Well then, you and I have different definitions of materialism. By my definition you are not a materialist; by your definition I am.
In my experience a materialist would not believe in these things; he would explain them strictly in terms of physical processes that occur in the brain. To a materialist, “love is a chemical reaction.”
I also think it’s materialistic to believe that the purpose of our lives is to reproduce and perpetuate the species. That doesn’t account for all the bazillion things we do that have nothing to do with reproduction.
Now I’m really confused. I definitely believe in those things (love, reason, etc.), and I would explain them strictly in terms of physical processes that occur in the brain.
It seems like you’re saying that if I think love is a product of material, electrochemical processes in the brain, then I don’t “believe in it.” Although I can’t see how you get from here to there.
Ok, but none of these things come close to describing spirituality. I am not moved by things, nor is there anything supernatural, nor do spiritual people have superpowers.
A question was asked by the OP, being spiritual I tried to answer it from a spiritual perspective.
The other answers came from non-spiritual posters with the possible exception of one or two.
How can I take those non-spiritual posters serious, when they just make fun most of the time. When someone wants to learn about a subject he doesn’t claim to know the subject.
Recognizing the fact that love is a chemical reaction, doesn’t equal not believing in it.
That would be one materialistic perspective… but a narrow minded one. There is no reason other materialists cannot see things differently, as long as they don’t resort to nonexistent entities to find meaning in their lives.
I’ve noticed recently that you have a problem with definitions. Specifically, you reject the notion that words can have multiple meanings - and then you take words and redefine them so that nearly everyone will disagree with your definitions. (By pretty much everyone’s definition, you believe in the supernatural.) This former results in you insisting that reasonable statements are nonsense, and the latter results in you saying things that are nonsense to everyone else.
(And you do think that spiritual people have superpowers - psychic powers are superpowers. Though if you like I am willing to concede that you might be cold and emotionless, unmoved by anything.)
Nothing is supernatural, all things follow certain laws of the universe including spirituality. People who are not spiritual or don’t believe in spirituality naturally don’t know and understand the laws of spirituality. The same for superpower. It is a natural occurance of becoming spiritual to be able to feel and see things non-spiritual people can not.
What’s your point? That you’re the Word King? That you literally do not comprehend that 99.9% of the english-speaking population considers the word “supernatural” to explicitly refer to all ghosts and spirits? That you think that by making blatantly abnormal use of words you you make your beliefs sound somehow less abnormal?
You may not choose to use the word ‘supernatural’ to refer to the things you believe in, but that doesn’t change the fact that the word, as it was used by begbert2 in that list, refers to the things you spoke of. Bicker over terminology all you want, but you will never succeed in changing the meaning of other people’s words, and will never convince anyone by trying. Even if your own personal definition of supernatural made any sense* we all know what was meant by the word when it was used. It’s obvious you know as well. Arguing the point will get you nowhere.
In your attempts to squirm out of having the word apply to the beliefs you’ve spoken of here, you’ve narrowed the definition so far that it no longer applies to anything at all. “nothing is supernatural”. This, unfortunately, robs the word of any meaning whatsoever. Words have meaning. This alone is enough to declare your definition as incorrect.
Actually the question was more what people mean when they verbally self-categorize as nonreligious-yet-spiritual. This question can be answered relatively simply without redefining terms left and right, even for your notion of spirituality, as noted by the fact that you did so yourself in your first post in this thread.
Then, after you disparaged the integrity of all the answers that didn’t agree with yours, you got bothered that in my response to that I categorized your definition of “spirituality” (along with kanicbird’s) as “having superpowers”, and as a result apparently felt compelled to disagree with every single thing I said. And so here we are.
To me it means attuned to subtle aspects of life that cannot be fully described in material terms. Ideas like love for instance. People like to say that love is just an emotion, but it encompasses more than just the emotion.
If somebody started a separate GD thread on what love is, if not an emotion, then I’d certainly take an interest in it. (I won’t start such a thread though, because it’s not my thesis. And because I’m shy.)
The truth is that Protestant zealots were an important part of the revolutionary coalition, but not predominant. Here’s an excellent review/deconstruction (by conservative Catholic intellectual John J. Reilly) of Marvin Olasky’sFighting for Liberty and Virtue. As against Olasky’s thesis, Reilly states:
