For serenejournal
Here are the questions she asked me to post, so she can answer.
Anyone else who would like to answer is welcome to as well. (You can copy these questions to a comment and answer them there.)
( Go to the questions )
Anyone else who would like to answer is welcome to as well. (You can copy these questions to a comment and answer them there.)
( Go to the questions )
Just to be clear, when I made comments about "militant atheists", I didn't mean you at all. (I didn't mean anyone I know, which includes Serene and Jill, who are both very strong atheists, but, at least to my knowledge, are not disparaging of all expressions of spirituality, which is all I ask.)
Anyway, religion certainly has an intellectual dimension - there's plenty of scholarship involved. (I'm on shaky ground here because I know next to nothing about religious scholarship.) But I would think that all the religion in the world would be meaningless if not for the emotional dimension. Ultimately, it seems to me that, more than anything, you have to feel the presence of the divine in order for spirituality to be a significant force in your life. Sure, a lot of people follow doctrines by rote, because they were raised in a faith and they feel like that's what they're supposed to do. And maybe there's some superstition involved too, eg, "I'd better follow this or God will strike me dead." But this isn't what I mean by spirituality. I think that people who "know" there's a God know it in an emotional way. They don't need scientific proof because it's not that kind of knowing. However, it is a perfectly valid way of knowing and should not be dismissed as "mostly emotional" or "brain chemicals".
I heard a lovely segment on a talk show the other day where someone was discussing the concept of humans being both a collection of chemicals and subjective, unique, experiential beings having souls. Not souls in the metaphysical sense, but rather, our "soul" is who we are as individual people. Hooray! We can stamp out reductionism in our lifetime! :)
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"Spirituality" is a very significant force in my life, for emotional and intellectual reasons. I just don't personally believe that a supernatural being is involved.
But this isn't what I mean by spirituality.
What do you mean by it?
I think that people who "know" there's a God know it in an emotional way. They don't need scientific proof because it's not that kind of knowing. However, it is a perfectly valid way of knowing and should not be dismissed as "mostly emotional" or "brain chemicals".
I'm not dismissing or invalidating anyone else's experience. I'm only talking about my experience. If theirs is valid, so is mine, and it shouldn't be dismissed as being dismissive. ;-)
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Sure. I don't think it has to be a belief in the supernatural. The closest I can come to having a spirituality doesn't involve a supernatural being either.
But this isn't what I mean by spirituality.
What do you mean by it?
That's a much bigger question. I'm not really clear what spirituality is to me - I find it a confusing issue. One time I wrote up a description of what I think of as spiritual, and I sent it to a friend, who said, "That was a lovely description of some nice things in the physical world." I got the feeling she was trying to tell me, Hon, that's all very nice, but it ain't spiritual. But what does she know? Anyway, that's kind of what happens to me when I try to describe it.
I really think that the more pertinent issue was what I didn't mean. By "spiritual", I didn't mean being associated with a church, necessarily, or doing the rituals of one's religion, or any of the outward manifestations of what we might call spirituality or religion. Those things can certainly be part of a spiritual path, but without the inner experience, the emotional or intuitive sense of connection to whatever you conceive of as God or a deity, divine intelligence, etc, I wouldn't call those activities spiritual.
I think trying to say what I do mean by it, other than to say that it has a strong emotional component, is too complicated for this discussion! :)
I'm not dismissing or invalidating anyone else's experience. I'm only talking about my experience. If theirs is valid, so is mine, and it shouldn't be dismissed as being dismissive. ;-)
This is starting to feel a little recursive. Are you dismissing my dismissal of your dismissal? :)
It didn't sound to me like you were talking about your experience - I got the sense that you were making a statement about the evidence being either emotional or statistical. (I don't have your original comments in front of me so I'm quoting from memory - sorry if it's not exactly right.) Maybe you could try saying it again, so that I understand better what you were saying about your own experience? I thought it was more an opinion than a description of personal experience, if you see the difference.
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On the subject of belief in god, I was prior to this speaking of my own experience, but here I'm also expressing opinions:
I believe that many people have experiences they call communicating with or being aware of god. I believe I have had similar experiences, but I explain them to myself in a different way. However, it's possible their experiences and mine are different, not similar.
I also know many people who seem to have no experience of being aware of god - like you. I don't know if you and the rest of those people have the same experiences but label them so differently that god doesn't enter into it, or if you don't have them, and why some people experience it and some don't.
Insofar as "god made it happen" is a theory that purports to explain certain observable facts about the world, like why animals have complex organs such as eyes or why gay men sometimes get AIDS, I don't like the theory. When it comes to explaining observable facts about the world, I prefer scientific method, and I think explanations including god don't really follow scientific method. (When people ask "Do you believe in god?" sometimes they seem to be asking this specific question.)
I think that other methods of figuring out the physical world are valid. Scientific method is very new compared to the whole of human history, so we obviously got far without it.
God exists as a socio/histio/mythological construct. That is, people appear to use the concept of god as a motivator for action. ("I did it because god told me to | because god teaches that I should do this | because god teaches we all should do this | because god is on our side and not on the other side....")sd
Finally, if I say I believe something is psychological or caused by the human brain, that doesn't mean I intend to dismiss it as unimportant. We don't know very much about the human brain so that's not really an explanation at all, only a hopeful placeholder for if and when we find out more.
Not sure I got at what is bugging you.
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I know what you mean. I have the same reaction when people say things like the examples you gave. People can use "God says we should do/think this" to justify just about anything.
And yeah, when someone applies the will of God to some specific outcome or event, it sounds weird to me, too. It reminds me of people I used to know in Al-Anon who would say, "I got a call from an old friend today, and I know it was my Higher Power reminding me that there is still joy in the world." I'm sure this is meaningful to the speaker, and it certainly isn't harmful to anyone else, but to me, that kind of thing sounds hokey.
If/when I were ever to develop my own spirituality - and as an agnostic, I'm open to that - it would be far less specific than that. (Well, I guess I really don't know what form it would take, but that is what I imagine for myself, in any case.) I can imagine myself saying, "I know there is a divine and loving intelligence, because I have felt a connection with it." Personally, I probably wouldn't look for much more than that - just having a sense that there is a positive force in the universe would change a lot of things for me right there.
I think that other methods of figuring out the physical world are valid. Scientific method is very new compared to the whole of human history, so we obviously got far without it.
I guess I was thinking of something very different. I personally wouldn't use religion to figure out stuff that exists in the observable world. To me, science does that job just fine. OK, maybe it's true that the Taoists figured out a few things thousands of years before western physicists came around to it in a totally different way, but in general, I'm content with studying the world I live in in a secular, scientific way. I'm not saying western science is "better", just that that way of thinking about the world I live in feels most natural to me.
But I still think it's possible to "know" there's a God (however you conceive of that notion) simply because you have felt that connection. That's all I was referring to when I was talking about "different ways of knowing". I think that meets completely different needs - at least, that's what I was trying to say. I guess you're right that a lot of people want to use religion to explain the observable, physical world, and that can certainly get sticky (eg, creation "science", intelligent design, etc). I guess I see spirituality as something more personal and internal - something that would explain and guide my inner life, my sense of myself, my beliefs about good and evil, my trust and faith in the universe, that sort of thing. I wouldn't look to religion to tell me why rocks are harder to break apart than crackers.
Finally, if I say I believe something is psychological or caused by the human brain, that doesn't mean I intend to dismiss it as unimportant. We don't know very much about the human brain so that's not really an explanation at all, only a hopeful placeholder for if and when we find out more.
OK, cool. I misread you, then. Thanks for explaining it more fully.
Not sure I got at what is bugging you.
It wasn't a big deal. Sorry if it felt like it was. It was really just a fleeting response.
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