Simon Paynton

@SimonPaynton I looked at your website and I think it’s really cool, thank you for the link.

@SimonPaynton @Steveinco For me spiritual simply means to feel a deep connection to say for example nature and/or to deeply admire something like for example science. I don’t know if feeling a connection with something is an emotion, which perhaps it is. Perhaps being spiritual simply means feeling deeply emotional about something because that’s…[Read more]

@earthheart, “spiritual” is one of those terms that people use freely without defining what they mean by it. The two examples you have given seem like they are talking about experiences being emotional rather than spiritual. In which case the question would be “Can an atheist be emotional?”. To which the answer is obviously yes.

Would you be able…[Read more]

I wish I had more time to comment, but I’m in mid-move.

I love the thread’s (slight) meandering from my original post (thanks for acknowledging that pseudo hijacking, @MrBob!).

@SimonPaynton: Hrmmm… Simon’s vs. Sam’s take on “religion.” With respect, I defer to him, as I’d wager he’s done far more homework on and put far more careful thought…[Read more]

@Strega and @SimonPaynton

I took “the evolutionary base for mysticism” to be a reference to recent work highlighted by J Anderson Thompson, where for various evolutionary reasons, we are predisposed to make some cognitive errors, such as seeing agency in events when it isn’t there. (The idea being that if you are wandering around in the tall…[Read more]