I'm spiritual, but not religious...

[spacehamster]

Let it go, man. This troll hasn't worked in years.

[james]

Ross, when you eventually become a monk be sure it's something cool...like a Death Monk. Those other guys are annoying. And don't hang out in airports.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aghori

[Necrometer]

I know this is an extremely complicated question, but my assessment is that our intellect is similar to that of animals with the efficiency cranked up (primarily a quantitative difference), while our emotional behavior is qualitatively () different than that of animals.

I can't really categorize it that way. Two things come to mind:

1) Humans more or less demonstrably (or as demonstrably as possible) have a higher capacity for abstract thought than any other species. Thus our ability for symbolic representation from which the ability to use language derives and our ability to conceive of time, to plan actions, to play through ideas in our head, technology, mathematics, etc. This is the difference that made us capable of civilization, but it's still only a distinction by degrees - other primates are capable of it as well, just at more rudimentary levels, infants only develop it over time, and not every one of us is capable of it to the same extent.

2) One of the few things I ever heard in in a pedagogy lecture that really stuck with me for the rest of my life was "emotion is what happens when the brain interprets chemical changes in the body". I'd agree with you that humans experience emotion differently from other species because we're capable of more complex interpretation.

I really don't like "self-awareness" as a distinguishing trait because I find it damn near impossible to prove that other species aren't capable of it. Plus, to be honest, I'm really not sure what it even means or whether it's important.

This is all great and I think the discussion is going in a direction that’s too deep and tangential. Trying to win some sympathy for the SBNR cause is challenging enough, so I’ll leave the phenomenology of mind battle discussion for now. One thing that’s pertinent is the question of self-awareness; this one ties in well to the questions of the thread. To paraphrase something Riley wrote to me, as you get smarter and smarter you eventually realize that you are an entity with good/bad feelings, and that other similar entities must also have good/bad feelings. The awareness of self permits heightened awareness of (and empathy for) others. This meets spirituality once there are individuals experiencing their own lives as having meaning & worth, and can extend this meaning & worth to the lives of others.

And I don't think anything I've posted suggests that an acknowledgment of spirituality is going to permit/promote a feeling taking precedence over a rational conclusion.

I'm not saying you did, but I think what Matt was getting at is that the notion that emotion is somehow more exalted than thought is often used to justify poorly thought out "spirituality". It's just what I feel, man. As if that somehow means it's really profound. Taking a shit *feels* good too, is all I have to say about that.

Hahaha, your case for the church of fecal-feelings almost makes me want to surrender here. Well played.

I really like that article you spoiler'd, and I think it's a very plausible explanation for our tendency toward animism and anthropomorphism. But what it doesn't explain is our need for meaning, and I think that's a big part of why religion/spirituality is still so prevalent too. It's the area where science can't compete with religion (and I really wish Dawkins and his ilk would try to wrap their brains around this) - when people ask, "Why are we here?", they're not asking for a logical explanation for how we evolved from single cell organisms, they want meaning, and science can't give them that. And I don't have a good explanation for why we are inclined this way, but I do think it stems from some cognitive mechanism that we evolved for some reason. What's left of it now is that we favor stories with clear dramatic curves and endings, logical cause and effect chains and characters with consistent motivations over the way the world really works, and we have a tendency to interpret the world this way (see 99% of news reporting for proof). And that's why we struggle with the idea that life is meaningless and things don't happen for a reason. The notion of gods or a spirit world doesn't even enter into that. We just very badly want our lives to mean something.

I totally agree with you in all of this. I think we differ in our views of the extent to which spirituality is involved in the above phenomena. When you say we badly want our lives to mean something, how would you characterize the origin of that want? I would say it’s a spiritual notion. And, like you said, no gods or spirit-world or supernatural anything has to be involved. I’m simply trying to make a case acknowledging that feeling (and similar other ones) while still being hard/soft atheist or agnostic. And I’d say that it’s healthy and natural to ascribe some importance to such feelings as well. You and Matt seem concerned that holding them in high regard could be detrimental, but I am not thinking of any examples. Aren’t these feelings the driving force behind self-improvement, societal concern, and philosophical inquiry; good things? I’ll continue on this in my next post.

What I meant is that feelings as "jolt of reality" are prepackaged reality-bending experiences. A feeling redefines reality, in that it colors everything around you, and feels like a true thing simply because of its power and mysterious arrival. But they're the greatest lies because they're pure symptomatic subjectivity, yet are so powerful that we take them for unearned truth. We privilege our emotions simply because they're the oily pool our ego floats in and color everything about us. But feelings are just responses, they are symptoms. Sometimes feelings are very apt and healthy. But often they are not. This is why people end up doing horrible shit.

What I'm saying is these special connection feelings you privilege and build a faith around are more likely a reaction or compensation against your death anxiety. There are fewer assumptions for this being true, than for you having tapped into the magic soup that lies behind all existence.

I appreciate the exposition but I don’t feel (!) swayed. Feelings “color everything about us” and they are to be denied? To me the whole “be rational and suppress your emotions” was a tempting outlook for life, but it was ultimately useless for me and I think it caused a lot of personal harm. I don’t know where one is to find drive or direction in life without listening to one’s feelings. Do you really think there are spiritual feelings that drive people to do horrible shit? Maybe that’s doomed by the definition quagmire.

My top two classes of ivory tower smuglings are the religious and the armchair atheist with all their eggs in the science basket. Any snide tooting from the SBNR crowd must be moderate in comparison to that from the other two extremes.

You have a point here—there are lots of asshole religious and atheist people—but I'm more concerned by how you, and others who argue your line, are so offended by religious and atheist arguments that you somehow find it preferable to engage in shoulder shrug abstraction, an indefinable "who knows?" spirituality that's really about feeling smarter than both religious and atheist people. There is nothing wise about moderation when it's fed by self-serving ignorance and wish fulfillment.

Ross, if you need this dogma-that-is-not-dogma, this ambiguous lukewarm faith, then fine. You're only making a religion of deifying your own "feelings" both mundane and unhealthy, but whatever, it's a human sin. You take your emotions for sovereign messengers and it feels good. To be fair with us, you'll have to recognize the fallible nature of emotions and just say, "but I want to believe." And then I'll leave you with that. Faith. You don't have a church that you go to, but you have a church nonetheless.
Also, I didn't create this thread. You put your spiritual shit out there. You're not looking for honest debate because your faith can't be debated. Instead, please feel free to use this thread to post science links and call people armchair this or that and just attack people. Looking good, bro!

I was pretty blind-sided by this part. Did anything I said in here convey faith of any sort on my part? It sounds like this diatribe was directed against one or more non-me SBNR people.

I’m pretty aware of the realities of epistemology, and I don’t have faith in much. The reason I called out the armchair atheist/scientists is that there is an abundance of know-it-alls who claim a moral high-ground based on overinterpretations and misinterpretations of scientific data. I don’t mean to say that these atheists have any reason to believe that there’s any magical stuff going on beyond the laws of physics. It’s more the fallacy of claiming the questions of life’s origin are answered because we have so much evidence for evolution via natural selection. What? I digress. I don’t have faith in anything. I guess a feelings-denier might say I have faith in my feelings. I heed them, but I don’t believe that they convey meaningful truths about the physical reality we share.

And how is a mantra of “who knows?” (a statement of ignorance) going to make anyone appear or feel smarter than anyone else? It’s a realistic and perhaps humbling stance. My best assessment is that the universe is cold and dead and that the biological computers zapping away within our skulls drive us to invent or define a meaning for humans (individuals or as a collective). That’s my SBNR. Is that arrogant?

How could you so enjoy the Tree of Life movie, which is so drenched in and artistically dependent upon secular-spiritual themes?

Because I can enjoy movies that I don't personally believe in or think are true. And for the record I thought the ending of that film nearly ruined the movie. Really embarrassing. But even silly shit, if well presented, can be moving even if I think it's wrong. I love horror movies and don't want kids to die at summer camp in real life. Did I watch Tree of Life and feel a stirring that said, "boy wouldn't that be great," well, a little. I'd also like a million dollars.

It’s funny that you and I had inverted reactions to that movie’s spiritual elements considering our inverted stances on spirituality in our own lives. I thought that movie was extremely preachy in its SBNR philosophy, and wrote this huge response to RBB’s Luke after seeing it:

SPOILERSPOILER_SHOW

Just to frame my response, I’m very much entering argumentation mode. Your initial thoughts cover a lot of things the movie is, but I’ll explain why being these things doesn’t make it a broadly resonant movie. I won’t deny that it is most of the things you claim, but I don’t feel that it effectively employed these massive-in-scope and varied themes in communicating with viewers who lack a particular loose-Christian outlook. I was going to employ the term “post-Christian” but this term is already used to describe societies (typically European) where Christianity’s impact is felt most strongly by way of cultural runoff as opposed to ongoing practice. With “loose-Christian” I refer to either the people or beliefs of a well-populated though necessarily non-organized demographic in (at least) the USA consisting most stereotypically of a modern spiritual person who subscribes to many of the take-home messages of Christianity while rejecting the dogmatism of organized religion. A loose-Christian will tend to emphasize the “universal truths” held in the Bible while taking a relaxed view regarding the specific details therein; this grants them all the security, comfort, and spiritual grounding of the ideologies held within while freeing them from the concern over the inconsistencies that arise in light of modern observations about the state of the universe. The most typical loose-Christian was introduced to a rigorous form of Christianity as a child and proceeded to move to a more open spiritual outlook; hence many of these people report that The Tree of Life as “not Christian” since it represents the place they moved towards while simultaneously moving away from Christianity. From this experiential perspective, the stance seems to make sense. However, The Tree of Life’s central theme – nature vs. grace – seems to me (an atheist) a mere reframing of typical Christian good/evil morality, while it’s a vast distance from the chaotically amoral nature of the universe as viewed by a nihilist/existentialist. From this perspective I see the film as Christian (among other things).

I guess all that “loose-Christian” shit could apply to a SBNR type as well. I guess I was revolted by that movie’s painting of the whole universe in moralistic terms – pretty clearly showing morality in effect before humans existed. I don’t believe that and I think it’s harmful for people to think about morality as a universal thing that extends beyond humanity. Does this win me any atheism points? I am glad you enjoyed the movie. I guess the similar out-there touchy-feely movie I love is The Fountain, but I can get on board with that because all the spiritual elements can be interpreted as “in human” instead of these universal things. For me, I think spirituality being universal cheapens it.

SPOILERSPOILER_SHOW

For clarity, I guess we could use the Wikipedia description/definition for spirituality (which seems to be written by SBNR people )

Spirituality is the concept of an ultimate or an alleged immaterial reality; an inner path enabling a person to discover the essence of his/her being; or the "deepest values and meanings by which people live." Spiritual practices, including meditation, prayer and contemplation, are intended to develop an individual's inner life. Spiritual experiences can include being connected to a larger reality, yielding a more comprehensive self; joining with other individuals or the human community; with nature or the cosmos; or with the divine realm. Spirituality is often experienced as a source of inspiration or orientation in life. It can encompass belief in immaterial realities or experiences of the immanent or transcendent nature of the world.
...
Secular spirituality emphasizes humanistic ideas on moral character (qualities such as love, compassion, patience, tolerance, forgiveness, contentment, responsibility, harmony, and a concern for others) - aspects of life and human experience which go beyond a purely materialist view of the world without necessarily accepting belief in a supernatural reality or divine being. Spiritual practices such as mindfulness and meditation can be experienced as beneficial or even necessary for human fulfillment without any supernatural interpretation or explanation. Spirituality in this context may be a matter of nurturing thoughts, emotions, words and actions that are in harmony with a belief that everything in the universe is mutually dependent; this stance has much in common with some versions of Buddhist spirituality.

This is the nub of the problem for me. This excerpt (which admittedly probably shouldn't be taken as a perfect representation of the SBNR crowd as a monolithic block) just reads like a fuzzy, vague way of saying "be a good person, be mindful of yourself and others, appreciate the beauty of existence, etc." All of which is fine, except there seems to be this underlying need to inject everything with a heavily diluted sense of the religiosity. For me, it's enough to appreciate beauty, nature, the human condition, etc. as they are, rather than as signposts on a road pointing to some Ineffable Spiritual Reality that less sophisticated people call God. (That last bit came out a little snarkier than I intended.)

Regarding the “monolithic block”, a big part of my argument is that the SBNR crowd will never be unified into a monolithic anything since it’s inherently disordered; therefore the group is subject to endless ridicule due to their collective lack of organization which is, ironically, sort of a defining characteristic of a group defined primarily by exclusion from organizations. I think you’re putting the cart before the horse with your perception that a SBNR outlook contains a “heavily diluted sense of the religiosity”. I’m arguing that we have inherent spirituality and that religions are a societal result of that inborn nature. So complaining that the characteristic responsible for the spawning of religion is a “diluted” form of religion feels completely backwards to me. Maybe a reasonable parallel would be found with the tradition of marriage; I see it as a societal construct arising from our inherent desires for love, companionship, and familial stability. Would you ever critically assess that two people heading up a family yet deliberately choosing to remain unwed are practicing a heavily diluted form of marriage?

One of the reasons I don't post as much anymore is that I hate superthreads and dearly miss the days of endlessly rehashing the same debates in countless different threads: whether triggers are false, who or what equals Manowar, Corrupted recommendations, etc.

The big question of Manowar is one that shall surely outlive us all…

[Necrometer]

And in case that's TLDR on SBNR, here's a dense, hopefully-focused idea-burst:

So none of you guys really deny that these feelings are felt; perhaps it’s telling that we’ve seen repeated usage of quotation marks around “feel” or “feelings”? Are you guys trying to inject doubt that feelings are actually experienced? Ultimately it seems to be a question of what we do with these feelings. Do we heed them? Do we suppress them? I think the answer is different for everyone, and I think that’s OK. But it’s not going to lead to any cohesion across the board in the absence of a unifying organization (i.e. religion), so the SBNR people are going to be dismissed by critics such as my true enemy, the CNN blog guy from my initial post.

People seem to push for either hard atheism or religion, while mocking the SBNR un-stance. I think this is really odd because I feel that religion and hard atheism can be detrimental. Both of these tend to deter philosophical investigation; once answers are provided, one tends to leave their big questions behind. To me, saying that you’re spiritual but not religious is an acknowledgement of a path without answers. I think this can be great for human development and I don’t see any big detriment. Again, the question looms: which things do we need to state about ourselves using a label? Would “philosophical but not religious” be less worthy of ridicule?

In thinking about stuff in this thread, I have wondered more and more about the link between spirituality and empathy and other things generally considered beneficial for our well-being. I really believe that hard atheism (as an anti-spiritual stance) can suppress empathy and give rise to a cut-throat, hyper-selfish way of thinking that’s justified by the hard atheism and accompanying philosophical materialism. This shit isn’t an enlightened path; it’s the way everything works in a world without humans. From microbes to the classic food chain, heartless survival of the fittest is the default mode of operations. A lot of people (including many atheists, of course) know this is not “good” – but how do they know this? What is the origin of morality? The catch-all definition for secular spirituality above covers it. Why not acknowledge that you feel the metaphysical origin of morality? Like I said before (I think?) this is exactly why the hard atheists are fucking crushed in those debates about morality in a godless universe. You have to invoke something beyond physics to explain morality.

[fallbacktostone]

because in a world without god, nothing is permitted

[featherboa]

I'm leaving for Zion and the grande canyon and related in the morning. I'll let you all know anything happens there.

[doubleblumpkin]

I'm leaving for Zion and the grande canyon and related in the morning. I'll let you all know anything happens there.

[featherboa]

Let me know if you think there's something I should stop by between Zion and Kingman Arizona

[spacehamster]

One thing that’s pertinent is the question of self-awareness; this one ties in well to the questions of the thread. To paraphrase something Riley wrote to me, as you get smarter and smarter you eventually realize that you are an entity with good/bad feelings, and that other similar entities must also have good/bad feelings.

I'm not sure I entirely buy this. Maybe that's part of the reason why we feel empathy, but I think a lot of it probably also has to do with the fact that homo sapiens sapiens is a social animal that lives in packs, and much like other species, we've evolved a desire to defend/help one another because what's good for the pack is ultimately good for the individual. And this is exactly why you won't see me dismissing emotion entirely. Helping each other makes us happy, and that's a good thing.


The awareness of self permits heightened awareness of (and empathy for) others. This meets spirituality once there are individuals experiencing their own lives as having meaning & worth, and can extend this meaning & worth to the lives of others.

I think we differ in our views of the extent to which spirituality is involved in the above phenomena. When you say we badly want our lives to mean something, how would you characterize the origin of that want? I would say it’s a spiritual notion.

This is really just semantics. What you call "a spiritual notion", I called an extension of a cognitive mechanism. I always liked the term parapsychology because I think that's really what all forms of spirituality/occultism/whatever you want to call it are - a set of metaphors to explain how the mind works and as such really no different from psychology. I also don't really lean one way or the other here - the evolutionary explanation that it's a cognitive mechanism makes a lot of sense, but the spiritual explanation can really be related back to "cogito ergo sum", and I'll never really get past the fact that any biological/evolutionary theory of the human mind ultimately tells me that my brain is tricking itself into believing it has thoughts, and I find that to be counterintuitive and unconvincing. Both explanations hold water to an extent and work if they're applied in the right places, but as an agnostic, I really think that only proves they're probably both wrong.

You and Matt seem concerned that holding them in high regard could be detrimental, but I am not thinking of any examples.

Plenty of harmful ideologies can be traced back to unreflected emotion. Racism is the most obvious example, but a mechanism that I find I see more and more in political debate (not just about racism/immigration, but very often in that context) is basically:

A: The average person on the street feels that X is a pressing issue.
B: I have five studies here that prove X is actually not a very pressing issue, problem Y is not in fact a result of X, the extent of X is being blown out of proportion by the media and the real reasons for Y are not understood because they are more complex.
A: You're arrogant and elitist, and you don't take the feelings of your voters seriously.
B: *gets voted out of office and replaced by some populist mongoloid who "takes the feelings of his voters seriously" and makes everything worse*

Like I've said before, I don't advocate suppressing emotion entirely, and I don't think rationality is inherently a superior motivation to emotion, and I actually believe true wisdom is finding a balance between the two. And I'm also really not interested in any kind of "my world view can beat up your world view" pissing contest. People have to believe what they have to believe to stay sane.

[badgevvrecker]

I'm not sure I entirely buy this. Maybe that's part of the reason why we feel empathy, but I think a lot of it probably also has to do with the fact that homo sapiens sapiens is a social animal that lives in packs, and much like other species, we've evolved a desire to defend/help one another because what's good for the pack is ultimately good for the individual. And this is exactly why you won't see me dismissing emotion entirely. Helping each other makes us happy, and that's a good thing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_R._Price

this man said it far more eloquently and formally when he discovered that empathy and emotion function as survival strategies for genes.

[Whee of the Dead]

This shit isn’t an enlightened path; it’s the way everything works in a world without humans. From microbes to the classic food chain, heartless survival of the fittest is the default mode of operations. A lot of people (including many atheists, of course) know this is not “good” – but how do they know this? What is the origin of morality? The catch-all definition for secular spirituality above covers it. Why not acknowledge that you feel the metaphysical origin of morality? Like I said before (I think?) this is exactly why the hard atheists are fucking crushed in those debates about morality in a godless universe. You have to invoke something beyond physics to explain morality.

I know I'm totally out of my league here and whatever opinions I may have will most likely be crushed by the much brighter posters in this thread. P.S. I just kind of skimmed over much of this thread but reached this point and decided to weigh in:

I sometimes wonder if morality was the evolutionary outcome of our desire to have our species thrive. I'm sure neanderthals were all murder-y and rape-y but still had maternal/paternal instincts. But as we moved on to caves and bonfires to houses and cars etc. our personal urge for survival crossed over to a societal urge for survival?

Like I said, I'm no expert at anything and that was just a shot in the dark.

[Necrometer]

Oh yeah, that's classic stuff - there's plenty of evidence out there for what you're describing. I'm not trying to refute any of it. I guess the sort of "morality" I'm talking about (and the stuff I'm referencing in those debates) is an ideal that goes far beyond practical things that actually help us. We have right/wrong ideals that are so strong that people will die for them.

I think you also might be inverting cause/effect with the rise of society vs. the evolution of empathy-instincts; I think it's more likely that following those instincts allowed us to cooperate consistently and successfully enough to create structured, dense living situations. Or both developed in concert.

Mike - more good stuff, will weigh in soon.

[God]

Necrometer =

[Necrometer]

Thanks, god.

I heard an interesting framework on the radio just now. Instead of wondering why humans are the only ones who did experience this leap in mental capability, these guys wondered what kept other animals back. The chasm seems to be between simple self-awareness (we have this and some animals do) and awareness of the self of others (only we have this). They put forth that any animals to develop this other-awareness would be psychologically devastated and thus at an evolutionary disadvantage because it comes with the knowledge that the animal itself will die. Humans seem to have gotten around this pitfall by (simultaneously?) developing the power of denial. Although I didn't hear the guy connect the dots, a complex result of mortality denial could be the belief in the afterlife and imagining up of god and universal meaning.

Guy might be full of shit (it seems his book is pretty fluffy) but the premise seems reasonable. Interview is in the Aug 13 episode and starts at 6:30 - http://www.technation.com/

Totally owe Mike a response in this thread

[EEEOOOEEEOOOEEEOOO]

Sorry to be all Johnny come lately to this thread. My atheism is of the simple, uncritical type and I have little to contribute to the conversation, but...

Thanks, god.

I heard an interesting framework on the radio just now. Instead of wondering why humans are the only ones who did experience this leap in mental capability, these guys wondered what kept other animals back. The chasm seems to be between simple self-awareness (we have this and some animals do) and awareness of the self of others (only we have this). They put forth that any animals to develop this other-awareness would be psychologically devastated and thus at an evolutionary disadvantage because it comes with the knowledge that the animal itself will die. Humans seem to have gotten around this pitfall by (simultaneously?) developing the power of denial. Although I didn't hear the guy connect the dots, a complex result of mortality denial could be the belief in the afterlife and imagining up of god and universal meaning.

Guy might be full of shit (it seems his book is pretty fluffy) but the premise seems reasonable. Interview is in the Aug 13 episode and starts at 6:30 - http://www.technation.com/

Totally owe Mike a response in this thread

I can't listen to this because of Africa reasons, but that sounds really interesting. I used to be really invested in the quantitative-not-qualitative-difference side on human/non-human-animal distinctions, but I've been swayed by getting over my knee-jerk opposition to cognitive psychology. Cognitive psychology has taught us that one of the most clear distinctions that can be made between humans and other animals is that we have a sharper theory of mind. We have a greater awareness that other beings think, feel, and have intentions just as we do. Remarkably, young children lack this expanded perspective. I think it's another piece of the puzzle (in addition to obvious things like language, highly elaborated and varying social institutions, etc.) that mark us as cultural animals. So part of what makes us human is that, in addition to being shaped by our social and cultural contexts, we pay attention and care about what other people know, think, and feel.

[Necrometer]

Yes - the guy's primary framework is that of theory of mind. A lot of critical comments say that he focuses on ToM too much and ignores a lot of the cultural aspects of what makes us human. But I think his interest lies at that first divergence, and my impression is that we had some mental boost that let the cultural stuff develop like mad.

Good observation re: children & ToM. They are such little beasts, sometimes literally.

[Zerohero]

Got a bit of leftover vietnam food in ye olde fridge for lunch time, though it will have to duke it out with a hot italian sausage I'm leaning towards cooking instead. Give me convenience or perhaps sausage. To be determined...

SPOILERSPOILER_SHOW

by the hand of God