Is spirituality minus the spirit still spiritual?
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February 28, 2023 at 3:56 pm #47171
The problem is that most of the world’s cultures are so preloaded with the artifacts of religion. It invades our languages, our traditions, our institutions, our relationships, hierarchies and gatherings, our expectations and our history. There is no pure control group; we have no idea what a non-fantasy-inclined secular human species would even be like.
Too bad evolution can’t do to our minds the same thing it does to our bodies. Organs that aren’t needed for survival are reduced to vestiges so that they will not continue to use up bodily resources. I’d like to see the day when Christianity goes the way of Zeus. Will it be a roll of the dice or is there some sense to the way things happen?
February 28, 2023 at 6:22 pm #47174“I’d like to see the day when Christianity goes the way of Zeus. Will it be a roll of the dice or is there some sense to the way things happen?”
You are not likely to encounter many antitheists with greater vituperation and contempt for religion.
Having said that make Christianity disappear and in its place some other horror. Some other mindless ideology. We as a species are dominated by monkeys. Monkey see, monkey do, monkey make poo. Our morality is as plastic as our beliefs. There is nobody home to judge of or be critical. For every rhonjon there is a pawn and another pawn from beginning of time to dawn. No practice or mythology is so improbable, so humiliating, so childish that the thing in itself is discarded because it is itself insupportable. Shocking cruelty is de rigueur cuz the other monkeys are shockingly cruel so any compunction is overcome by the need to fit in.
No point in anticipating the happy death of Christianity or any other religion. We are gonna go extinct or nearly so in very near future. And nobody is doing jack shit to alter the trajectory. Just more mindless analysis in terms of good guy/bad guy. And the thing is our plasticity our amenability to changes in behavior and beliefs offers a glimpse of hope. Oh well…off to snowshoe…
February 28, 2023 at 7:10 pm #47177Were the Samurai spiritual? I think they were. So, the notion that spirituality equates with peace and harmony is New Agey BS along with pyramid power, channeling past lives, and homeopathic quackery.
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February 28, 2023 at 7:51 pm #47180Were the Samurai spiritual? I think they were.
What do you mean by “spiritual”, in this case?
February 28, 2023 at 8:17 pm #47181“Were the Samurai spiritual? I think they were.
What do you mean by “spiritual”, in this case?”
See what i mean? Worthless word. If we can’t understand the speaker without asking their definition then we have come upon a word that ought to be obsolete and archaic. Sure a skilled writer can use a word in a way that obfuscates their meaning or is intentionally ambiguous but generally context makes the intended conveyance apparent.
So with these developments it is necessary to indulge in spirits to lift my spirits and remove this dispirited affect.
February 28, 2023 at 8:28 pm #47182What do you mean by “spiritual”, in this case?”
See what i mean? Worthless word. If we can’t understand the speaker without asking their definition then we have come upon a word that ought to be obsolete and archaic.
I think “self-improvement” or “self-purification” are spiritual concepts that comes into play in this case.
February 28, 2023 at 8:48 pm #47183Simon, no way to know. Others might be of the opinion that transcendentalism, anything that is not mundane, or quotidian or nine thousand other things. Garbage in/garbage out.
February 28, 2023 at 9:15 pm #47184Well, the Samurai believed in some mix of Shinto (a religion that’s all about spirits) and Zen, a religion often referred to by people using the other sense of “spiritual.”
They were spiritual, no doubt about it. Obviously, not in the New Agey, mentalism, pyramid power, food/practice wooery sense.
February 28, 2023 at 9:33 pm #47185Samurai got jiggy with it in rape of Nanking. Contests to see how many heads could be decapitated fastest. Great with American Pow’s in the Philippines too not to mention the Filippinos. Chop your nuts off and stay true to Bushido so what admire a bonsai tree and Japanese poetry? Some spiritual mighty might…
Spiritual. If you enter the forest there are sprites, wild animals and all measure of the unknown…spooky, in the dark, lurking…BEWARE OR YOU MAY NEVER FIND EGRESS! demonic laugh…
February 28, 2023 at 10:15 pm #47186Is yoga spiritual? What about the Hare Krishnas? Both have proven synonymous with sexual abuse.
February 28, 2023 at 10:22 pm #47187Yoga is dope but i don’t know what spiritual means. Hare Krishna? ANNOYING
I try yoga but suck at it. This guy i’m about to link is spiritual. Least wooish woo too. Anyways if you haven’t heard of him or his breathing technique i recommend it. Check the comments. If you do it regularly you will improve at holding breath. He has some mindfulness stuff too i think and definitely immersion in cold water and exposure to cold> i have not tried either but if this guy aint spiritual who is?
Wim Hof-the ICEMAN
March 1, 2023 at 9:38 am #47189Mindfulness is a spiritual practice in that it develops the ability of the self to flourish in the long term. Since we live in an interdependent social world, this can only be done in an ethical way, regarding how we treat others.
Russia is trying to flourish in the long term, but since this is at the expense of everyone else, they are doomed to fail using this particular strategy.
March 1, 2023 at 3:22 pm #47190“I’d like to see the day when Christianity goes the way of Zeus. Will it be a roll of the dice or is there some sense to the way things happen?” You are not likely to encounter many antitheists with greater vituperation and contempt for religion. Having said that make Christianity disappear and in its place some other horror. Some other mindless ideology. We as a species are dominated by monkeys. Monkey see, monkey do, monkey make poo. Our morality is as plastic as our beliefs. There is nobody home to judge of or be critical. For every rhonjon there is a pawn and another pawn from beginning of time to dawn. No practice or mythology is so improbable, so humiliating, so childish that the thing in itself is discarded because it is itself insupportable. Shocking cruelty is de rigueur cuz the other monkeys are shockingly cruel so any compunction is overcome by the need to fit in. No point in anticipating the happy death of Christianity or any other religion. We are gonna go extinct or nearly so in very near future. And nobody is doing jack shit to alter the trajectory. Just more mindless analysis in terms of good guy/bad guy. And the thing is our plasticity our amenability to changes in behavior and beliefs offers a glimpse of hope. Oh well…off to snowshoe…
Every now and then somebody rises up who has the power to do “jack shit to change the trajectory.” Such people are known as megalomaniacs, and they generally think the best way to make a change is to kill anybody who objects to having their individual freedom or national sovereignty challenged.
You’d think a species with 7 billion members could never go extinct. But in the 1980s there were only 6 billion humans on Earth. A population that increases by a billion in forty years while replacing their food supply with rubber trees and other economic/military crops probably won’t last long. At least life as we have known it will change drastically. And all the time the Christians will be telling us not to worry because their god has revealed what will happen in the bible.
March 1, 2023 at 7:34 pm #47191We recently went past the 8 billion mark. It will take a lot more war, earthquakes, floods and pestilence to trim those numbers. You are right that things will change drastically. The games have already begun!
March 1, 2023 at 10:43 pm #47196“It will take a lot more war, earthquakes, floods and pestilence to trim those numbers. You are right that things will change drastically. The games have already begun!”
I think nuclear war is the greatest existential threat in our immediate future. Old patterns are continuing. Conventional war, even world war fought that way (good luck with that) a few hundred million, a billion…idk but nuclear war is a different story and the aftermath..wow.
It will take a lot more war, earthquakes, floods and pestilence to trim those numbers. You are right that things will change drastically. The games have already begun! We were just lucky to avoid nuclear war. It was a Russian hero who saved us. Stanislav Petrov. Good thing not everybody mindlessly follows orders.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nuclear-war-5-billion-people-starvation-deaths-study/
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