Maybe he’s making the broader point that all Episcopalians are simply cafeteria Catholics ;). They are jokingly referred to as EpiscoPOPEian for a reason ;).
Is that even possible? 
Another joke (applied to many, many different faiths over the years), put two Episcopalians in a room and get three different theologies.
Not I, as I am one of those atheistic converts to Christianity ;).
Umm, of course it doesn’t. How can just enjoying the view and being relaxed be spiritual? It requires some effort of thought at least. I’m a live and let live atheist too but come on. That’s just lazy.
Well, then, what does the word mean?
(I also often wonder what “prayer” means. How do you “pray?” Just think real hard? What does the word mean?)
How do you ask a favor of someone, or thank them for something?
God is personal (well, a community of three Persons), so prayer is something like conversing with a person.
Of course, prayer would include the idea that the “person” you are conversing with is a fundamentally better person than anyone you’ve ever met or could hope to meet.
When I said spirituality requires some effort of thought, I meant just that. Just relaxing and enjoying the awesomeness is a half step. Why is it awesome? What is my place in the awesomeness? If you don’t contemplate anything like that, you’re just some animal looking at the sky.
What, you want an objective, accurate, definitive, um, definition of spirituality, that every Doper will agree with? No problemo. After I give you that, I’ll explain once and for all about planes taking off from treadmills, and declawing cats…
My SWAG is that spirituality is a concept that arises from our brains’ inherent pattern-recognition and story-telling modules. Add in our social need to live in communities, and you get religion (The word probably derives from Latin words for tying, binding, and obligation, and is related to words like ligature and rely. But note the “probably”.) The anthropologist Donald Brown looked at human cultures across the world, and made a list of concepts and behaviors that are universal to all known societies. Among these are myths and beliefs, narratives, and poetry. So clearly the impulse to create gods, or perhaps the stories of gods, is an emergent property of our amazing brains.
Again, though, IANA cognitive neuroscientist; this is just my guess at the origins of religion.
Beauty is beauty and needs no explanation. I still find elements of the Jesus story incredibly moving and beautiful, and Jesus Christ Superstar still brings me to tears. The fact that I think that it’s just a story makes it no less powerful.
Well, not entirely. There are some religious ideas that I think are sneer-worthy, like the idea that Rapture will cause a lot of car wrecks, from all the suddenly unoccupied cars zipping around on the highway, or that an angel and a magic horse carried Muhammad from Mecca to Jerusalem in a single night. Significantly, though, all these beliefs come from treating a story as though it is objectively and proveably true, which I argue is a sign of an immature faith.
And of course some beliefs are hateful - like the ones that killed 12 artists in Paris yesterday. Again, though, the real villain is not religion per se, but the all-to-often concomitant belief that the believer has the unadorned, unarguable truth, and cannot possibly be wrong. It’s not dogma that kills innocents - it’s dogmatism.
I don’t see how this is even a news article. I have a thousand friends* 1/3 of whom had been devout, and then changed, and vice versa.
Quite a yawner. Sort of like “Pastor Quits Job (The noun, not the person)! Not Happy or Fulfilled!”
*Actually, acquaintances. But, you get the idea. And, it’s not really a thousand. Little hyperbole, IYKWIM.
I don’t see why. One could pray to Zeus, all while knowing that Zeus is a really nasty piece of work, a rapist, a boor, a bully, and a terrorist. Still, if he spares me from his wrath, the prayer would seem to be a good idea.
Well, I’m a bit more introspective than most other animals. Geese don’t look at the sky and say, “Wow, that cloud looks like a '56 Chevy.”
More seriously, I see partaking of nature as a kind of “oneness” experience, where one expands one’s personal sense of horizons. It is an attempt to find connectedness to the whole world, and to find inspiration from natural beauty.
(“Inspiration” is another word derived from “spirit” and also is currently undefined.)
Anyway, I need more from you. “Effort of thought.” How? What kind of effort, and what kind of thought? I just don’t see what you mean.
Also, Free Will, 0.999…, and whether it’s still “you” when you’ve been through a Star Trek transporter!
I largely agree. I think a “spiritual” experience is a specific kind of brain experience, having to do with a sense of a greater existence than one’s own. But, again, that’s what I get from breasting a ridgeline in the deep woods and seeing vast vistas beyond.
So if being spiritual is merely brain chemistry that happens when you get a certain view, can people choose to become more spiritual?
You know, I didn’t quite say that, and I’m not happy with this oversimplification. I’m speaking of the sense of awe that some people get in a vast cathedral, listening to organ music. Others might get it at a pre-dawn baptism ceremony. Others might get it while observing a childbirth. Some might even get it while reading Emily Dickinson’s poetry. If you’re just going to be snarky, please leave me out of it.
And…I have no idea if the sense of “inspiration” can be voluntary.
I’m not intending to be snarky. My understanding of your definition is that spirituality is basically passive. Something that happens to you. Is that totally off base?
Or maybe you are saying it’s some ability to spot the spirituality?
It goes back to the question I’m asking in the first place: what is “spirituality?”
I’ve heard some people compare it to the sense of peace, one-ness, openness, and universal harmony that they find in the depths of the woods. I mentioned that, and you rejected it…but I’m not clear why.
And, yes, all of the examples I’ve given – which I don’t even know are correct! – are relatively passive.
Can you give an example of “active” spirituality? How would you cause such a feeling? What is the feeling. Is “a feeling” even correct?
I’m not at all prepared to say it has anything to do with “spotting the spirituality,” because I still don’t know what “spirituality” means.
Rational people can become irrational for thousands of reasons, many of which can make them predisposed to adopt religious beliefs: imminent death, loss of a loved one, dementia, insanity, a perceived miracle (and not enough knowledge to explain it rationally), peer pressure…
I became an atheist at 15, and fell for a new-age sect at 18. I returned to atheism a year later, but the blunder has taught me not to take rational thought for granted.
The examples you gave could in my mind be called spiritual moments. But if someone describes themselves as Spiritual I would expect them to apply thought and effort to the thoughts and feeling they have in such moments and also when they are away from those moments. Recall that sense of wonder and unity when you are in line at the grocery store. Making those feelings have some effect on the way you choose to live your life. In essence making it a part of your day to day life, not just when you happen upon a gorgeous vista. I suppose you could learn to summon up those feelings on your own through prayer or meditation.
I guess that’s all I got. I don’t really fancy myself some great philosopher or spiritual guide.
Hmm. I am not sure whether to bump with this addition so if you see t you’ll know my decision.
I felt like mentioning that spiritual moments don’t necessarily have to be seeing unity from a beautiful universe. It can be seen in a horrible loss or incredible gain. It can come from simple pains and pleasures. When it comes from these less obvious things I think it shows a person more able at that moment to “spot the spiritual”.
Ok. One more.
Spirituality is looking directly at joy and sorrow. The awesome and the pitiful. Is one bad and one good? Does it matter one way or the other? I guess I think spirituality is contemplating stuff like that.
Well, a superficial reading of the Taoist practice of Wu Wei might make you think it is a passive exercise-it is not, in the end.
I slightly disagree, and would say that an experience could be spiritual, even if the person immediately disregards it and never applies any analytical thought to it again.
At least, I see that as a possibility, and so I wouldn’t put the application of thought into the definition of the word.
And…I’m not a philosopher either, I just like to yak on BBS discussions!
I hadn’t thought of this… Immanence in, say, torture? I don’t know… I would think, instead, that the “spiritual” aspect of such an event would be a sudden flash of recognition of the humanity of the torturer, a moment of “oneness” even with him.
“Father, forgive them…” That’s spiritual, but it isn’t exactly from the torture. It’s from some transcendent perception of the universal.
(I don’t know what “transcendent” means, either…)
I have a connotation (but not a definition!) of “spirituality” as bypassing reason and rational thought, and being a direct perception of some deeper, underlying quality of the world.
There is a charming old Vaughn Bode cartoon where a workman sasses off, “Ah, you had one, you had 'em all.” Then he is suddenly overcome with the vast insight, a revelation, a moment of pure Satori: “It is all one!” Afterward, he mutters, “I think my brain just threw up.”
You know, I can talk easy about most things but talking about spirituality with someone who is doing it in the most disinterested way - kinda sucks for me.