Posts by Etude

61

can spirituality replace religion?

by make yourself in

i was watching cnn, an d they asked this question and this one lady called in and claimed she wasn't raised in a religious household.

but she remembered when she was in elementary school that this jw girl asked her if she was spritual she said no, then the jw told her she would go to hell.

wow.

Etude

Hi streets:

But why would you have to label that sensation as "spirituality" ? Why not just pure "wonderment" or "awe" or "wow" ?

I don’t. But I suppose that we have to call it something. I can only summarize what I found while looking up the definition (not just a dictionary definition but also a current vernacular understanding of the term). From the word itself we can infer that it has something to do with “spirit”. This suggests an intangibility or etherealness of what it deals with. The term is usually applied to things that are non material or are beyond the ordinary. For example: We don’t term feelings of love for parents or even for children as spiritual. We don’t say that an awesome rock concert was a spiritual experience (unless there’s some sort of illegal substance involved). We don’t think of country music as spiritual, although we know that some music can evoke spiritual feelings or can help us achieve a higher state of “spirituality”. No, the meaning is reserved for things that are “of the spirit” and are out of our usual everyday experience; the type of sensation or experience that has a particular sense of “wow” for us. This doesn’t have to be an extreme experience but it is usually one described as very personal and introspective. Perhaps it has to do with the profundity of the experience for the individual, even if it’s triggered by something ordinary. I have personally never experienced it, but I’ve heard people talk about a sexual experience in the same terms, the “Earth moved” for them. That’s quite extraordinary. Is that why some people call: “Oh God!” during sex? Is that why there have been sex-based religions in the past? There’s something to that. Sex for me is pretty good on a regular basis but it doesn’t quite rise to that level. I would rather concentrate on the type of spirituality that deals with the most unanswerable feelings and realizations that I can experience. You could say that “spirituality” is an umbrella word that covers a more or less similar range of sensations (awe, wow, wonderment, etc) of a particular order, the experience of which are very subjective and individual.

Etude.

61

can spirituality replace religion?

by make yourself in

i was watching cnn, an d they asked this question and this one lady called in and claimed she wasn't raised in a religious household.

but she remembered when she was in elementary school that this jw girl asked her if she was spritual she said no, then the jw told her she would go to hell.

wow.

Etude

Misocup:

Let me start by saying that you make some significant observations, many of which I have grappled with for some time and which have given me a good deal of difficulty to explain. Secondly, let me say that the picture on your profile is quite disturbing. The guy really creeps me out. It is a bit painful and unnerving. I’m envious. I wish I’d thought of it.

Now let’s see; you bring up the question of why there are scientists who in spite of the scientific theories to the contrary still believe in God while the majority is rabid in its pursuit to convince the rest who still “believe” that they are wrong, almost to the point of ridicule. You question why they don’t just live and let live if people’s delusions don’t hurt anybody.

OK. I have observed that very thing, but mostly in the field of Evolution. There are natural sciences that don’t present such controversies, except perhaps in one particular way that relates to Quantum Mechanics. Since scientists are pretty convinced that the Universe had a beginning, being scientists can only force them to ask not “what was there before?” but why it is the way it is; how did the universe end up being this way (being able to support life, our type of life) and did not end up differently. It’s too exhausting to get into it, but they have come up with a theory for that and it’s called the “Anthropic Principle”. There are a few variations of it (the weak and strong) and a lot of controversy about it. In comes a physicist name Paul Davies who suggests that such a theory reveals that scientist must accept certain things about Science with the same faith that a religious person accepts God. Well that sort of thing pisses of people like Richard Dawkins. It irritates him enough to mention it in his books but he doesn’t have the balls to formally refute Davies. Davies is well versed in the Anthropic Principle and is a very respected scientist

If you put Dawkins and others like him in one camp (the pissed off atheists) and people like J. P. Moreland (an apologist and scientist) and other religious fundamentalist in another, there is still room for people like Paul Davies and Clancy Martin (all world-class scientists) to fit somewhere else. It seems to me that they are in a camp that neither criticizes nor defends. They do not abandon their beliefs but are not so quick to label others as lunatics either, especially Clancy Martin. Although a self-declared agnostic, he believes that religion is fine because it serves a purpose to provide hope and comfort to the people who have it. He wouldn’t want people to lose that or have to give it up. He simply feels that they should at least consider that what they hold close may not be the reality they think it is.

Presently I’m reading a book called “Patience With God” by Frank Schaeffer. He was a fundamentalist Christian who abandoned that to flirt with Atheism but is now neither. He suggests that the New Atheists (the radicals) agenda is to get rid of religion altogether without taking into account that, whether they like it or not, the majority of people are spiritual beings. In their quest, they have set themselves up as a quasi-religion equipped with prophets and gurus with the goal to return to ideas before postmodernists (to Modernism) and form theories to eradicate our current perception of religion. In other words, they want to explain away and interpret everything in terms that do not include any mention of God. This makes sense since two of the most significant figures during the era of Modernism were Charles Darwin and Karl Marx (not that I’m suggesting that Darwin set out to do that). On the other hand I don’t recall a time when religious fundamentalism has been as rampant as today. Hell, it got George Bush elected. So, I think it cuts both ways.

My impression is that at this time in our history both religious and atheistic camps are on the rise. Yes, there are more people in the world. But what I think is happening is that more people are taking sides because they are being polarized. The rise even puzzles Richard Dawkins in light of the fact that people are increasingly acting to the influence of certain “memes” for which there appear to be no evolutionary mechanisms or even a necessity for, in terms of Natural Selection. I do see that people will be whatever they will be whether their opinion points to one pole or another. I can understand if there’s a perception that the scientists are more forceful in their message. But if you really think about it, so have the evangelicals for a very long time. Perhaps the situation is that scientists have the more prominent pulpit right now.

One last thing: I do believe that we are the sum of our parts. This was clearly the thinking in the Bible in the book of Ecclesiastes. That idea does not have to exclude other possibilities that accommodate some of the precepts of religion or even cast in doubt on the idea of God. One of the problems I observe with individuals like Richard Dawkins is that, in his book “The God Delusion”, he uses a lot of bad acts and inconsistencies on the part of religion in order to indict the idea of God. His book should have been called “The Religion Delusion” instead. He fails to see that religion and God have effectively very little to do with one another. This is why a person can be spiritual without having a religion.

Etude.

61

can spirituality replace religion?

by make yourself in

i was watching cnn, an d they asked this question and this one lady called in and claimed she wasn't raised in a religious household.

but she remembered when she was in elementary school that this jw girl asked her if she was spritual she said no, then the jw told her she would go to hell.

wow.

Etude

Mindmelda:

Somehow I had missed your earlier comments in this thread. I hope you’re still reading because I think what you wrote smacks of a well-crafted essay on a very elusive subject. You got game! So, I noticed a few things that I need clarification on and would also like to make a few observations.

I take it that by “transcendence” you mean an experience that could be termed "spiritual", while the manifestation of that experience (or many of them) is codified in what we may term as “religion” or ritual. I also understand that the “transcendence” a person experiences is unique to that individual (and therefore subjective) and can’t actually be shared. So, you can only share a ritual or practice that emanates from a transcendent experience. Is that about right? If this is correct, I agree with you 100%.

Still, this leaves a lot of room to explore the nature of transcendence. The research I mentioned about the “G” spot is demonstrating that although experiences are unique, they manage to have some commonalities in some fundamental ways. For example: Most people experience déjà vu. I can’t imagine that there are or have ever been two individuals who have experience having been in the same place before. I mean that both were in the same spot the other was in, in the same mall, at the same time of the day. That would make it a shared experience that would not be unique or transcendental. The commonality is the “déjà vu” itself; the very ability to have such experiences. So, I’m inclined to think that the state achieved during deep meditation or “spiritual communion” by a shaman, yogi, priest or nun, or a worshiper of Sacred Poles (although I think they partied more than anything), or anyone who can profoundly contemplate is individual but has a commonality in that it results in similar feelings and reactions. In addition, what the clinical examinations reveal is that in those cases there is a stimulus of a particular region of the brain. I won’t insinuate that anyone (as far as I know) fully understands the range of such feelings and how they influence us to act. But there is something concrete that is happening and we already know what can happen when it’s out of whack.

So, the discoveries in neurology are suggesting clear pathways in the brain that are responsible for our actions and ideas, and yes sensations of wonderment and “otherness”; something that Psychology could only guess through the interpretation of behavior. Therefore, I personally need to allow room for spirituality, however nebulous it seems, and allow it to be an entity. If we call it by another term, say “the ability to transcend”, I still think that it is a quantifiable, measurable (in descriptive terms) and a reproducible effect that involves a particular part of our brain and is not simply a behavioral anomaly.

Etude.

61

can spirituality replace religion?

by make yourself in

i was watching cnn, an d they asked this question and this one lady called in and claimed she wasn't raised in a religious household.

but she remembered when she was in elementary school that this jw girl asked her if she was spritual she said no, then the jw told her she would go to hell.

wow.

Etude

Streets76:

I guess you take “spirituality” to mean an affectation, like seeing ghosts or seeing auras around people’s heads. Since not everyone experiences that and spirituality falls in that realm, you really don't believe that there's is such a thing as spirituality in the first place. Well you are right and you are wrong. I'm not challenging your belief. But the thing is that, whether you're in one camp or the other depends on what your interpretation of spiritually is. In my case, spirituality appears to me to be a sensation that can give one a sense of wonder that fixates on things greater than everyday life. It could be as simple as the admiration I would have to see a small piece of nature, like the blazing colors of the bougainvilleas in my neighborhood or being overwhelmed with awe while attempting to conceive the vastness of space. So, I don’t think there’s anything mystical or super-terrestrial about spirituality. It’s just another function of the “flesh, bones and blood” you mentioned. So, you are right in a sense.

Animals have the spark of life. But, there’s no indication that they have the peculiarity of not only self-awareness (with a few exceptions), but also of a “sense of other” that makes some want to reach to God. That’s the importance of the “G” Spot. A neurological pathology studied by Dr. Ramachandran involved a young man in his 20’s who experienced grand-mal seizures which disrupted the mechanisms which suppress or keep in check the “G” spot. The brain runs a delicate balance of chemicals. Consequently, for a period of time after the seizures the man felt he could walk on air and almost died when he tried to jump out of a window. In an overwhelming euphoria, he felt he understood everything and perceived all things at once. He felt as one with the universe. The man thought he was Jesus Christ or at times he was God himself, equipped with all the power and knowledge of everything. Under a cat scan, the “G” spot area lit up like a flare.

It’s possible then to entertain the idea that people like Joan of Arc, Joseph Smith and yes maybe even the prophet Isaiah or the apostle John might have had similar conditions, since cannabis and LSD where not common in their time. I’m not trying to be sacrilegious and offend people who are still religious and can’t contemplate such possibilities. But the reality is that a good argument could be made for such visions as being the result of brain pathology for one reason or another. Bottom line is that we have a capacity that like any other bodily function (which includes the brain) may need some tending-to, perhaps some nurturing. And it also tells me that when it’s not working right you create groups like the JWs. When it’s cleverly manipulated, you end up with a bunch of “other sheep”.

Etude.

61

can spirituality replace religion?

by make yourself in

i was watching cnn, an d they asked this question and this one lady called in and claimed she wasn't raised in a religious household.

but she remembered when she was in elementary school that this jw girl asked her if she was spritual she said no, then the jw told her she would go to hell.

wow.

Etude

Hey Terry:

At the risk of repeating myself repeating myself, I was browsing through my old posts and found a thread I started on the subject of the "G" spot. You posted some interesting comments. Check it out (http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/friends/95534/1/Do-you-stimulate-your-G-spot). Looking back, it all still makes sense to me. But damn, can I go on and on and on judging from the lengths of my posts. I had a verbal hemorrage and I'm bleedding to this day.

Etude.

61

can spirituality replace religion?

by make yourself in

i was watching cnn, an d they asked this question and this one lady called in and claimed she wasn't raised in a religious household.

but she remembered when she was in elementary school that this jw girl asked her if she was spritual she said no, then the jw told her she would go to hell.

wow.

Etude

Terry:

The point is not that we (as individuals) don't exist. The problem is that if we embark on a way or means to prove with any degree of certainty that we do, we have a serious problem. I believe I exist. I just can't formally prove it. That's what the philosopher (Rene Descartes) brought up a few centuries ago. In spite of that, I go on and (in order to continue the argument and accept that you exists as well even if I can't prove it), I continue to exchange ideas with people so that I don't end up in that padded cell (even if it's imaginary) like misocup suggested. That's why I acknowledge that we have a brain and that it has something that may be responsible for what we term "spiritual" feelings. I realize that for some this amounts to a bunch of esoteric bullshit, but that’s the way of the world if we dare to keep asking the really tough questions, even about the nature of our own existence.

Etude.

61

can spirituality replace religion?

by make yourself in

i was watching cnn, an d they asked this question and this one lady called in and claimed she wasn't raised in a religious household.

but she remembered when she was in elementary school that this jw girl asked her if she was spritual she said no, then the jw told her she would go to hell.

wow.

Etude

It’s amazing to find people with the intellectual cojones to admit some tough conclusions, namely that we are physical beings and not the result of some shadow that lives inside of us. Did I get that right from you misocup and streets76? That was not easy for me to admit. Yes, I’m a monist as well. And I was not attempting to justify “spirituality” as something more significant than being left-handed. By mapping it to the brain, it simply means it’s another function (though a higher one in the sense that it involves thought) like feeling pain or wanting sex.

Misocup: You’re right about not crossing into the philosophical line of whether we exist or not. It kinda leads nowhere. But like the man said: “Cogito ergo sum”. That’s hard to argue with even if we can’t prove that anything else exists. So, I was presenting the idea that there’s a consistent commonality within our delusions of life, that poking around in the supposed part of the brain will consistently yield a common delusion. I had to make some basic assumptions. Otherwise, I would never have contributed to this thread and suggest that religion is one thing and spirituality (whatever it means and with all that it encompasses) is another. While I can’t say for sure that any of you exist or that I’m even writing this tidbit and not dreaming it, I must continue to continue to pretend.

Etude.

61

can spirituality replace religion?

by make yourself in

i was watching cnn, an d they asked this question and this one lady called in and claimed she wasn't raised in a religious household.

but she remembered when she was in elementary school that this jw girl asked her if she was spritual she said no, then the jw told her she would go to hell.

wow.

Etude

Let's not forget that if one can say that “belief is in the mind” that a good argument can be made for feelings and everything else to also be in our mind. In fact, unless one is dualist, all that we are is in our brain/body, including spirituality. I know of someone back in the 70's in New York who believed she could fly out of a 3-story window while under the influence of LSD. That was not a universal experience linked to LSD. But, the “G” spot appears to be universal even if we can't yet determine all that it does and what purpose it serves other than cause or channel those feelings that we associate with “otherness” and a sense of awe at the grandness of the universe. On a more personal level, one of my JW room mates ended up committing two suicide attempts because he was seeing monsters and hearing voices. Aside from his mind being compromised, I know the JW really screw up his head to the point that he could no longer stand the guilt and tried to off himself. It's that very pathology of the brain that has led to discoveries like the so-called “G” Spot and how alternate pathways in the brain can be created to replace lost functions.

The helmet I referred to in my previous post has been used to duplicate the same or similar sensations in many an individual. Really, it's a poor man's version of what has been done in the lab many times with more sophisticated equipment. So, I believe we all have the same thing in common to one degree or another. Personally, I don't wonder if there are invisible beings. That definition, by its very nature makes it impossible for one to know if the proof is a sighting. But for me, the existence of receptors and generators in the brain like the “G” spot explain why some people insist that there are aliens out there experimenting on cattle and taking people to their ships in order to create some sort of hybrid babies. That also explains out-of-body experiences, etc, etc. This suggests to me that not only there may be a specific “seat” for “spirituality” in the brain but also for the source of mysticism and a general tendency to want to explain the unexplainable in terms of something extraterrestrial or even heavenly. I'm basing my comments on the work of Vilayanur S. Ramachandran, a behavioral neurologist that made several important discoveries while at U.C. San Diego.

Etude.

56

Is the Jehovahs Witnesses organization really a cult?

by Etude in

im sure the question has been brought up before on this board and i imagine that for many of us the answer is patent.

however, i recently saw a documentary on pbs regarding the mormons and it stated categorically that the church of jesus christ of latter day saints is not a cult.

given that it has its own set of strangeness and history of revision as has the wtbts, could it also (the jw) be considered a main stream, although minor religion?.

Etude

onTheWayOut:

but watch out for its danger.

Your are absolutely right. All I need is my own personal experience to realize how dangerous and insidious the WTBTS is. I don't want to call them a “mainstream” religion. I want to call them a cult. The problem is that other opinions that count don't do it for several persuasive reasons. While that may appear to simply be arguing over terms, the classification has its implications out there in the world and it adds legitimacy to these heinous groups. I'd call them every name in the book that would convey the danger and damage they create, plus a few other choice words. That doesn't advance my desire to change minds if I hear in the media that the WTBTS is a mainstream religion. I guess it's time for me to stick a fork in this conversation.

Thanks everybody for you input.

Etude.

56

Is the Jehovahs Witnesses organization really a cult?

by Etude in

im sure the question has been brought up before on this board and i imagine that for many of us the answer is patent.

however, i recently saw a documentary on pbs regarding the mormons and it stated categorically that the church of jesus christ of latter day saints is not a cult.

given that it has its own set of strangeness and history of revision as has the wtbts, could it also (the jw) be considered a main stream, although minor religion?.

Etude

Flipper:

I understand. But Steve Hassan is not the only and finalauthority on the subject. If you recall, the reason I started the thread was because I heard this on a program which I respect very much. The comment was about Mormons not being a cult but a world-wide mainstream religion. So, I'm not debating or even contradicting what a cult is or that the JW are a cult. The issue is that other significant individuals disagree with you and me about that. This adds to the legitimacy of the WTBTS. I wondered if there's a better way to fight that perception, not whether it is true or not. Capice?

For example: Read the following opinion:

The LDS meets three definitions of the term "cult:"

"Cult" is derived from the French word "culte" which came from Latin noun "cultus." The latter is related to the Latin verb "colere" which means "to worship or give reverence to a deity."

Theological use: Oxford English Dictionary defined "cult" as:

	"worship; reverential homage rendered to a divine being or beings."
	"a particular form or system of religious worship; especially in reference to its external rites and ceremonies."
	"devotion or homage to a particular person or thing."

Thus, in its original theological meaning, the term "cult" can be applied to any group of religious believers, whether they be Mormons, Southern Baptists, Methodists, Jehovah's Witnesses, Catholics, Hindus, Muslims, Wiccans, etc.

And....

The LDS once met a neutral definition of the term "cult" -- but no longer:

Sociological usages:

	A small religious group that exists in a state of tension with the predominant religion.
	A small, recently created, religious organization which is often headed by a single charismatic leader and is viewed as an spiritually innovative group.

The primitive Christian movements, including Jewish Christianity, Pauline Christianity and Gnostic Christianity, would have qualified for these meanings of "cult" back in the first century CE. The LDS Church would have qualified as a "cult" in the 1830s shortly after Joseph Smith founded the Church of Christ.

However, the LDS Church has been established for almost two centuries, and has in excess of 13 million adherents around the world. The sociological definition definitely does not fit. Under this definition, the LDS Church is not a cult. [The emphasis is mine]

http://www.religioustolerance.org/ldscult.htm

Even though a cursory google of the topic will have many, many articles supporting what you and I know to be the case, there are others with some influencial opinion that would argue differently. You and I may disagree with them, but the perception and justification for the contrary is out there and it adds legitimacy to those groups.

Etude.