What is spirituality?

[Oberon]

Spirituality is most properly defined as a quest for another world.

For as long as this is your definition, you will find spirituality absurd.

 

[Kiddo]

For as long as this is your definition, you will find spirituality absurd.

Exactly. "Otherworldly" has nothing to do with how I view spirituality. The concept of worrying about an afterlife while in this life seems silly to me.

 

[JAVO]

Is this an accurate summary of your arguments then?

Argument 1
1. God is best conceptualized as the greatest possible good.
2. The Old Testament depicts God as not good.
3. Therefore, the Old Testament presents a poor concept of God.

Argument 2
1. God is best conceptualized as the greatest possible good.
2. God is so abstract that he cannot be fully represented or described.
3. Therefore, God representing himself as a person is a great oversimplification to the point of being an inaccurate representation.

This is where our spirituality turns into superstition, we worship not God but our ink and paper, and whatever notions befitted the prejudices of the prophets who taught us our religion. The biggest threat to spirituality is the Judeo-Christian anthropomorphic notion of God. God is best thought of as the greatest possible good. Yet with the Judeo-Christian religious tradition it has been reduced to no more than a powerful person. As we see in our Old Testament, such a person is far from all good, and therefore the original notion of 'God' has been lost.

What is abstract to the point of ineffability, which is exactly what our great prophets experienced cannot be instantiated--it cannot be made concrete as easily as they'd have us believe. Therefore the very idea of the greatest possible good in the world becoming a person is absurd.

This is another example of our spirituality degenerating into fables.

 

[ThatsWhatHeSaid]

That was a great point, Edahn. Thank you for reframing the question.

Thank you, and you're welcome... (old man!).

 

[SolitaryWalker]

Is this an accurate summary of your arguments then?

Argument 1
1. God is best conceptualized as the greatest possible good.
2. The Old Testament depicts God as not good.
3. Therefore, the Old Testament presents a poor concept of God.

Argument 2
1. God is best conceptualized as the greatest possible good.
2. God is so abstract that he cannot be fully represented or described.
3. Therefore, God representing himself as a person is a great oversimplification to the point of being an inaccurate representation.

Correct.

 

[SolitaryWalker]

Thank you, and you're welcome... (old man!).

No, you're muddying the water again. There was a good reason I defined spirituality the way I did. Do it any other way and the term becomes an empty vessel for people to feel in with whatever mystical notions serve their purpose. Under your definition, a myriad of things could be considered spiritual, many of which are mutually exclusive with each other.

Spirituality for this reason is undefinable as it is a property of the other world. We cannot know anything about it other than it exists. (To see why it exists, review my argument in favor of existence of infinity.)

 

[Susan]

Sorry off Topic

 

[RaptorWizard]

RaptorWizard's responce to SolitaryWalker's What is spirituality? thread:

SolitaryWalker defines spirituality as a quest for another world, which he thinks suggests that these experiences transform spiritual prophets from within. Perhaps this could mean minds that are guided by the stars above are filled with celestial light which they can reflect upon their creations and make them sparkle with incessant fluctuations of world form, that is, finding a greater life purpose can be a quest in which we ascend to the zenith, a position of perfection from which we would have a higher perspective from which our reality can be seen and shaped anew. God is the greatest possible good but, unlike SolitaryWalker says, good fables lead to God.

 

[UniqueMixture]

On the positive end of the scale I think it is about integration of experience into holistic and sustainable ways of being that benefit both yourself and others