Starting off from the thread on 'Is casual sex immoral'.......I thought I will (once again) explain what my idea of spirituality is. And let me add that this is not just a theoretical idea that I subscribe to. I have lived all my 67 years only working with this philosophy....and very happy thereby.
Thanks for engaging
1. Spirituality is not about religion. Religions arise due to spiritual needs in people but are largely cultural and of local flavor. We can use religion to grow spiritually but it is not necessary. 2. Spirituality is relevant to everyone including atheists...because it is basically about what the human condition is and why we live and die. It is about the meaning of life and it objectives.
I'm guessing that spirituality isn't about a lot of things - many people seem to see religion as an example, at least, of spirituality, others seem to spirituality as an attempt to have the benefits of religion without the restrictions, or a corruption of religion - but this doesn't give any real understanding of what it is. There is a presumption in this that not only is there a 'meaning' to life - which is far from a given - but that you have some sort of insight into what it is, but you've not given us that, you've just asserted that spirituality has something to do with it. What to do with it? Without any understanding of what that purported meaning is, there's nothing to inform of us of what you think spirituality is.
3. From the objectives and meaning of life should arise morality and the issue of right and wrong in an absolute sense.
Arguably, if there were an 'absolute' meaning to life then it might be possible to conclude from that an absolute morality, but given what I've said above this sense of an absolute morality isn't substantiated here, either.
Since spirituality is secular and common to all humans and life forms...absolute morality is also common and secular. It has its basis in life and its purpose.
Again, that might follow - however, even an absolute 'meaning' or 'purpose' to life wouldn't necessarily result in an absolute morality; it might, it's difficult to see how an absolute morality would be valid without a definitive purpose, but the reliance doesn't go both ways. You'd need, once you'd articulated what this 'meaning' was to then show why or how that leads to a particular morality.
4. Spirituality is not really about God, though it could begin with that quest. It is about what 'we' are. It is about the Self, the Subject....around whom life revolves. What are we, why are we here, what is our purpose, what happens when we die...and what are we supposed to do while we are here?
The study of the self is... biology, psychology, perhaps philosophy depending on what 'level' you're looking at. This still isn't giving any meaningful explanation of what 'spirituality' is - I can appreciate that, if it's not about how the body or the physical brain operate then you might feel that you could exclude biology and psychology, but how does your depiction of 'secular, non-religious' spirituality differ from philosophy? What are we, why are we here, what is our purpose, what happens when we die, what are we supposed to do until we do die... these are all philosophical questions. I'm not ideologically opposed to considering spirituality as a synonym for philosophy (or even that branch of philosophy which considers these issues - metaphysics?), but my impression is that when people use 'spirit' and 'spirituality' they're not using it in the sense of a purely philosophical enquiry.
5. Based on such questions.....some secular ideas have been arrived at which I have found to be largely common to almost all spiritual philosophies around the world. These are as follows...
6. We are basically souls which are living in or connected to the body and mind. Our Personality (what we are in this life) is developed not by chance but by the influence of the soul on our body and mind. Our Personality is therefore a reflection of the soul.
And this is where the shark gets jumped. There is this idea that the concept of a 'soul' is somehow universal, that every culture has come up with some equivalent and therefore it's a common theme across cultures which gains validity from that cross-cultural existence: how can so many diverse groups come up with the same idea in isolation from each other. The overlap of the concepts, and the isolation of the cultures, has been vastly overstated; the ancient Egyptian concept of 'ka' is vastly different to the idea of a karmic cyclic idea of 'Atman' or the Shinto dual ideas of 'nigitama' and 'aratama', whilst the evidence of communication between the ancient cultures is well-established.
This claim then runs full-tilt into the wall of empiricism; if whatever this 'soul' concept is influences our personality, why can't we see it working? We can track influences on our manifestation of personality in brain activity, we can show how the two strongly correlate; and we don't see any gaps we can't explain. We can't conclusively demonstrate that there's nothing else at work, but the system doesn't need anything else to be complete, and we don't see any strong evidence for effects without demonstrable causes that we could attribute to this 'soul' influence. If we can't see the influence, then in what meaningful way can we say that 'souls' have an effect - and if it has no effect in what way is it real?
7. One of the main attributes or properties of the soul is Consciousness. Through consciousness the soul uses the body and mind to function on earth.
Given our collective inability to even meaningfully define consciousness, claiming to attribute it to some other equally ill-defined concept seems a bit of a leap. As to the idea that our consciousness uses our body and mind to function on Earth; the implication here is that there is a basis to think that our 'consciousness' operates somewhere else as well - do you have a basis for that claim?
8. It is like a person sitting inside a robot and using it to perform some function. The robot has most of the attributes of the person and in a sense represents him. It is similar with the soul and Personality.
Except that it isn't: one of the other posters (NearlySane?) has gone to great lengths to explain how the brain-computer analogy very quickly breaks down under investigation, and this is one of those instances. Our brain isn't just an 'antenna' for some beamed-in signal, our brain is a constantly developing, changing, evolving record of our experiences that actively shapes the ongoing manifestation of our personality - who we are isn't just a static reaction to a changing world, it's a constantly changing tumult of activity in dynamic interaction with our environment - who we are is a constantly moving feast related to the status of our brain, and to suggest that some external 'motivator' or 'urge' acting upon that is in any way a determination of who we are is to fail to appreciate how the brain works. It might, conceivably, be some sort of 'energy' or power-source for something, but to imagine that it is a strong influence on our personality requires it to somehow actively mimic the constant changes of brain structure which requires a convoluted and complex mechanism which is lacking in any of the explanations I've seen.
9. The process is a form of spiritual evolution in which the soul gets born and reborn in different bodies (including animals). In the process it goes through many experiences and develops higher levels of consciousness. The essential difference between different people is in their level of spiritual development. More developed means less selfish and less intensity of needs and desires.
What are you basing this on? I'm presuming that we don't have actual memories of any of these past lives, so on what are we basing this idea of souls being reborn? How do we explain the massive increase in the number of human beings over time with no observable significant decrease in other lifeform numbers (distribution, yes, but not total counts) - is extinction of some species an indication that we no longer need that 'level'? Given that the only animal we have any evidence of higher-reasoning in is humans, how does spending a cycle as, say, a cockroach differ from a cycle as a horse? How come no-one has a cycle as a lifeform somewhere else in the universe - are 'souls' some uniquely evolved trait of Earth?
10. Eventually after many births and after sufficient development....the Higher Self of the individual becomes apparent. This can be seen as a spirit that is connected to the individual soul and is drawn nearer and nearer as the person develops. This is the God that we normally relate to every time we worship any deity externally.
So now we have spirits and souls, which are different, and Gods (although this isn't about religion?)... and no clear definition of any of these concepts? I appreciate this is intended as a brief account, and I appreciate the you may be trying to condense a lot into a few sentences, but I'm afraid I'm starting to get lost - what's the difference between a spirit and a soul? What's the difference between one of those and a god? Can you come back down from being a god to being a cockroach? Why is a god 'higher'/better than a cockroach - if, as I think you've suggested elsewhere, 'evolving' spiritually is about absolving yourself of wants, how is a cockroach not the ultimate lifeform?
11. In course of time the idea of an external God will become redundant and the person will start relating to this Higher Self.
I suppose that means I'm half-way there, right
12. Eventually the normal self will drop off and we will realize that we are the Higher Self and that the lower self was only a projection. This is normally seen as the objective of every individual soul on earth.
So the objective of life on Earth is to no longer want to live on Earth - that sounds like depression, not spiritual evolution.
13. With this will end the need for any more rebirth. What happens beyond that is unknown.
How come we don't know that bit, but we do 'know' this much, without any way to demonstrate it?
14. All these things can be experienced and understood through spiritual practices like Yoga and other systems. If you want evidence that is the only evidence.
Given that we have immeasurable reams of evidence of human beings entering unreliable states of consciousness, even compared to the questionable reliability of our usual waking state, surely you can appreciate how inadequate that is? If nothing else, surely you can see how susceptible to confirmation bias it must be.
15. If you insist on external evidence, NDE's and reincarnation studies by Ian Stevenson and Jim Tucker of Virginia university, can be referred.
Both Stevenson and Tucker have been well-critiqued in other places, calling out the confirmation bias and case selectivity in their work, but I not that since the last time I recall looking at the Tucker appears to have caught 'quantum' from someone like Deepak Chopra.
O.
