What is spirituality and how do I get involved in it?

I always thought that spirituality meant believing in some form of God(s)/Goddess, Higher Power, Intelligent Universe etc. without believing in all the dogmatic crap that often goes along with religion.
Believing there's more than what humans can perceive on the surface - but without the "this textbook from thousands of years ago contains The Truth" part.

 

Threads like these always bring up the fire in people. No matter where you go, haha.


Well, to the OP. Spirituality is a journey one must take on their own. There are many who can guide you, but only you can decide how far you wish to walk the path. Look up people like the Dalai Lama, thich nhat hanh and Sadhguru. They are wise men who can teach you as much as you are willing to learn.

Best of luck to you, friend.

 

Spirituality is whatever you need it to be to find some sort of peace with existence. My spirituality is largely based on the Buddhist tenets of impermanence and cycles, which has slowly allowed me to get a handle on my anxiety. It's given me a lot of peace recently, and continues to do so. Spirituality is appreciation for the immaterial, for the emotional experience that all people share. I think it's necessarily feeling like you are part of a larger whole, whether that's a god, nature, humanity, or whatever the individual chooses. Faith is involved to some degree too. Faith in what is, again, up to the individual. That's pretty much it. If you get hung up on defining and categorizing, then you end up trying to solve an emotional issue with logic, which is about as effective as cutting through a knife with butter.

 

First on the binary thing. I agree 100% with @mashers there. I just don't see the need to add the agnostic aspect to it.

The color ting just doesn't compare in the way you are using it. Here is how I first heard the idea he is mentioning. Someone said:

"I think belief is a verb. Like kicking the ball, you believe in god or spiritual stuff. You can't half kick the ball. You either did or you didn't. End of story."

Now onto your concept about infinity. That is a good point. Not in the sense of validating the other side. At least not to me. In the sense that science is a human effect and as a result is subject to error or better and better research. To the point that real science will change or remove the term or redefine it or finally quantify it. Or it should. I am not a true scientist and don't care enough to become one(I am a writer!) but someone will do just that. Eventually, or perhaps they already have but we just haven't noticed.

Earlier this week I saw a video from like 35 years ago about people claiming they could survive without food. Stupidity of that level blew my mind. So I fully adknowledge the potential for information to be there that I haven't seen. Heck I consider it likely, obviously.

I extend the same possibility to the spiritual world. Science may quantify this. But until it has. I cannot except it on bad evidence. And to this point. Lets say I was back in like the 900's and someone told me about gravity in precisely the terms of modern day use. So this guy by all the luck just guessed gravity correct. I would not consider it valid to believe him if he can't give me good reason to. Being right has nothing to do with it. Acceptanting the possibility of a right answer without good evidence is how all the worlds bullshit gets out there. If he is right, let him prove it and come back. I'll be waiting.

But here is the rather large difference between spirituality and infinity.

How does the belief in a unquantifable infinite effect your life? Like, if you don't believe. Imagine you did for example, how would you react differently?

Me personally? I cannot think of anything I would do different. The concept of infinity as a number has no practical application to my life.

But the same is not true of spirituality. If a spirit world exist that we survive the death of our bodies through. There are countless things I would do different in anticipation for that. And that is the problem.

 

So, I'm not actually arguing with any of your core arguments here; they seem like pretty clear logic equations. But I still have random thoughts.

- I'm not sure if most people in organized religion are gnostic as opposed to agnostic theists--though I suppose that that might require a definition of the word "most". More than fifty percent, probably; an overwhelming majority, I'm not sure.

- The discussion is about god/a god. That could pretty comfortably expand to plural "gods". I'm trying to think of what happens to the terminology when you expand out to religions that really don't have anything that you can point to and say "that fills the god role".

If a person both knows and believes, for example, that all turnips have a pure and sparkling soul and that all the souls of the turnips we have consumed are flying around the world doing good deeds for us, and that's the entirety of that person's religiousesque beliefs, is that person an atheist or not? By the literal meaning of "theist" I suppose he is, but...

Anyway. I'm weird.

 

And being weird is what makes you wonderful!

 

why would the knowledge of a spirit world change things?? not in the sense of a religious doctrine of rules to live by where adherence gets you a prize, with the stick ready to beat you over the head with should you chose to the wrong path.

from a scientific perspective do you feel there is a possibility for parallel worlds, and someday perhaps someone finds a way to communicate with one or more of these worlds? what about ultra-dimensional being just outside of our own capacity to measure or perceive them.

who says an intelligent universe must include god, what if it turns out to be a higher function of consciousness and thought where comes together as a multiplexed signal. the thoughts of many such conscious beings seen and unseen creating the consensus reality around us.

is it a single universe or multiple universes, does the question really change who you are as a person?

does the past or future truly exist from a non-linear standpoint, or is it just the now moment being processed which truly exists?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_choice_quantum_eraser

does it simply become a field of potentialities, wherein both existence and non-existence coincide based on choice of observation across an amorphous set of boundaries?

the baggage of labels someone says god and then what... it's some grumpy old man looking down from the clouds expecting everyone to be on their knees praying, glory be, glory be, lest some unspeakable genocide should befall us?

do you believe in god? I believe in a higher intelligent source of life, for the ease of semantics and not having to go thru a 10 page explanation of how each word is being used or defining the various inclusions and exclusions associated to such I will default to god. omniscient? possibly from a holistic noospheric consciousness encompassing the possibility of trans-dimensional worlds.

http://www.lawoftime.org/noosphere/theoryandhistory.html

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i use color to show the variables a binary system is unable to process, and someday when we get there logic gates made of light will be using color frequencies to process information. we already move information using color along fiberoptics
http://www.fiberoptic.com/adt_cwdm.htm -- this is just a hop and a skip away from using the sensors as a switchable processing unit. even more radical is it does not necessarily need a tangible physical structure and someday will be accomplished using structured holograms.

color in the above takes us out of the binary world and allows for a program where a multiplexed signal based on percentages can make intelligent decisions the yes/no paradigm is replaced with a sliding scale to measure inputs. The questions of qualia are then internally quantifiable by the machine because there is a way of representing concepts like heat, cold, soft, hard, sour sweet, salty... programs which do this today are brittle and break easily with the introduction of new information, being able to answer a question like is liquid A saltier or sweeter than liquid B, based on the experience a machine has had up to the point in time the question is asked. You can teach it easily what salty means vs. sweet. It gets to set its own upper and lower limits of salty and sweet based on its own experiential perception and measurements over time. In the long run it can form personal opinions, and like or dislike something based on preferences it sets for itself. from an evolutionary standpoint where dislikes are due to harm or likes follow a path of least resistance.

 

In all honestly I am not sure I took in the full scope of what you were saying. Hence the like. Because I like effort.

It seems though, if I am to understand you correctly. You have a spiritual based belief that stems from personal experience and that you are trying to validate it not by meeting the scientific standards(reasonable as if you could. You would probably win a Nobel Prize.) but instead by attacking scientific faults.

Which sure! Attack science, it loves it. But bringing that down doesn't bring the other argument up.

And about the green. We can agree that you can measure such a thing in different ways. No argument but just because one way of measure needs a sliding scale doesn't mean the yes/no system is invade. They both bring different points to the table.

And the whole multiple dimension theory. I am sorry but they do not relate in the same way. Sure, both are about equally provable to my knowledge. But here is the real hard hitting question.

Do you believe, your conscious thoughts will exist beyond your body? Since in any form spiritual to my knowledge includes a spirit world. This is the assumption I am making.

If I am wrong than we have no argument. Because if you are saying you like to believe in the mystery of the universe and believe we are all connected in some yet to be defined spiritual way. Sure! That is valid. And it can have essentially the same impact on your life as multiple dimensions if it is that light.

But if you do believe that. Then of course it impacts your life in a way it doesn't to me. If you believe you will exist beyond your life. Than the choices you make in life must certainly be different. That is why multiple dimensions don't compare. I don't worry about transdimension monsters killing me. Could it happen? But I fear it just as much as being stabbed by a unicorn. Thing is. That is true in either case of me believing or not believing the different dimensions. Which doesn't match an after life.

 

in the same way my thoughts get multiplexed with other thoughts, and are ultimately measurable as an em signal which for all intents and purposes carries on long after I had the thought. Perhaps morphed into something completely different but at its core is still a part of the new holistic whole being perceived elsewhere by a receiver with the capacity to process the new morphed signal. --- from this perspective I would say they already do this, is there some reason these thoughts should stop existing just because the brain producing them is no longer producing new thoughts? do I have some expectation of existing intact as i am today in some spirit body like some ghost, possible but highly unlikely. Will I remain conscious of the network of thoughts around me or become a part of a higher consciousness, I believe yes -- to what extent I honestly do not know. Will I still have a self identifier i.e a thought saying this is me now, a self recognizable aspect separate from the whole

-- from my perspective in layers of thought I am not a singularity, so a differentiation somewhere should continue to exist.

is consciousness simply chemicals reacting with each other or is there something else going on? does it need a physical medium to exist? if shown a machine that was not only conscious but holographic i.e made of pure light would you ask ... where is the medium or chemical reaction occurring to bring about this consciousness?
-- or would a pure light based cpu with the ability to think and consciously interpret sensory inputs be outside of the realms of possibility? light interacting with light to create thoughts or process information.
http://aip.scitation.org/doi/full/10.1063/1.3099039
https://arxiv.org/abs/1211.7240

How far will an em wave travel in space? Does it cease to exist at some definable point? What is the difference between an em wave and your perception of matter? Are we in a virtual reality or falling in a 5-d wormhole, or is it a Pixelated vs Smooth Spacetime reality?

is the universe an open or closed system?

as for the multi-dimensional theory

they can be related in the sense of unrealized thoughts and choices made i.e your brain perceived a song, but you never put it down on paper. the song continues to exist as an unfulfilled potential. someone else picks it up and get a number one hit from it.

taking it further ... who says a trans-dimensional being are separate could they be the thought forms of our ancestors or future selves manifesting as a being in nonlinear time which is more frequency based than material based, the reality they live in is an alternate to our own but runs parallel. Perhaps our subconscious uses these alternate worlds and communicates with these entities. We perceive them as separate but in reality they are a part of us or a part of our own potential past and future lineage. Their understanding of things would be different from our own. Perhaps why the advice of being happy and comfortable with your self is so important, or to get rid of negative thoughts, because those linger and are accentuated when all is left is a conscious thought form. your afterlife defined in one of these dimensions based on what thoughts you put out there to begin with. Perhaps an easier task to change from the material side of the fence ... ultimate karma of facing the mirror of what you put out into the universe.

 

Yes, exactly. And you either believe me on faith, or you don’t. And you either somehow think you have perceived what was in the box and claim to know what is inside, or you don’t. Again, what are the shades of belief and knowledge between these two positions? There are none, because each position is binary.

Also correct. And this is the point where a faith-based belief becomes a justifiable claim to knowledge. First you believed there was a book, because you had faith that I was telling you the truth. Then you claimed to know there was a book, because you had seen it on the x-ray.

That’s why I said that it is a claim to knowledge, not actual knowledge. It doesn’t matter whether you’re right or wrong. The fact remains that the position is either that you claim to know there is a book, or you don’t. Now apply the same thing to god or gods, and you get the same two positions. Some people claim to know that there is a god, and some people do not claim to know. There are no positions in between - you can’t claim to know something a little bit.

It makes absolutely no difference which label you use. We’re not talking about belief in or knowledge of a word, but of a concept. People around the world use different words to refer to the same concepts, but that doesn’t mean they are talking about different things. And if I learn the word for ‘green’ in another language, that makes no difference to my belief in the existence of ‘green’ in a concept, nor to my knowledge of what that concept represents.

In this situation, I would make no claim to knowledge as I would lack sufficient information to know the cause. But my belief would be that these were hallucinations. That belief might change in light of evidence, and could potentially result in a claim to knowledge if the evidence was compelling enough (such as if a brain scan revealed I had had a stroke in my visual cortex). To use the vocabulary we have discussing, I would be in the agnostic atheist position - no spiritual belief, and no claim to knowledge. Again, two binary positions.

No, that’s not true. An x-ray is a physical object. Other people can perceive it and confirm that it is what you believe it to be. That’s how knowledge works - your perceptions are corroborated by other people which adds evidence that they are real. A vision inside your head is imperceptible by anybody else. There is no way of corroborating its truth with anybody else. So a vision of a dead relative is incomparable to an x-ray inside a box.

It doesn’t matter to me what other people believe. My position would still be that I don’t know.

An explanation based on assumption is, by definition, irrational. The only rational position in this situation is to say that you don’t know. Any alternative is based on faith, which isn’t a good basis for finding the truth.

 

Yikes man. I mean, it feels like you busted out a big theusarus on this one. I yield to your vocabulary. But at this point, it sounds more like your trying to be complex just to obscure your point.

Granted I don't actually think this is your goal.

The premise of if our sense of self exists beyond the life of our material body. It seems you did say yes you believe that will happen.

Whether or not your right doesn't matter to me or the sense of my argument lol.

Obviously your base knowledge is higher than mine. I yield to that. But I feel I still have you trapped based on just a few things that I consider very important.

1. You believe in a sense of self beyond the material world.

2. This belief comes from something emotional or personal, and not something verifyable. No talking about the mystery of the universe in the sense of what is consciousness and how does it exist doesn't count.

It doesn't count for a very easy to say reason. The burden of proof. Which is on you in this case. Because the belief in a sense of self beyond the material world is a clear claim. And potential thought excersices don't count. A religious person could have said essentially the same thing.

3. That this, by all likelihood, false believe or unsupported belief is going to have a direct impact on the descisions you make. Because either:
A. You say that the concept of an afterlife doesn't effect your modern day choices. To which I find a seriously concerning choice which I will touch upon in a moment. Or
B They do effect the day to day modern day choices. Which I also take fault with because you are letting your personal view skew your sense of reality.

Now the later can be essentially a fine attitude to have if it simply gives you comfort. But I fault it in both the minor and the extremes because well, I am fair that way. It is the same logic an Islamic terrorist uses before committing suicide. I would not think of comparing your thoughts or attitudes to them in any other respect but the belief in a life after the death of the material body can logically lead to similar concepts. The different scenes could easily be different. To give one alternative example.

I could be writing a story and decide, I am 87 years old and am in too much pain. If I believe my mind survives death, I could consider it perfectly reasonable to just kill myself and or wait to die to finish the story when I am feeling better.

Though in the former. To say you believe in such a concept but would not make day to day alternations of your life based on it? Then what is the point of this. It seems to serve no purpose. Or at the worse is then illogical. Going with my example if sitting up to write hurts when I am 87, why push myself through it when I can wait to die to finish the story?

Sorry if it seemed I ignored your points, it just they had no application to what I am saying. The nature of consciousness being something that able to survive my death is a cool concept that I am fanscinated with. But not in the just speculation of what people think. Though to be honest I hate the thought. I don't want to survive my death. But my own thoughts don't matter. Its if there is reasonable proof. Which again, if you had. Who has been hiding it or go win that Nobel Prize!

 

That’s a good point. However, the largest religion on Earth is Islam, and I think that at least the claim to Gnosticism is quite core to that religion. I think if a Muslim stayed that they were anything less than certain that Allah was real, their faith would be doubted (and yes I realise the irony of lack of claim to knowledge being used as evidence for lack of faith...)

I don’t think it matters other than for the definition of the word. Theism refers to belief specifically in god(s), but its meaning could just as easily apply to any spiritual faith-based position. Perhaps we shouldn’t be using the words theism and atheism in this discussion. ‘Spirituality’ and ‘aspirituality’ probably fit better, and I’m surprised to see that ‘aspirituality’ is actually a word (though I haven’t looked up the definition yet).

According to the definition of theism, then yes. They would only be a theist if they conceptualise the turnip spirits as gods. But I think for the purpose of this discussion, that’s a semantic distinction we don’t really need to make.

 

I would make a distinction between their claimed certainty, and their actual certainty. I assumed that gnostic/agnostic would be about actual certainty rather than claimed.

I'm mostly juggling semantics now, I suppose.

 

as stated before these are non quantifiable values and trying to quantify, which it seems like your interpretation of what i'm trying to do here is incorrect.

what my initial point was and remains is

1. I recognize the limited scope of the binary argument as being valid
2. what you are trying to quantify as a binary is a state of mind.
3. while valid on its surface it does nothing in the sense of quantifying what a spiritual belief is or is not.
4. the binary in the example assumes spirituality must encompass the belief in some deity i.e. the first question asked

... to which I will close this with wtf does god have to do with spirituality?

 

I think this is what’s tripping up TheNineMagi. ‘Gnostic’ means “relating to knowledge, especially esoteric mystical knowledge” (that’s according to my OED. Other definitions might be slightly different, but the basic meaning is the same). Now, there is as you say a difference between what somebody claims to know, and what they actually know.

Gnosticism can only ever be a claim to knowledge. The definitions of knowledge which apply in this situation are “information and skills acquired through experience or education”, and “awareness or familiarity gained through experience.” The reason why spiritual beliefs are, really, inapplicable to anything other than beliefs (cf. knowledge) is that the experiences which lead to spiritual beliefs are individual, and the education in them only comes from others who have had such experiences themselves (or who are speaking about those who have).

To give an example of this, somebody might say that a family member died, and they prayed to Jesus for comfort and then felt better. This person might take this experience and claim to know that Jesus is real, and that he comforted them in their time of need. However, another person in the same position might pray to Mohammed and make the same claim. Another might pray and there be absolutely no effect whatsoever, and this could lead them to claim to know that there is no god or prophet. These experiences are unmeasurable, and incomparable. It is therefore impossible to evaluate whether that person actually knows what they claim to know, or whether they are misinformed, irrational, deluded, or any number of other possible explanations.

Basically, people who are gnostic theists say that they actually know that their god is real. But we know this isn’t true. Most organised religions are mutually exclusive. “Thou shalt have no other god but me,” remember. So a Christian can think that they really know that god is real, and a Muslim can be just as convinced. But at least one of them must be wrong, which renders their knowledge nothing more than a claim.

 

Ah. Well.

Well, to address your question now that I understand it better.

A lot. I mean. Just because it isn't yahweh of the bible doesn't mean you are essentially describing essentially the exact same thing as the religious person. You said clearly and plainly earier that you do believe in a higher intelligence, that is what the concept god is more or less.

Just because your concept of a god may not have the same personality traits of that of yahweh doesn't make it any less god-like.

And thus it does fit the scope of that binary aspect. You do believe. Right?

 

Ah wait, ok. I think I’ve just realised what @TheNineMagi is talking about. I was losing the thread of what his position actually was, but I think I’ve just got it. Is he saying that because people believe different things about what god is, that belief is more than binary? I.e. because you can believe in the Christian god, or Allah, or Buddha or Poseidon etc., that belief must be a spectrum? If that is what he is saying, then this is easy to explain: everybody has multiple beliefs, and makes multiple claims to knowledge.

I do not believe in the Christian god
I do not believe in Allah
I do not believe in Buddha
I do not believe in Poseidon
(More generally) I do not believe in any god that has been described so far in history

I make no claim to knowledge about the the existence of the Christian god
I make no claim to ... well, you get the idea


People don’t hold one belief or make one claim to knowledge about gods and we then have to somehow put all of those individual claims and beliefs on the same spectrum. They are individual. Just because they are about things in the same category (I.e. ‘gods’) doesn’t mean they are the same thing.

I believe in dogs
I believe in whales
I believe in birds
I believe in dodos

I claim to know that dogs exist
I claim to know that whales exist
I claim to know that birds exist
I do not claim to know that dodos exist

But these beliefs and claims are separate from each other. My beliefs and knowledge of them are not on the same spectrum, which is why I can both know that dogs, whales and birds exist, and that dodos do not. I can also both believe in dodos without claiming to know that they exist (note that this leaves open the possibility of a remote dodo colony somewhere nobody knows about. I’m not claiming to know that they don’t exist)

 

I think that we're making different distinctions.

I think that you're distinguishing between what you believe you know, and the fact that you can't really "know" certain things.

I'm making the more prosaic distinction between what you think you know, and what you claim that you think you know. That is, the distinction between thoughts and speech. Saying, "I know that there is a god," while thinking, "Eh, maybe, and it's not worth the risk of expressing doubt."

I was assuming that the gnostic/agnostic thing was about one's thoughts, not one's claims.

 

@mashers your ability to know something (i.e. gnosis) is not binary but a cross section of accumulated concepts along a sliding scale you deemed acceptable or unacceptable

--- I'm telling you the dog was purple

i.e heres the poll
concept #1:

select one and then provide a weight

do you accept the following statement as true ... there was a god but he no longer exists

strongly disagree -- 1-10,
disagree -- 1-10,
neutral -- 1-10,
agree -- 1-10,
strongly agree -- 1-10

agree - 6
is the statement true or false
true

v.

strongly disagree 4
is the statement true or false
false

the outcome decision might be binary when presented with the legalese of answer the question Yes or No --- but the actual knowing part is very far from being binary.

now ask why it's weighted the way it is and you get a more accurate representation of the belief system underlying the decision.

the true or false answers are perfectly valid in representing the end state of the weighted knowledge --- but it tells you nothing about the knowledge or data behind the decision

nor do we extrapolate in either case which part of the statement is being accepted or rejected.

a true representation would separate the statement out and measure each concept the end state is the balance between all the variables input into the decision

god existed in the past
god still exists
god never existed
god ceased to exist recently
god ceased to exist eons ago
god will continue to exist
god is coming back
god may exist elsewhere but not here

if I ask you to try and set the room temperature to 70 degrees what are you going to do? it just a simple task based on known information.

 

Ah yes, that is indeed a different distinction. But it relates to the same thing. When I say "claim to knowledge", I don't mean specifically what somebody tells another person. I can claim to myself that I know something. I can tell myself, "I know there is a dog on my lap". I know it, because I can see it and feel it. Now, if my partner calls me and asks "where's the dog", I could tell him the dog is on my lap (a claim to knowledge of where the dog is), or tell him the dog is asleep in bed (another claim to knowledge). In both cases, I am making a claim to knowledge. But only one of them is true.

It is. It's an internal state. But as you have said, that doesn't necessarily reflect what that person tells you. There are no doubt a lot of people within organised religion who tell people that they know god exists, but don't actually believe it.

I would go so far as to say that anybody who claims to know for a fact that god exists is not thinking rationally, whether they actually believe that they know it or not. To claim you know something which is unknowable is either dishonest or irrational.

 

This I also disagree with in the sense that strong or weak doesn't stop the binary aspect.

Go back to the kick the ball example.

You can kick the ball with a force of ten or 1 barely tapping it. In either case: You kicked the ball.

So if you strongly agree you still agree, so yes.

 

@TheNineMagi
We're not talking about agreement, we're talking about knowledge and belief. You either know something, or you don't. You either believe it, or you don't. Opinions about agreement are not relevant here. On your scale, the positions "Agree" and "Strongly agree" correspond to "Yes", and everything else corresponds to "I don't know" or "No". Note that lack of agreement doesn't mean believing the opposite. It can also mean that you don't know.

We're going round in circles here, and the semantic and philosophical discussion isn't really getting us any closer to consensus. We clearly don't agree on the definitions of the terms, and that's ok. I don't need you to agree with me. But as an academic exercise, I would be interested in your answer to the following question. In the first table below, I have diagrammed the four positions made up by theism, atheism, gnosticism and agnosticism. Then below that, I have expanded that to what I think you are saying is your world view - i.e. that there are positions between these. So, what are the headings of columns a, b and c and rows x, y and z, and what are the descriptions of the cells in yellow? Note that rewordings of or variations on the atheist or agnostic positions are not suitable, as they fit the same category of lack of belief or lack of knowledge (i.e. atheism and agnosticism).

 

I agree in general, but I think that people very, very commonly think that they "know" things that they really don't, and that there's nothing special about religion in that way. I find myself wanting to expand to more detail, but my brain just shut itself down.

 

You’re right, religion isn’t the only example. But it’s probably the best and most enduring one. Other examples would be older practices of medicine, which were genuinely thought to be correct at the time (people “knew” certain things about the body and illness and its treatment) which we now know to be false. But they still thought they knew it at the time. It is very much like people finding their way out of religion - evidence and rational thought is not compatible with the existing view, so a new one has to be found which more closely matches (current perceptions of) reality.

 

I do wander back to note that my mother, who otherwise seemed to have little to no capability of self-reflection in, well, any area at all, once explained to me that she made a conscious choice to believe in her religion because she thought that that belief would be better for her than not believing. My mother having the ability to step away from herself and analyze her own beliefs about beliefs was...well, surreal. Rather like the cat sitting up and explaining its PhD thesis. I still find myself wondering if she was just parroting someone else's speech word for word. Or maybe she was briefly possessed.

This is almost entirely irrelevant. The conversation just reminded me of that surreal moment.