this was made a few days ago when i was off but nobody announced it, so i guess i’m doing that now. the sidebar describes its purpose as follows:
Spirituality is a broad concept with room for many perspectives. In general, it includes a sense of connection to something bigger than ourselves, and it typically involves a search for meaning in life. As such, it is a universal human experience—something that touches us all. People may describe a spiritual experience as sacred or transcendent or simply a deep sense of aliveness and interconnectedness.
Some may find that their spiritual life is intricately linked to their association with a church, temple, mosque, or synagogue. Others may pray or find comfort in a personal relationship with God or a higher power. Still others seek meaning through their connections to nature or art. Like your sense of purpose, your personal definition of spirituality may change throughout your life, adapting to your own experiences and relationships
Not sure if I’m overcompensating as well, but religion and spirituality feel very anti-knowledge to me. That is, in my view they try to fill the gap of what we don’t know (and may never know) with their own projections (although science isn’t free from doing exactly that either). Like, I know that we will never be able to understand the whole world etc, but spirituality just feels like giving up on trying to explain the world based on knowledge. I theoretically understand that other people need to fill this gap with something because they would otherwise face existential crisis or whatever. But I don’t have these feelings so it seems pretty alienating to me. Well, the same goes for many things ‘normal’ people feel, like heteronormativity, which I don’t get either.
Anyways, it always feels very weird to me when people talk about spiritual or religious ideas. In my view spirituality is problematic because I consider it to be anti-knowledge, but I don’t have a better alternative either.
I just want to make a counterpoint here. I actually don’t think most spiritually inclined people have a need to fill an emotional hole, for many it can be more of a celebration of the big questions which are still unanswered and all the things that swirl around those questions. It’s not a gap in objective knowledge, or a desire to placate uncertainty, but more of a “hey….i wonder what THAT is, well…even if i never know for sure what it is I still find it cool/interesting/helpful!”. It’s a human experience a lot of people have, to feel moved by or affected by things, and it’s also a normal human thing to want nothing to do with any of it. Both are fine. Spirituality is not a threat to objectivity or science or knowledge except when people are using it in unhealthy social and interpersonal ways - which is a serious concern with a lot to talk about there - but it’s not that spirituality or belief itself that is the problem, it’s the social dynamics around it. Atheism and science and politics can be misused just as harmfully (though I recognize that christianity specifically has a wild amount of clout in some countries that keeps the social impact of that misuse from ever being balanced.)
Oh, interesting point! I’m actually on board with celebrating uncertainty and accepting that we will never know certain things. Not sure why this needs to be labeled as spirituality though?
On the other hand, have a look at the spirituality community on Beehaw that actually seems to already be a theat to objectivity/science. I agree that spirituality isn’t necessarily producing this but I still cannot see how it would be beneficial? But this could just be my autistic mind trying to unnecessarily rationalize everything ;)
I don’t know, I disagree with the idea that science and objectivity and spirituality/religion always are necessarily in conflict. To me, they just cover different areas of a person’s life, they’re different thought processes. If it’s not beneficial to you, it doesn’t have to be something that you engage with or ever think about for yourself, but other people will and do because humans are all different. I think it’s fine to not understand it, or to privately find it a little annoying, and it’s definitely fine to want to avoid it and stay away from it if it makes you uncomfortable, but it sort of comes across like a dig at other people’s internal subjective experiences when you say that all spirituality is bad or anti-science or problematic. I think that’s a misunderstanding. The things that exist outside of measurable facts (and often alongside them, not against them) can still have value, even if you personally do not feel inspired by them.
That’s all very well spoken. Science (the ‘hard sciences’) do not have the answers to everything. The scientific method is a tool (like a shovel or pick axe) that we use to investigate our surroundings. There are massive mysteries that exist inside this reality. Science, religion, philosophy only scratch the surface of this grand mystery that we all experience.
Sure, science cannot and will never give answers to everything and that’s fine. We will never know all there is to know. But I would strongly disagree that religion offers any answers to the ‘grand mystery’ at all. Because religion is not about looking at the world and trying to figure anything out. Religion is using the unknown to project own beliefs onto it. At best, religion that tries to actually figure things out is really philosophy. Religion itself is not a tool at all to figure anything out about the outside world.
I fail to see how objectivity and religion/spirituality are not in conflict when the latter are based on one’s own projections onto the unknown? Sure, this isn’t directly affecting me, but the moment religious or spiritual people take decisions or actions that affect other people, this can involve me. Think of abortion or other ethical debates. Or even morality, which is a huge pile of shit all thought up by religious people from their own projections. This is affecting me in my daily life, because I get confronted by a sexist, transphobic, homophobic worldview all stemming in huge parts from religious teachings. Even if the people marginalizing me aren’t religious, they still got their morals from our religion-indoctrinated society. This has been a huge and often deadly undertaking of so many people to get rid of these morals and to don’t judge others.
We all project stuff onto others or onto the unknown. I just want us to be honest about it and that we try to be transparent about it. I’m totally fine if a person says that they believe in something superstitious, god, etc as long as they are aware that this is a product of their own mind and that they don’t value others differently because of it. I think in the end it boils down to values (which is the basis of morals I guess). If your values are informed by your own religious/spiritual belief, then this seems problematic to me because it will affect people negatively. But as long as a person can separate their own belief from their values, I’m fine with this.
For me as an non-sectarian, the good parts from organized religion are advice and lessons about living life, which science doesn’t particularly address.
I recently read an elder theologist reflecting on the stages of enlightenment and I realized that I agreed entirely with them. The difference was our journeys for how we arrived at these same conclusions. They spent their entire life figuring that out. And I had figured it out probably by the end high school. I am not saying I am smart or flawless, because the other person has a lifetime of experience that I don’t have culminating in their wisdom. But they chose to spend their time on such matters, and I chose to spend my time differently.
Hm yes, I’ve heard this argument before and this I agree that people can benefit from the community aspect of religion and the wisdom of religious/spiritual scholars. But I don’t see how this is necessarily connected to religion/spirituality itself? Why not have these outside of religion? How is it necessary to be religious or spiritual to form a community?
I have the feeling that it is indeed harder for people to form communities without religion or some sort of spiritual believe. Like, back in time people were much more connected via these institutions, while today people are much more individualistic (at least in western societies). But I think the underlying problem here isn’t the missing religious community but rather capitalism. As an anarchist I imagine a world in where people are connected in a community by the motivation of a communal project (which is the community itself) and how to have a good life for everyone.
We can certainly learn from religious/spiritual teachings, but the problem is when you project stuff into the unknown you easily end up with a belief that mirrors your worldview. And this has caused tremendous harm. As a gay, neurodivergent trans woman, I would have been excluded and discriminated against a lot in religious/spiritual communities. And the same scholars from which we could learn something would often see women or POCs as sub-human. The same goes with most philosophers btw. We can try to nitpick what knowledge can benefit us, but we have to be careful what teaching only makes sense in their limited, discriminatory and hegemonic worldview.
All in all, I don’t see how communities can actually benefit from religion or spirituality. I can see that accumulated knowledge by religious scholars can offer us something, but I cannot see how this is tied to being religious? When they tell you to perform rhythmic prayers five times a day, great, but why not just have a communal gymnastics class or something? And when they teach you how focus on the things that are important or to look inside than this isn’t connected to religion/spirituality either.
A bit offtopic: Now I’m imagining an alternative community approach where the connecting factor is an anarchist, anti-capitalistic idea and where we could have accumulated knowledge of how to live life better together in a community. But even this would create a very fragile balance because scholars could then powertrip etc… An endless topic to explore! I really enjoyed Ursula le Guin’s book The Dispossessed (fiction) and cannot recommend it enough ;)
Thanks for the book recommendation! Yeah, discrimination can happen with or without religion. It seems to me that any human system is capable of being exploited or corrupted.
I look at religion from the perspective of “what purpose does the manufacturing of religion serve?” assuming there’s good intention. I am with you that what organized religion typically offers is not exclusive to religion.
What is “community”? Is it surrounding myself with people who are exactly like me?
Personally, I find it helpful to have a “safe space” to talk to other people who are going through a similar experience that I am. Although I am not great at it I also think it’s healthy to interact with the outside world from time to time. At best we learn something from one another, at worst (I hope) we tolerate one another.