context the word is applied to. Still all definitions and relations to other words by those definitions are valide.

  So for instance :

  Gopher : To me what is spiritual is that which gives life meaning, as opposed to merely sustaining it (as physical or material things would do). Thus "spiritual" does not mean religious for all people.

  Narkissos : (spirit). Should I try to "redefine" the latter I would rather explore the tracks of "emptiness" and "movement".

  = something out of nothing : which does not have to be material to be materialised (useful nor true) spiritually (by the mind nor for the mind)

  so a simple idea or feeling (whatever it comes from : information - a dream as delirium) is somehow spiritual