unapologetic

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
Why not just say “Take care of my physical and mental well-being”. If I ever go to the doctor and he says that my spiritual health needs attention I will glue his chakras together.

Yes, but spirituality is about more than “physical and mental well-being”.  It includes the nebulous notion of a “spirit” or “soul” – wh…[Read more]

Well, I don’t use the word spiritual, but I do the things that the word means to me: take care of my spiritual health, which effectively, to me, means biological, psychological, social, and moral well being.

Autumn wrote:
It may describe something different to everyone who uses it, but those differences fall within certain bounds. Whether those bounds are vague or not has little to do with whether the word has meaning.

Yes.  The meanings that people give the word are not random or arbitrary: they fall into certain categories.  Of course, many p…[Read more]

True on both counts.

Yes, but to the people who use it, it means something.

_Robert_ wrote:
It may be similar to the ancient Egyptians in supplying their dead with artifacts for the afterlife, or it may just be secular decoration, but knowing how just about every Sapiens culture has “spiritual tendencies” I tend to think our close relatives probably did too.

There is a book by Penny Spikins, called “How Compassion Mad…[Read more]

Davis wrote:
why would you use a term that is this elusive? How can you achieve much (if anything) if people are talking about something different (or at least vaguely overlapping) when you can use some other term?

I don’t use the word myself.  But it has some meaningful definitions that other people use: for example, the army.  I think they u…[Read more]

PopeBeanie wrote:
Which leads me to believe there once was a survival benefit.

I don’t think it’s about a survival benefit, although that may come as a by-product.  I think it’s about enhancing and celebrating being alive.

@davis – whatever definitions I could give, are never going to encompass all the things that people mean by the word.

It’s not a definition, it’s just some examples of things that are called “spiritual”.  Working in coordination with others towards a common goal can, in some circumstances, be a spiritual experience for people.

@davis – I doubt it.  Other attributes of their experience would come to the fore, in a sporting team.  On the other hand, if they were getting stoned, or otherwise thoughtful, on some occasions, they might think of it a bit that way.  Perhaps it depends on how much into their volleyball they were.

So, when people refer to spiritualism, they mean nothing?  Spirituality, I should say.

What’s the word?  Eejit.  This contradiction suggests that the guy is not talking about anything consistent or real.

Unseen wrote:
I don’t think it’s what almost everybody who uses the term “spiritual” means by it.

What do almost everybody else mean by the term?

He’s probably meditating using a timer, so it’s not a contradiction to say he lost track of time, entered a flow state, for ten minutes.

You could say I’m calling bogusness, based on my own subjective definition.  However, I don’t think that is too far away from what most people mean.  The term is used in the army.  In the army they are co…[Read more]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
“But Reg I am able to meditate and lose all sense of time. That is a spiritual event for me”. “How long do these experiences normally last for you”? “Oh, usually about 10 minutes of so. Sometimes only 5. But the important thing is that time become meaningless and that makes the experience all the more spiritual…

[Read more]

Davis wrote:
I think most of them would disagree that what they are doing is spiritual, even though what they do could improve their well being, their mental state, (with knitting inner peace), better their lives or even [I cannot believe I am saying this] flourish. Would they be wrong?

I disagree that most of them would disagree that it’s…[Read more]

Unseen wrote:
If “it (spirituality) means things like achieving and maintaining inner peace and happiness; and self-actualising: achieving personal potentials,” I don’t see how any of those things follow from feeling one is just a small part of an unimaginably large something bigger.

They don’t follow from it, they’re just part of the portm…[Read more]

I think spirituality is about maximising personal well being in a cooperative way.  The reason for the cooperative part is that one of its meanings is to be part of something greater than oneself.

So, it means things like achieving and maintaining inner peace and happiness; and self-actualising: achieving personal potentials.

President Putin…[Read more]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
By “we” do you mean just Homo sapiens or are you including others like Homo erectus where co-operative food sharing and breeding is first thought to have developed? Would it not be the case that we would have self domesticated into groups after we saw that our chances of survival were higher because we co-…

[Read more]