Spirituality

by StinkyPantz 116 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  LyinEyes

  ahhhhhummmmmmmmmm ,, Gumby...... I think you meant to say DUMBSHIT Adam and his wife.........right?? Truth be know,,,,( in this fairy tale........hehe) it was Adam who forced Eve to eat that fruit.
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  StinkyPantz

  Heathen-

  StinkyPantz--- I do not believe that there is anything more to other religions than mythology.

  Fair enough, that's how I feel about Christianity. I don't think you answered my question though: So your claim is that spirituality and Christianity are one in the same? So people that have traditionally Eastern religion cannot have spirituality?

  I just can't see why an atheist would reply to a thread that discusses spirituality.

  A semi-athiest started the thread..
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  gumby

  it was Adam who forced Eve to eat that fruit.

  Nuh uh! Ol' dipshit Eve listened to the snake, took his bait, then talked her old man into the same deal. You forgot! See what happens when you stay away from the truth so long?

  Gumby
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  Sirona

  SP

  Heathen-

  StinkyPantz--- I do not believe that there is anything more to other religions than mythology.

  Fair enough, that's how I feel about Christianity. I don't think you answered my question though: So your claim is that spirituality and Christianity are one in the same? So people that have traditionally Eastern religion cannot have spirituality?

  I'll address this if I may, because it touches on part of my own "spirituality"

  No religion is truly free of mythology, IMO. However that doesn't invalidate that set of beliefs. It all depends upon how you look at it. My spiritual path incorporates mythology as a way of understanding things more complex. Mythology can help us see deeper within ourselves.

  IMHO, spirituality is partly finding our "will" or our "higher purpose" for being here in a human incarnation. However, that pursuit should be contained within a full celebration of what it is to be human (so we don't sit like buddha's all day trying to forget our bodies, rather we experience our bodies as divine and our overall experience on earth as being spiritual)

  Sirona
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  LittleToe

  Sirona:
  Your points on mythology are well received.

  (so we don't sit like buddha's all day trying to forget our bodies, rather we experience our bodies as divine and our overall experience on earth as being spiritual)

  Some do, and have a great level of spiritual awareness. How do you account for that?

  Therein is the divide between Eastern and Western thought, IMHO, and the divide is difficult to cross (though some have achieved this).
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  GentlyFeral

  Miss Pantz,

  Gently Feral-

  I believe that any time you are living especially vividly, you are having a spiritual experience.

  
  That’s all it is? Even we agostics/atheists live vividly.

  Yes, exactly; vividness and (as I should have said), connection. Which is how you can develop spirituality without being a theist or a deist. This is the point I was trying to make: you may already be a spiritual person and not realize it.

  I thought spirituality was supposed to be a feeling of being connected with some higher power. I just don’t get it.. lol.

  Yes, but the "higher power" may be just a phenomenon bigger than yourself: the live and active material universe, the "energy" of Burning Man, even "my country" or "my family" - there are a host of "higher powers."

  OK, just joggled my memory with a google search, and found a couple things that might help.

  • from Religious atheisms by tp kunesh:

  Must an atheism actively & absolutely reject the existence of god/s to be atheism?
  No. Neither daoism nor buddhism actively reject the existence of gods, and the first texts in those religions are silent on the issue of gods, yet both are considered to be atheistic religions. Atheism is living without gods, which also encompasses agnosticism as a passive form of atheism. Active and absolute rejection of gods is a positivistic belief and a tenet of militant anti-theism, not atheism.

  ... In sum, there is no inherent contradiction to say that (1) i am atheist, and (2) i believe that other people have some pretty real gods, eg, sex, drugs, money, and (3) these things or ideals do exist as gods in contemporary society.

  • from the Sea of Faith Network, inspired by the work of Father Don Cupitt, an atheist Anglican priest. Their basic belief is that conscience and compassion are the highest spiritual values, and that exposure to other cultures and to science has made religious literalism impossible as well as unnecessary:

  The Network explores the implications of accepting religion as a human creation; promotes this view of religion, and affirms the continuing validity of religious thought and practice as celebrations of spiritual and social values. The Network has no creed. It welcomes people from all faith and non-faith traditions.

  edited to add:

  If being comfortable with yourself is spirituality, then I’ve achieved it. I just don’t think that’s what it is. If that is so, what are these ‘spiritual experiences’ people are having?

  Well, either they are communications from/experiences of invisible people more wise or powerful than humans, or they are instructive hallucinations. I'm referring now to "true dreams," "encounters with angels," etc., not epiphanic realizations.

  And some of them are imaginary bullshit; there's a certain amount of junk epiphany out there, too. I haven't found any consistent relationship between truth and epiphany. My gods have occasionally told me stuff I don't believe.

  GentlyFeral
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  Sirona

  LittleToe

  I don't think I made myself clear enough.

  so we don't sit like buddha's all day trying to forget our bodies, rather we experience our bodies as divine and our overall experience on earth as being spiritual)

  Some do, and have a great level of spiritual awareness. How do you account for that?

  I'm not against meditation and various other techniques for raising consciousness. I do plenty of visualisation / meditation myself and that of course involves using the mind (and ignoring or rather, tuning out, the body)

  I was trying to make the point that whilst buddhism and eastern faiths have wisdom, my opinion is that we are here in physical bodies for a purpose. Denying our carnal desires, for instance, isn't ideal; living out this bodily existence whilst progressing ourselves spiritually is. I guess I would advocate balance over a constant search for existence in the "higher realms".

  Some would have us sitting meditating for hours upon hours every day, refusing to step on a bug and literally ignoring earthly things as much as possible. That IMHO couldn't be a sadder existence.

  Sirona
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  Double Edge

  Double Edge-

  Did you ever have tear or two come to you over some music, or poetry, some scene in a movie, a wonderous sunrise or sunset, the birth of a baby, etc. -- remember those feelings? Something has touched more than your "physical" sense, they've touched your spirit -- IMO they are spiritual experiences.... they speak to our higher nature.

  So if you feel emotions (which we all do all of the time), you are having spiritual experiences?

  Not all emotions. IMO, anger, fear, frustration, depression - all which are "negative" emotions - are reactions from our "physical" condition/s. When a "positive feeling" resonates within us, it touches our spirit, or it is a "spiritual experience". One can look at a sunset and say "that's nice" (pleasing to the eye - physical), and yet that same person at another time will witness the same type of sunset and be caught up on the wonder of it all (spiritual).
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  LittleToe

  Sirona:

  Some would have us sitting meditating for hours upon hours every day, refusing to step on a bug and literally ignoring earthly things as much as possible. That IMHO couldn't be a sadder existence.

  And yet it is their "path", and who are we to judge?...
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  SixofNine

  My name's Mark... *extends hand*