You can't kill the spirit
Here's a question I've been wanting to throw open to discussion for quite some time. What are your views on spirituality? Note that this is distinct from religion - my personal view is that organised religion is just an attempt to curtail human spirituality and keep it within controllable boundaries.
That aside, as anyone who has been reading my journal lately will be aware, I am about as much of an atheist as an ex-Christian can be - that is to say, my daily existence is ungoverned by any consciousness of the presence of any God. Even in those moments where I fancy that it's possible there might be a god, the god I imagine is nothing like the god represented in the Bible.
However, I do continue to wonder if there is a spiritual aspect to the universe. I know part of this is based on a very deeply-ingrained desire to believe that death is not the ending of myself, or of any other person. I'm not sure what kind of evidence would convince me either way as to the existence of souls. What I do feel certain of - what I have always felt certain of, even when I was a committed Catholic - is that if there is indeed a spiritual aspect to the universe, that it is all-inclusive, or at least common to all life. I've never bought into the idea that humans are specially created with souls that no other animal possesses.
So, what do others think?
That aside, as anyone who has been reading my journal lately will be aware, I am about as much of an atheist as an ex-Christian can be - that is to say, my daily existence is ungoverned by any consciousness of the presence of any God. Even in those moments where I fancy that it's possible there might be a god, the god I imagine is nothing like the god represented in the Bible.
However, I do continue to wonder if there is a spiritual aspect to the universe. I know part of this is based on a very deeply-ingrained desire to believe that death is not the ending of myself, or of any other person. I'm not sure what kind of evidence would convince me either way as to the existence of souls. What I do feel certain of - what I have always felt certain of, even when I was a committed Catholic - is that if there is indeed a spiritual aspect to the universe, that it is all-inclusive, or at least common to all life. I've never bought into the idea that humans are specially created with souls that no other animal possesses.
So, what do others think?