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Thread: Spirituality Through Other Means

  1. #1

    Icon5 Spirituality Through Other Means

    My questions are relatively basic, feel free to discuss or debate your point of view.
    Part 1: Can someone be spiritually aware and synced without following Organized Religion?
    Part 2: Can someone be a morally upstanding citizen without religion or spirituality?

  2. #2
    Claudius Gothicus's Avatar Petit Burgués
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    Default Re: Spirituality Through Other Means

    Yes, one can either follow the ''New-Age'' crap or rely on eastern/western philosophical thought

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    Rhaenys Targaryen's Avatar Campidoctor
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    Default Re: Spirituality Through Other Means

    As a religious person, I would have to disagree. I simply cannot see how someone can have a sense of spirituality without having some sort of "power" that they can go back to in the case of any personal problems that can't really be solved by others easily, it doesn't have to be God of the Abrahamic religions, but this really applies to any religion.

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    Denny Crane!'s Avatar Comes Rei Militaris
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    Default Re: Spirituality Through Other Means

    Quote Originally Posted by Nightmare Moon View Post
    As a religious person, I would have to disagree. I simply cannot see how someone can have a sense of spirituality without having some sort of "power" that they can go back to in the case of any personal problems that can't really be solved by others easily, it doesn't have to be God of the Abrahamic religions, but this really applies to any religion.
    Buddhism.

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    Primicerius
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    Default Re: Spirituality Through Other Means

    Quote Originally Posted by Nightmare Moon View Post
    As a religious person, I would have to disagree. I simply cannot see how someone can have a sense of spirituality without having some sort of "power" that they can go back to in the case of any personal problems that can't really be solved by others easily, it doesn't have to be God of the Abrahamic religions, but this really applies to any religion.
    I think that non-religious people can sense something sublime or profound without really believing in god. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sublime_%28philosophy%29

    A few quotes on the subject:

    When, for example, Pascal makes the famous remark that the heart has its reasons as well as the head, when Goethe says that no matter how hard we try there will always be an irreducible element of anthropomorphism in everything we do and think, these remarks strike people as profound for this reason, because wherever we apply them they open new vistas, and these vistas are not reducible, not embraceable, not describable, not collectable; you have no formula which will by deduction lead you to all of them. This is the fundamental notion of depth in the romantics, and it is to this, in a large degree, that most of their talk about the finite standing for the infinite, the material standing for the immaterial, the dead standing for the living, space standing for time, words standing for something which is in itself wordless, relates. ‘Can the sacred be seized?’ asked Friedrich Schlegel, and he replied, ‘No, it can never be seized because the mere imposition of form deforms it.’ This is what runs through their entire theory of life and art.

    - Isaiah Berlin, The Roots of Romanticism (1999), p. 104
    In their [the romantics’] case the Grail was in principle both undiscoverable and such that one’s whole life could not be prevented from being in a perpetual search for it, and that is because of the nature of the universe, such as it is. It might have been different, but it is not. The brute fact about the universe is that it is not fully expressible, it is not fully exhaustible, it is not at rest, it is in motion; this is the basic datum, and this is what we discover when we discover that the self is something which we are aware only in effort. Effort is action, action is movement, movement is unfinishable – perpetual movement. This is the fundamental romantic image, which I am trying to convey, as best I can, in words, which ex hypotesi cannot convey it.

    - Isaiah Berlin, The Roots of Romanticism (1999), p. 106
    I think that is an intellectual take (rather than religious) on spirituality, or at least something deeper than we can empirically observe in the universe.

  6. #6
    Tankbuster's Avatar Analogy Nazi
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    Default Re: Spirituality Through Other Means

    Sam Harris talks about spirituality (via purely natural means like meditation) all the time:



    Since spiritual experiences are had by followers of all religion (and no religions), clearly they're not the special domain of any belief system. Religion is just a veneer our ancestors projected on these universal human experiences.
    The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath
    --- Mark 2:27

    Atheism is simply a way of clearing the space for better conservations.
    --- Sam Harris

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    Pc Genie's Avatar Foederatus
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    Default Re: Spirituality Through Other Means

    Part 1 answer: Perhaps someone can be 'synced' with some sort of faith without being part of an organised religion. How else can one explain these faiths cropping up in the first place, the teachings of any religion I can think of do not strictly require that you know about the religion itself, but acknowledge the important features, such as christianity focusing around God's love and Jesus's sacrifice to end all sacrifices, you could have enough idea about some divine figure loving and caring for you, its creation (I say it because God is represented with male and female traits to help people understand, but God is genderless).
    In short: Yes

    Part 2 answer: Law and order does act as a strong deterrent these days so even the most selfish people will easily remain "upstanding citizens", thus some may assume that spirituality is not needed in society. However, this element of not commiting nay crime because it will lead to punishment is not a good thing.
    As much as there are aetheistic and agnostic people who are selfless and behave themselves regardless of whether they can get away with wrongdoing or not, the principles of faith add a degree of either feeling you cannot get away with anything due to omnicient divines looking down on you at every moment, or (in my experience and for others as well) feeling guilty because you are takimbng advantage of the freedom given to you and cursing the one(s) who give you the very air you breathe.
    Therefore having faith motivates us to be "upstanding citizens" wherever we are, no matter how much human justice is around (or perhaps not around at all). So it certainly does help.
    In short: Also yes





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    Rhaenys Targaryen's Avatar Campidoctor
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    Default Re: Spirituality Through Other Means

    Religion itself is not that necessary for spirituality, that is true, but remember that some people believe in God or any other deity without being "in" any religion.

  9. #9

    Default Re: Spirituality Through Other Means

    Right. But you don't need religion or God to be spiritual. Again. Buddhism.
    Quote Originally Posted by Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert View Post
    the Church has only improved mankind in history

    For this there are words, but none that abide by the ToS.

  10. #10

    Default Re: Spirituality Through Other Means

    I am tempted to think Buddha was a non-philosopher in a similar context to how Christians didn’t consider their wisemen to be philosophers.
    Philosophy requires debate and interpretation, yet the racist, sexist, child-killing god of the bible does not require that, you just have to take their word for it = non-philosophy.

    My guess is that there is interpretation involved in the mysteries, in god, and the words of Jesus and the Buddha, ergo religion is against the wisdom of such.

    bring back the delphic oracle.
    Formerly quetzalcoatl. Proud leader of STW3 and member of the RTR, FATW and QNS teams.

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    Denny Crane!'s Avatar Comes Rei Militaris
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    Default Re: Spirituality Through Other Means

    What? The Buddha debated constantly in a hugely socratic way.

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    Default Re: Spirituality Through Other Means

    hi DC

    For sure there is much debate in Buddhism, yet as like with Hebrews and Christians of their time there is a narrative going on in the background, by which the result is somewhat predetermined. Why else would they always end up with the same results?

    Christian, jewish, Islamic, Buddhist, thinkers always resolve their philosophies within the context of their religion.

    that’s why religion is the enemy of true spirituality and especially wisdom.


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    Formerly quetzalcoatl. Proud leader of STW3 and member of the RTR, FATW and QNS teams.

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    Denny Crane!'s Avatar Comes Rei Militaris
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    Default Re: Spirituality Through Other Means

    Socratic method always ended up the same way - teacher and student. Is that also the enemy of wisdom?

  14. #14

    Default Re: Spirituality Through Other Means

    Socratic method always ended up the same way
    Hemlock...

  15. #15

    Default Re: Spirituality Through Other Means

    Socratic method always ended up the same way - teacher and student. Is that also the enemy of wisdom?
    Hmm, well its not the enemy of knowledge transferral, but if you have a teleological narrative which concludes the end prior to the beginning, and glances over alternatives in its process, then that would be an enemy of wisdom.

    This is why philosophers tend to listen [not in an ambiguous manner] to different perspectives. There is an assumption in religion that there is a god given [or Buddha given] set of knowledge and wisdom that we are trying to understand. For me wisdom says; ‘you don’t know the ultimate answers’ there is no preordained truth, anything else is arrogant and wrong, indeed the nature of reality becomes to subtle for our anthropological attempt at understanding it. How can one define a rivers features!
    .
    Formerly quetzalcoatl. Proud leader of STW3 and member of the RTR, FATW and QNS teams.

  16. #16
    Denny Crane!'s Avatar Comes Rei Militaris
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    Default Re: Spirituality Through Other Means

    Quez I think there is a veil of ignorance that I cant elicucidate and pierce whilst debating from an iPhone because while you might object to the ancient dialectical style and allegorical methods one of the fundamental tenets of buddhism is not believing things just because a teacher believes it, that would be anathema to pretty much everything Ive gotten from buddhism.

    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 
    You Are Your Own Master
    Be A Light Unto Yourself

    K'S TEACHING:

    You must know for yourself, directly, the truth of yourself and you cannot realize it through another, however great. There is no authority that can reveal it.

    -Authentic Report of Sixteen Talks given in 1945 & 1946
    ...p. 85.

    You yourself have to be the master and the pupil. The moment you acknowledge another as a master and yourself as a pupil, you are denying truth. There is no master, no pupil, in the search for truth.

    -Krishnamurti's Talks Benares-India 1949 (Verbatim Report) p.37

    You must understand it, go into it, examine it, give your heart and your mind, with everything that you have, to find out a way of living differently. That depends on you, and not on someone else, because in this there is no teacher, no pupil; there is no leader; there is no guru; there is no Master, no Saviour. You yourself are the teacher and the pupil; you are the Master; you are the guru; you are the leader; you are everything.

    -Talks by Krishnamurti in U.S.A 1966 p.73


    If you are very clear, if you are inwardly a light unto yourself, you will never follow anyone.

    -Krishnarnurti's Talks Benares - India 1949
    (Verbatim Report) p.38.

    DHAMMA:

    Atta hi attano natho
    atta hi attano gati;

    -Dhammapada - 380

    You are your own master,
    you make your own future.

    Attadipa Viharath Attasarana Anannasarana
    Dhammadipa Dhammasarana Anannasarana

    -Digha Nikaya, maha parinibbana sutta

    Abide with oneself as an island, with oneself as a refuge.
    Abide with the Dhamma as an island, with the Dhamma
    as a refuge. Seek not for an external refuge.

  17. #17

    Default Re: Spirituality Through Other Means

    Interesting spoiler quotes there. ..but don’t they always end up at the same beliefs? As I say its all in the teleology, if Buddhism were sincere then I cant see how one would always end up with ‘Buddhism’ ~ I didn’t.

    Having said that my heart is in Buddhism and I don’t want to attack it, except that I want to continually push for greater wisdom and understanding ~ as I expect they would too? ....?
    Formerly quetzalcoatl. Proud leader of STW3 and member of the RTR, FATW and QNS teams.

  18. #18
    Denny Crane!'s Avatar Comes Rei Militaris
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    Default Re: Spirituality Through Other Means

    The thing is though they really dont always end up at the same beliefs, a great deal in common mind. Ill post a great video when I get back if you are of a mind to watch it, ajahn brahm does a great chat on it. And if a thai trained half cockney half australian squeaky voiced monk doesnt float your boat then what would!

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    alexanderswift's Avatar Senator
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    Default Re: Spirituality Through Other Means

    Religion is a form of spirituality and an expression of it in a more formal and organized matter. Plenty of people believe in a higher power (god or otherwise) without necessarily subscribing to any specific religious beliefs.

    Morality and religion are separate and it's kind of a mixed bag there, depending on a lot of factors. Mostly what one defines as moral, some religions do preach morality and doing right by other humans but they often go hand in hand with extremist views on certain issues. Spirituality is usually personal beliefs so again that varies highly on the person interruption. So yes, religion and morality are often brought up in the same content but are entirely separate.
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  20. #20

    Default Re: Spirituality Through Other Means

    Quote Originally Posted by Quetzalcoatl View Post
    Interesting spoiler quotes there. ..but don’t they always end up at the same beliefs? As I say its all in the teleology, if Buddhism were sincere then I cant see how one would always end up with ‘Buddhism’ ~ I didn’t.
    I think I see where you're getting confused here. If I may (and hopefully I may clearly)...

    Buddhism as a school of thought is great. As Denny posted with his quotes, it really encourages and stimulates thought. It is a method of contemplation and learning. Buddhism can be coupled with religions though. Look at Shinto-Buddhism. You have Buddhism guiding thought and conduct in life, and the religious Shinto belief outlining spirits, gods, and afterlife (both aspects could exist independently of each other, but didn't exactly conflict either). In this situation, any thought produced by Buddhism will arrive at a conclusion that falls within the framework of the Shinto belief.

    Buddhism on its own does not suggest there is one universal truth. That there is any conclusion that a person is supposed to come to.
    Quote Originally Posted by Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert View Post
    the Church has only improved mankind in history

    For this there are words, but none that abide by the ToS.

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