by make yourself 61 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
'Spirituality' is another word with a dual meaning such as the one in Terry's other thread 'intuition.'
I think we have to differentiate between allowing ourselves to confuse what happens deep withing ourselves at an emotional and subconscious level, with the idea that there we are psychic or clairvoyant.
The confusion arises because people have different ideas about what these words mean. They have to be clarified of an alternative word used that has no ambiguity.
re·li·gion
(ri-lij'?n)  n.
|
/ ?sp?r
?t?u'æl?ti / Show Spelled [ spir-i-choo- al -i-tee ] Show IPA –noun, plural -ties. 1. the quality or fact of being spiritual. 2. incorporeal or immaterial nature. 3. predominantly spiritual character as shown in thought, life, etc.; spiritual tendency or tone. 4. Often, spiritualities. property or revenue of the church or of an ecclesiastic in his or her official capacity.
Oh, I don't know, as much as I am enamoured of rationality, and I am, I'm also pretty fond of my instinctual side, and I have a healthy respect for it.
I always was a huge fan of Star Trek, because I always felt the "alien" races merely represented different aspects of humans. I always joke that I spent the first 35 years of my life trying to be a Vulcan, but I finally became a lot less neurotic when I realized I've also got a big healthy dose of Klingon and Beta zoid in me too. LOL
I don't know if that makes any sense if you're not familar with the series, but as a person who once tried to bend everything about myself to rationality and logic, I was quite often very frustrated, because other people and life in general aren't always very respective of my need to make them conform to logic. As someone who merely accepts and became comfortable with the fact that I'm quite instinctual and emotional and that those traits also serve me quite well, I'm much less neurotic.
But, of course, rational thought is necessary, no questioning that and there are times when instinct and emotion must be subject to it.
But, I have to say working with dogs, training them gave me a new perspective on just how amazing instinct is. Dogs do some things better than the average human working on pure instinct. Their grasp of reading body language, human body language, for example, is much more astute than ours, unless we consciously train the ability. Why? Pure evolutionary necessity. Dogs are highly social, and therefore, reading every social nuance in their group, non-verbally, of course, is very important.
A 6 month old puppy, with NO training, can tell immediately if you're paying attention to them or not, and acts accordingly. When you're not paying attention, they can steal your food, for example. If you are, they won't touch it because they know they will be punished. Do you know how hard it is to teach a child of similar developmental maturity that same thing? You can't do it!
Higher cognitive skills are worthless for learning that until a child is much older...instinct actually works better in that situation, simply because genetics make sure every creature has the survival traits that it needs. Humans apparently don't need that trait nearly as much as they need higher cognition. That is OUR survival trait, probably a unique one. But, that doesn't mean we can't learn from what an animal does on instinct, and develop our own.
Sometimes, instinct simply kicks rational thought's ass, in other words, and is why we're still afraid of some animals that have it all over us in some ways. I have learned to not ignore or discourage instinct.
Strangely enough, for humans, higher thought isn't that hard...it's what we do. It's just hard to tell that from the way some people act, but that's social conditioning, which isn't always good if the environment intelligence is fostered in isn't a good one. I would never mistake that for lack of intelligence or ability to plan, or inability to be rational. Some criminals are quite intelligent, it's just that the abilities they have were subject to some very bad social conditioning.
And, I've found that as much as I might long for clarity, ambiguity is inevitable, because human nature is ambiguous, so to some degree, I must accept ambiguity if I am to accept people. Always trying to change people to suit ourselves can be very draining...it's also not possible, so therefore, not always very rational.
I'm always curious, just what is THE REAL World? Isn't that a matter of perception, at least to some degree? I know that the factual world doesn't change much, as facts don't change much, just according to available information.
But, reality? There are so many valid definitions of reality. I believe you're speaking from the realist viewpoint, which of course is a valid one, but I've always had a hard time with the realist version. I'm sure I lean more to the anti-realist viewpoint.
I suspect it's because I'm terribly right brained, and most people are either left brained dominant or have equal dominance. Right brained people tend to be by nature more conceptual and imaginative. I'm a writer of fiction, a musician and an artist. I make my own reality, in a sense, by creating it. With words, music and art, I can get real world emotional and intellectual reactions, make intellectual commentary, make people react and influence their reality.
The fictional, when it affects real people, becomes part of their reality. I probably don't define reality as strictly as some do, as limited to the literal physical world we interact with, I'm sure.
No. "Spirituality" isn't narrow and restrictive.
No one will go for that if they can't exclude someone or make a buck or two.
There's simply no incentive.
Well, if the gubbening body says so it must be true.
When man was a bit more...umm...primitive (less educated and non-scientific) what appeared to be true was often take to actually be true.
When primitive man observed carefully another human as they were dying they compared the Before condition to the After.
What was immediately different?
BREATHING!
Alive=breathing
Dead=not breathing
Conclusion: whatever that invisible thing was that breathing consisted of must be LIFE ITSELF!
That invisible something was LIFE!
Respiration=Spirit (both words same root.)
Spirit and invisible breath were fuzzy thinking conceptions.
Spirituality is a lot like that thinking.
It is invisible and seems to be as important as life itself. But, clearly it is not defined or understood in any meaningful way.
So, why kid ourselves?
can spirituality replace religion?
The question has the underlying assumption that religion cannot contain spirituality. It therefore creates an either/or scenario.
Some have already given the standard definitions for "spirituality" and "religion."
I do not agree with the inherent assumption in the question. It seems obvious that religion can contain spirituality, and that spirituality can be religiously expressed.
BTS
Replace religion in what sense? Going to church? doing religious things? behavior? Replace what aspect of religion?
I think of Religion in terms of the "binding".
You have a bound people.
Bound to what and by what?
The answer will equal=orthodoxy.
People who are bound by an orthodoxy are religious.
People not bound by orthodoxy are ________________ create a word here.
That ___________ is an emotional connection which has psychological roots. Those roots are bound by a set of values passively absorbed from the enviornment which includes a supernatural or mystical component.
In other words, Spirituality and Religion are separated by a level of commitment to orthodoxy and the distinction between conscious and unconscious values.
There!
