Hi Rochelle,
I had said in a previous message:
it doesn't mean that sitting around doing nothing or doing anything is as spiritual as it gets.
And you said:
Have you read the articles on the site? That isn't the point that's made at all.
No it wasn't, it was a different point I was making, and that is why I've moved it to another thread. I was basically trying to express a concern that this type of philosophy can lead to a slippery slope. Now mind you, I've basically expressed the same thing on this board myself, the point that a belief in God doesn't really matter when you're talking about spirituality, and I actually think that's a point that people who believe in God can agree on if you're really looking at things from a spiritual perspective. I am in agreement with this point, and while I was never a pagan I wouldn't consider my position secular spirituality, which frankly sound like a contradiction in terms depending how you define the word secular. I don't think that position is unique to the author of this site. It seems to me a lot of people on this board already believed the same way.
What we're talking about here is a different view, (from that of a personal God) and one might look at this idea that everything including the material world is spiritual as a simple fact. That's fine, but my question is what does that actually do to contribute to my spiritual development? You see to me I just hear the message "I don't believe in God anymore but I'm still a spiritual person", and my reaction is "Okay. And..?"
It's fine to pursue our spirituality in different ways. However, it's also quite a challenge. The one thing that traditional religions have over this new type of spirituality is a definite structure to guide the individual practitioner. Of course, I'm not advocating a rigid belief system with no flexibility at all or that the individual do not question it, but I think to have an effective spiritual practice some structure is important. The point is the individual has the task of coming up with a system of their own. At the same time, though, I don't think a lot of the traditional beliefs is a problem if you recognize that it's only relative truth, that is to say even if you believe the sacred writings contains expressions of ultimate reality, that expression is limited.
I guess I would say that it isn't even that a belief in a personal God is worse than not believing in one, but that in itself doesn't matter so much either way, spiritually speaking. There are people in the Christian tradition who do not base their faith on an elaborate projection of a personal God, even though they believe in one and are far from fundamentalist fanatics. But on the other hand, those who are athiest/agnostics may think something like Buddhism or atleast meditation as a practice is more rational and thus the way to go, but this isn't always the case in practice. It seems like there's always a way to screw up things which could be spiritually beneficial. Though I am for rationally choosing one's beliefs and practices, this type of approach seems to have more room for a type of spiritual breakdown. Ken Wilber calls this phenomenon "boomeritis." In an article he wrote for What is Enlightenment magazine he describes it this way: (incidentally, Integral Transformative Practice is something he himself came up with)
It is ... the ways that the ego will take virtually anything¡Xfrom physics to systems theory to the great wisdom traditions to meditation¡Xand turn it into a game of one-upmanship: "I've got the new paradigm that will be the greatest transformation in the history of the world; I've got the greatest spiritual path that has ever been devised; I'm part of a new integral culture that is so much better than anything that has come before; I've got . . ." Well, you know how it goes. Andrew points out that the "new" approaches to spirituality¡Xincluding transpersonal psychology and [Integral Transformative Practice]¡Xare often nothing much more than new forms of boomeritis.The emotional attitude of boomeritis tends to be, "Nobody tells me what to do!" And there is no question that the "pick and choose" nature of ITP can play directly into the hands of boomeritis. Spirituality then degenerates into the cafeteria model so prevalent in our culture: "Let's see, I'll take a little of this, a little of that, a little of the new physics, a little breathwork, some indigenous tribal goodies, toss in a little systems theory, some Goddess rituals, and, ooooh, let's see, gimme some shamanism for good measure and two cups of ayahuasca. Great! I am soooo f¡Xing enlightened I can't stand it."
You might wonder what all this has to do with the ideas posed at the secular spirituality website, well as the author of those articles says, it is a faith based on reason. What appears reasonable varies with individuals, and you may be a smart person but be biased in some way, or even if you're unbiased in what you choose as part of your belief/spiritual practice you may not have all the facts. Frankly there is a strong tendancy to look for information that supports one's own view and even intelligent people may not really think critically and thus logically. So I guess in a nutshell, I think we need more specifics beyond not believing supernatural deities. Being free from an authoritarian relationship is great, but it also opens the door to individual responsibility.
In case anyone is interested, the full text of the article I quoted from can be found online at http://www.wie.org/j18/wilber.asp
"It is not so much that you use your mind wrongly--you usually don't use it at all. It uses you. This is the disease." -Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now