I have decided upon a meaning for the word ‘spiritual’ because everyone who uses the word refuses to, or are unable to, explain to me what they mean by it. So for me, it is a socially polite term for “supernatural”. And ‘supernatural’ is camouflage for the word ‘non-existent’. It attempts to avoid stigma while still pointing to non-material beliefs and proponents hide behind a semantic smokescreen, just like theologians when discussing their gods.
When people say, “something beyond the natural world”, they’re usually pointing to things they imagine exist but for which there is no evidence and no means of detection. It is another way of saying “I believe in something that does not exist”. It is basically one step away from have a god delusion. As James Randi said ““No amount of belief makes something a fact.”
Spiritual, i.e. supernatural pretends to name a category, but when you strip away the camouflage it just points to things that don’t exist or at least never show up in reality. If something does exist and interacts, it’s part of the natural world like physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, etc. If it doesn’t exist, then the label “supernatural” is just a polite placeholder for nothing at all. People can only have a spiritual relationship with their own imagination.
If Jesus interacts with you, he’s part of the natural world and should leave evidence. If he doesn’t interact, then he’s indistinguishable from being imaginary. So ‘spiritual’ = ‘supernatural’ = ‘non-existent’. That is why I have a spiritual relationship with Jesus.
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