Spiritual Reform

[Andrew]

Spiritual Reform

I felt that if we are not discussing Aletheia anymore than we should move towards the topic of "Spiritual Reform" (aka Religious Reform).

Organized religions have had a huge hold on spirituality for a fair amount of human history. Most religions and the people who control these religions have taken control of spirituality for to many of the indoctrinated and/or programmed masses. This religious control in many ways has had a negative effect upon our growth as a rational, logical and empathetic civilization. In these religious indoctrinations many children never have the chance to openly explore their spirituality. They are bombarded by authoritarian figures' programming, propaganda and brainwashing on how to be spiritual, which leads into how they should live. This programming/brainwashing is cyclical from one generation to the next. Christians then Muslims (in this order) have had the most control over spirituality for over a thousand years using this cyclical programming from authoritarian adult (parents, priest, teacher, king, etc.) to a receptive, naive, impressionable and unsuspecting youth. For the most part, it is part of nature to trust your parents and other authoritarian adult figures as a child.

So here are a few questions to try and figure how and why we should have "Spiritual Reform".

1.) What does it actually mean to be spiritual, especially without the definitions and/or confines of organized religions?
2.) Should spirituality be shared with others or is it just an individual's pursuit?
3.) Is morality and values part of spirituality?
4.) Can spirituality still be a logical, rational, empathetic and/or scientific pursuit?
5.) How do we change the tides of spiritual control? Here is a link to see how many are "under the influence" of religious control
http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html  As I said before, it is not religion itself that is the problem, it is what people are doing with religion and religious beliefs that has caused problems in human society. It is this cyclical event that we need to be aware of and should learn how to correct.

I will be offering my answers to these questions as we move forward.

I think that question #2, "Should spirituality be shared with others or is it just an individual's pursuit?", is quite important to understand and to figure out if we are to move forward into the discussion of "Proligion" or other public spiritual fellowships.

From this topic my hope is to discuss a change in religion and religious views to a less authoritarian approach of spirituality.

Thanks,
Andrew   

[RareBear]

"Reform" may not be the right word for this. What is needeed is more of a rennaisance than a reform IMO. Someone or something has to start really getting spirituality right and making people seriously re-examine themselves to consider if they've actually been getting it wrong for a long time. Just as i think wil be the case with education reform, it can not and should be left to the establishment toget it together and change themselves. At most all one can expect from that are a few incremental token accomodations and no where near the exponential changes that are truly needed. You can't blame them, they've spent their lives "positioning" themselves for their reality. Spiritual reform can not come from conclaves of cardinals, meetings of mullahs or pow wows of evangelical pastors--it has to be something out of their hands which gets it so right that they just merely have to adapt to it.

So, where can the rennaisance come from? I'll give you a hint: the invention of the printing press had a lot to do with fueling and sustaining the first great European Rennaisnce. It had extrodinary dynamic effects on who could be whom and what was to be considered relevant to modern thinkers. Low and behold, we find ourselves at the dawn of just such a new media phenomenon which also fundamentally changes what are thought as "stations" in life and what and whom people can become. To consider a realistic "spiritual rennaisance" without a shared understanding of how social dynamics can be changed by "spirited" new media art is to not be quite able to see the forrest because the proverbial trees are in the way. Thus, this is why I believe all serious roads lead to the same thing: convergence of technology + consilience of art and science wherefrom new directions can illuminate themselves and brilliance that defines a new age will out. If cyber citizenship is not the right term, then it is expendible. But the ground we've tried to cover in it is pretty darn close to the mountain top from which it is possible to see the promised land.  It's a good time to be alive.

[QueenQaab]

There are both public and private spiritual experiences.

What is "spirituality" anyway. It's a feeling, an emotional state. It can be described as "self-transcendance" where the physical self is is transcended while the emotional self takes over. It's emotional peaks.

We all arrange some spiritual events — weddings, baby namings, funerals, various and assorted celebrations. A spiritual experience can be had while participating in a public protest, a "march" on Washington, for example, or being part of an audience to a great speech or lecture or reading. Or, it can be had alone. Both ways are good.

I regard ethics and moral as aspects of character, rather than as religious matters.

If spirituality is anything at all, it is empathetic, for in empathy our private self is subsumed by the larger picture. A spiritual experience is being overtaken by a feeling that is larger than normal and is, thus, memorable. If the spiritual experience happens in a group, in public, so much the better.

We are ALL naturally empathetic. It's in our genes. It's part of the human condition. It's why we have been able to survive as long as we have.

We need to nurture it. And we need to claim it as a natural human inborn trait.

I can't count the number of times I've been asked the assinine question: "How can you be spiritual if you don't believe in god?" Well, I happen to think that if primitive humankind had not had spiritual feelings, long before anyone had the word "miracles," no one would have thunk up such a concept as a god.

[Zoon van Ijs]

   Spirituality, I think, is the experience of emotional happiness or pleasure (and not necessarily Happiness), by an individual, derived from their own "psychical symbology", and may involve a personal mythology, reminiscence,...Following this definition, I think that spirituality is an individual experience that cannot be strictly shared. But as any other information or emotion, it could be partially communicated through an element* or set of elements which, if they correspond to the same symbol or symbols for different people, would trigger the same emotions and hence the spiritual experience is communicated, making it into a "common spirituality". But it goes without question that such conditions in which "people link the same elements to the same symbolical meaning" are obtained mostly when they belong to the same community sharing the same cultural background (language, religion,etc...); otherwise, even when there's what may seem like "communication", it is very probable that some kind of "quiproquo" (misunderstanding) is occuring.   
  I think that spirituality can have the form of a "personal quest", a quest within the self, where every person is trying to discover their own "symbolical structure", but if it is not associated with a "psychological spirit of study", I don't think that it would get to the level of rationality...


*an element here could be a word, an object, etc...

[Andrew]

   Spirituality, I think, is the experience of emotional happiness or pleasure (and not necessarily Happiness), by an individual, derived from their own "psychical symbology", and may involve a personal mythology, reminiscence,...Following this definition, I think that spirituality is an individual experience that cannot be strictly shared. But as any other information or emotion, it could be partially communicated through an element* or set of elements which, if they correspond to the same symbol or symbols for different people, would trigger the same emotions and hence the spiritual experience is communicated, making it into a "common spirituality". But it goes without question that such conditions in which "people link the same elements to the same symbolical meaning" are obtained mostly when they belong to the same community sharing the same cultural background (language, religion,etc...); otherwise, even when there's what may seem like "communication", it is very probable that some kind of "quiproquo" (misunderstanding) is occuring.   
  I think that spirituality can have the form of a "personal quest", a quest within the self, where every person is trying to discover their own "symbolical structure", but if it is not associated with a "psychological spirit of study", I don't think that it would get to the level of rationality...


*an element here could be a word, an object, etc...

Gregory,

I agree with your idea of "spirituality". Overall I think that spirituality is a personal journey which can be shared with others in a uncontrolled, freeminded environment. I have always had issue with the control of spirituality through the manipulation and indoctrination of most religions.

I find your idea of "psychological spirit of study" quite interesting. Would you like to elaborate on this idea?

Thanks,
Andrew

[Zoon van Ijs]

I find your idea of "psychological spirit of study" quite interesting. Would you like to elaborate on this idea?

     I'm still in the process of discovering this idea myself, but here's the outline if I may say :one may proceed by analyzing their feelings and emotions and trying to link them to the proper environmental features that have initiated them. The work, seemingly, presents two main difficulties : 1/ the brain generally proceeds by filtrating data to the conscious mind, and there are many information gotten unknowingly, that can affect the emotional state.2/ there's a probability of a bias in analysis because the study itself can be affected by the spiritual state. I think, because of the huge number of data, it would be necessary to make some basic assumptions, and to have some knowledge of psychanalysis as well ...   

[QueenQaab]

Yes, Gregory, we can always put ourselves into an environment or in the presence of "things" that enhance our spiritual feelings. Nature, for instance, is a very good place for me to be and "to be." I particularly love a certain lake and its trappings -- the flora and fauna, the people (strangers) who also frequent the place for a bit of peace and comfort and fun. I also like woods that put me in mind of "the forest primieval," sort of dark places because of the canopy of trees, and the rustling of leaves and birds and small animals. Children come to live these experiences, too, and thus grow up with a sense of their natural connection to the planet. I think it's a very good thing to enable such spirituality in the young.

[Elder Norm]

Yes, Gregory, we can always put ourselves into an environment or in the presence of "things" that enhance our spiritual feelings. Nature, for instance, is a very good place for me to be and "to be." I particularly love a certain lake and its trappings -- the flora and fauna, the people (strangers) who also frequent the place for a bit of peace and comfort and fun. I also like woods that put me in mind of "the forest primieval," sort of dark places because of the canopy of trees, and the rustling of leaves and birds and small animals. Children come to live these experiences, too, and thus grow up with a sense of their natural connection to the planet. I think it's a very good thing to enable such spirituality in the young.

QQ, really neat!!  I will tell you a secret.  When I was younger, I used to run thru some wild woods near our place.  You could be a mile from the nearest house and the woods were wild for the most part as they were not forested.   I would run thru the woods, jumping over rotting logs, dodging branches and weaving thru thick underbrush. I think I know the wild exeleration (sp) that the indians of the old west must have felt.  From time to time I would even run into wildlife and startle them.  It was a connection to a more primitive time.   It was...... neat. :-)

Elder Norm

[QueenQaab]

Yes, that's a feeling I like, Elder Norm.

I like the opposite of that, too -- floating on the lake, with my big-brimmed hat over my face. Just, there, almost no evidence of The Queen whatsoever -- only the floating hat and her boobs above water.

An added benefit, whilst floating so, there is no pain.

[Elder Norm]

Yes, that's a feeling I like, Elder Norm.

I like the opposite of that, too -- floating on the lake, with my big-brimmed hat over my face. Just, there, almost no evidence of The Queen whatsoever -- only the floating hat and her boobs above water.

An added benefit, whilst floating so, there is no pain.

Neat.  I have found an interesting thing to do.  You get a warm pool during the summer and some of those floating noodles.  You put the noodles under your knees and back or whereever so that you are neutrally floating.   You want to be so close to neutral that when you breath in, you rise slightly in the water, and if you breath out all the way, you sink.   Then cover your eyes, and let all of your body be under water except for your nose/mouth area.

As you focus on your slow breathing, you can make your body rise and fall in the water by how you breath. As you focus, you can even feel the water level on your body, covering then exposing you.   If you put speakers near the pool side, you can even hear the sound underwater.  It does make for an interesting experience.  Sort of a zen meditation thingie.   

Elder Norm (Hippie want-a-be  :-) )

[QueenQaab]

Ha ha. Yes, I like that, too. Hey, I can sit in the water, cross-legged like a yogi, and I go up and down like that as I breathe. (The Queen has natural flotation built-in, no noodles required.)

[RareBear]

"Reform" may not be the right word for this. What is needeed is more of a rennaisance than a reform IMO. Someone or something has to start really getting spirituality right and making people seriously re-examine themselves to consider if they've actually been getting it wrong for a long time. Just as i think wil be the case with education reform, it can not and should be left to the establishment toget it together and change themselves. At most all one can expect from that are a few incremental token accomodations and no where near the exponential changes that are truly needed. You can't blame them, they've spent their lives "positioning" themselves for their reality. Spiritual reform can not come from conclaves of cardinals, meetings of mullahs or pow wows of evangelical pastors--it has to be something out of their hands which gets it so right that they just merely have to adapt to it.

So, where can the rennaisance come from? I'll give you a hint: the invention of the printing press had a lot to do with fueling and sustaining the first great European Rennaisnce. It had extrodinary dynamic effects on who could be whom and what was to be considered relevant to modern thinkers. Low and behold, we find ourselves at the dawn of just such a new media phenomenon which also fundamentally changes what are thought as "stations" in life and what and whom people can become. To consider a realistic "spiritual rennaisance" without a shared understanding of how social dynamics can be changed by "spirited" new media art is to not be quite able to see the forrest because the proverbial trees are in the way. Thus, this is why I believe all serious roads lead to the same thing: convergence of technology + consilience of art and science wherefrom new directions can illuminate themselves and brilliance that defines a new age will out. If cyber citizenship is not the right term, then it is expendible. But the ground we've tried to cover in it is pretty darn close to the mountain top from which it is possible to see the promised land.  It's a good time to be alive.

Ha, on second thought...

In my above quote I suggested the "reform" might not be the word to use in this instance. I thought at the time "rennaisance" might be but that goes a little (or alot) over the top. How about merely thinking of "spiritual design"? How much "design" is there in what is thought of as human spirituality? And if a new undertaking were made, how would be "design" spirituality? It's our's to do and nobody "from above" is interceding to voice their disapproval. Nay?