NOM

I was reading one of the new Mormon leaks documents, although, it doesn't seem like this talk is much of a leak:
https://mormonleaks.io/wiki/index.php?t ... -04-21.pdf

And I recognized a mistake that Oaks makes which really helped me snap a few ideas together. He conflates the concept of spirituality with religion. He treats these ideas as if they can't be separated so to create a false choice between a secular institution or a spiritual one. If spirituality can be described as feelings of awe, wonder, meaning, and purpose, then are these things really inseparable from religion? I think for a long time it was religion that claimed sole ownership of that feeling, but is it really necessary?

Many of the new atheists make the same mistake, with the exception of Sam Harris. Since they conflate spirituality with religion, they toss both away. Even if they occasionally talk about the awe and inspiration that can be generated from scientific inquiry, they treat the spiritual contributions of the humanities or psychology as secondary or less important pursuits.

I think one of the big defining ideas of the next fifty years, as people continue to exit religious groups, will be the re-awaking of spiritual purpose and fervor outside of doctrines and institutions. We've developed this sense of spirituality in other spheres like national pride and the concept of human rights, so I don't think its far fetched that this natural awe we feel for life and life around us will find itself again rooted in our secular institutions. This was the case for many enlightenment thinkers, like the deists who founded the United States, and could once again find a place within rational empiricism. Once people realize that "god" doesn't need to be a literal man with a beard somewhere in the sky, but something that touches deeper into our psyche and collective evolution, I think a lot of this self doubt and hand wringing over the demise of the old means of spirituality will resolve itself.

oliver_denom wrote: ↑Tue Jun 13, 2017 9:51 am Many of the new atheists make the same mistake, with the exception of Sam Harris. Since they conflate spirituality with religion, they toss both away. Even if they occasionally talk about the awe and inspiration that can be generated from scientific inquiry, they treat the spiritual contributions of the humanities or psychology as secondary or less important pursuits.

I have an atheist sister who completely adores new atheists. She also has a masters degree in the arts, and I don't understand how she resolves that paradox in her life. One of her biggest employers is a church, because that particular church values contributions of the arts and pays her well for her work, while she disparages that church, her art, and the artists who came before her to create that art.

I struggle with this because in the DAMU there's the idea that only rational and scientific thought is valuable. I do think it is, but I think there is a lot of value in other areas of thought as well. In fact, it was my reading of literature and general history that probably fed my disbelief in the church, not math and science.

oliver_denom wrote: ↑Tue Jun 13, 2017 9:51 amI think one of the big defining ideas of the next fifty years, as people continue to exit religious groups, will be the re-awaking of spiritual purpose and fervor outside of doctrines and institutions. We've developed this sense of spirituality in other spheres like national pride and the concept of human rights, so I don't think its far fetched that this natural awe we feel for life and life around us will find itself again rooted in our secular institutions. This was the case for many enlightenment thinkers, like the deists who founded the United States, and could once again find a place within rational empiricism. Once people realize that "god" doesn't need to be a literal man with a beard somewhere in the sky, but something that touches deeper into our psyche and collective evolution, I think a lot of this self doubt and hand wringing over the demise of the old means of spirituality will resolve itself.

I certainly hope you're right about this. I've had the opportunity to work with some educational secularists (and I believe in secularism, I think it's a good thing) but their approach seems so heartless, rational, dictated...it lacks humanity - that something "that touches deeper in our psyche and collective evolution." I'm curious who/what you think might lead such a movement. It seems that the loudest voices are often the most divisive.

MerrieMiss wrote: ↑Tue Jun 13, 2017 3:05 pm I certainly hope you're right about this. I've had the opportunity to work with some educational secularists (and I believe in secularism, I think it's a good thing) but their approach seems so heartless, rational, dictated...it lacks humanity - that something "that touches deeper in our psyche and collective evolution." I'm curious who/what you think might lead such a movement. It seems that the loudest voices are often the most divisive.

I think the loudest voices are often the lagging indicators of change. They recognize a movement that's in its infancy, and then rides the wave as it crashes into the shore. In that same way, I think the voices for a new secular spirituality are only just forming and beginning to articulate the movement. There's already a thirst among current and rising generations for something more fulfilling that churches like Mormonism aren't able to provide. The survey numbers, I believe, bear this out as we see people increasingly identifying under no religious affiliation while simultaneously showing about equal amounts of "spirituality" as generations past, however they define it.

There's a hunger for faith that can feed the modern world, it just hasn't broken the collective consciousness yet. The irony of the "moral majority", formulated as a counter to post-modernist conceptions of the world, proud and bragging about their fundamentalist view of religion, is that it's culminated nihilism. Their abject denial of science or scientific fact, has led them to a place where the only way they can hold their literalist interpretations, is by denying the possibility of objective truth. That's a serious problem, where feeling something is true is considered greater than proving the same.

Of course, as I pointed out, the denial of the spiritual is equally problematic.

I think what we'll find in the coming years is first the embrace of symbolic, spiritual truth, married with empirical scientific fact. Letting go of religious literalism will allow us to actually engage spirituality on a deeper and more meaningful level. Instead of asking whether there was a flood, we can start asking ourselves what it means to face spiritual destruction in the face of overwhelming opposition. Instead of asking whether there was a literal Jesus, we can start asking what it means to be a savior to oneself and others. That sort of exploration can only enrich and deepen our scientific inquiry. The idea of these things being actual events set in an actual time and reflective of actual history will be more or less nonsense, matters for only the fringe elements of society to discuss.

I believe that desire exists, all we are waiting for is a voice, and a voice will come just as it always does. There first exists a need, and then a person or movement rushes in to fill it.

Can we please come up with a different word besides "spirituality" for: feelings of awe, wonder, meaning, and purpose?

I'm all for those types of feelings and emotions, but I've stopped believing in ghosts: friendly, holy, angelic, or otherwise. Because of that, I want to categorically reject the word spirituality. I spent more than half a lifetime doing the whole spiritual thing, and honestly, I HATE where it led me.

So what's another word for spirituality that doesn't reference ghosts?

wtfluff wrote: ↑Tue Jun 13, 2017 9:18 pmSo what's another word for spirituality that doesn't reference ghosts?

Farfegnugen?

More people who are conserned about ghosts might try to care a little more about people, so for starters maybe humanity over spirituality?

One thing to worry about is that the unfocused desire for spirituality can also lead to quackery. These days we have a lot of people attaching themselves in a quasi-religious way to wacky and potentially dangerous stuff like homeopathy, vaccination denial, climate denial, etc. as surrogates for religious spirituality. Who would have ever believed that the 21st century would see a resurgence of flat earth proponents?

I hope for a new generation of spirituality that will be developed within the scope of rationalism. As Fluff points out, spirituality is a little too close to spiritualism for many rationalists. For most people spirituality is about spirits and they interpret the feeling of awe as evidence of invisible entities. Nobody's making cartoons about Casper the Friendly Rational Construct.

I think religion has done a huge disservice to science by presenting it the enemy of truth (Mormons recognize this as so-called-ism). I would like to see a "faith" community that recognizes science as a savior of sorts. Religion continually fails to deliver actual knowledge and advancement (e.g. God says avoid hot drinks, science says "boil that water!"), but look what science has given us in terms of medicine, feeding the world, understanding the universe...

What I hope for is an age of accelerated education that will allow people everywhere to find a common "spirituality" in the wonders that are unfolding right before our eyes every day through scientific inquiry, and that will be embraced as good and hopeful, not held at arms length as the scary bringer of monsters.

Hagoth wrote: ↑Wed Jun 14, 2017 6:32 am One thing to worry about is that the unfocused desire for spirituality can also lead to quackery. These days we have a lot of people attaching themselves in a quasi-religious way to wacky and potentially dangerous stuff like homeopathy, vaccination denial, climate denial, etc. as surrogates for religious spirituality. Who would have ever believed that the 21st century would see a resurgence of flat earth proponents?

I hope for a new generation of spirituality that will be developed within the scope of rationalism. As Fluff points out, spirituality is a little too close to spiritualism for many rationalists. For most people spirituality is about spirits and they interpret the feeling of awe as evidence of invisible entities. Nobody's making cartoons about Casper the Friendly Rational Construct.

I think religion has done a huge disservice to science by presenting it the enemy of truth (Mormons recognize this as so-called-ism). I would like to see a "faith" community that recognizes science as a savior of sorts. Religion continually fails to deliver actual knowledge and advancement (e.g. God says avoid hot drinks, science says "boil that water!"), but look what science has given us in terms of medicine, feeding the world, understanding the universe... monsters.

Mormon God could have saved many in Zion's camp from Cholera if he would have told Joseph to have them to boil their water.

Hagoth wrote: ↑Wed Jun 14, 2017 6:32 am One thing to worry about is that the unfocused desire for spirituality can also lead to quackery. These days we have a lot of people attaching themselves in a quasi-religious way to wacky and potentially dangerous stuff like homeopathy, vaccination denial, climate denial, etc. as surrogates for religious spirituality. Who would have ever believed that the 21st century would see a resurgence of flat earth proponents?

I hope for a new generation of spirituality that will be developed within the scope of rationalism. As Fluff points out, spirituality is a little too close to spiritualism for many rationalists. For most people spirituality is about spirits and they interpret the feeling of awe as evidence of invisible entities. Nobody's making cartoons about Casper the Friendly Rational Construct.

I think religion has done a huge disservice to science by presenting it the enemy of truth (Mormons recognize this as so-called-ism). I would like to see a "faith" community that recognizes science as a savior of sorts. Religion continually fails to deliver actual knowledge and advancement (e.g. God says avoid hot drinks, science says "boil that water!"), but look what science has given us in terms of medicine, feeding the world, understanding the universe... monsters.

Mormon God could have saved many in Zion's camp from Cholera if he would have told Joseph to have them to boil their water. Right now, something in my gut tells me to trust Robert Ritner more then Kerry Muhlstein. But I do love a God who created the Grand Canyon, and my Grandkids.
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I think we can separate out religion into three distinct roles:

1 - It provides a common ritual
2 - It provides a community of common belief
3 - It provides a conduit for its membership to spirituality

In saying this, I consider spirituality to be a moment of intense positive emotion sometimes accompanied by a physical manifestation (good bumps, physical warmth, etc.).

One of the reasons why I ultimately reject Mormonism is because they define spirituality as something that can only be received through the appropriate conduit, which is their religion and institution. If those intense positive emotions are felt in a situation that is clearly not affiliated with the church in any way, then it is a counterfeit of the devil. So, I get why Elder Oaks doesn't differentiate the two, because in Mormon theology spirituality can only come from God, and the only way to get to God is through the LDS church.

Churches are good at creating that conduit for intense positive emotion. In all honesty, a really good session of spirituality, these intense positive emotions can be similar to orgasms. There have been times where I have listened to the march in the 4th movement of Beethoven's 9th repeatedly because of the physical and emotional pleasure it brings. That third item, that overwhelming feeling, is one of the reasons why I go to church every week. I love organ music, I love a stirring congregation singing, and I love a great choir. My church provides all three and at least three times a week my body is overwhelmed by the music and community feel and there is a positive physical push with it.

This was actually a major shelf item for me and the start of my major doubts in Mormonism. A consistent intense positive emotion with physical pleasure was sexual anticipation. Long story short, my then-wife bought some lingerie on a date and I started to feel intense sexual anticipation for when we got home that night. From an experience a few days previous I realized that intense positive emotion and spirituality were the same thing and it was the largest catalyst in my disaffection from the religion.

Because of my experience, I had to disassociate spirituality (as I define it) from religion. So, since 2010 or so I've always seen it as separate, and I'm not surprised when religious people think they are the only people who have that emotion, but I'm saddened by it. I'm happy now that I can participate in entirely secular events and "feel the spirit" without thinking about religion or "truth". I'm also happy that I can play the organ, experience those intense spiritual moments and realize that it isn't God talking to me, but me enjoying the moment and feeling those emotions.

I'm putting this in a separate post because I feel it is a completely different thought.

I see the resolution of conflict between rationalism and spirituality exemplified in improvised music.

Music is a highly rational discipline. Rules of harmony have been developed over centuries and actually have physiological reasons as to why our ears cringe at some and enjoy others. Rules of composition such as dissonances and resolution play into psychology and can be explained as to why we enjoy them. At the same time, it is quite emotional as we follow these rules and emote at the same time. It is well thought out.

Improvisation is a great example of this, it is when your read the aura of a room, the collective emotions of a crowd and modify your performance through rational means (see above) to intensify that emotion. For example, if I'm playing a march like hymn and the congregation is getting into it and singing ever increasingly I will change registrations, modulate the hymn, add new harmonies, or throw in fanfares to really get them stirred up. All entirely based upon hymns, but one must read emotion in order to use the rational means to increase the emotions and "spirit" of the room.

If someone writes music that is formulaic and rational based upon those rules, it is robotic and called "soul-less". If someone writes music that is entirely based upon emotion, it cannot be listened to (I have an atonal piece I wrote entirely about my dad, and it is really crazy sounding for that reason, I abandoned almost all rules and one cannot sit and listen to it).

As I see spirituality and rationalism as polar opposites, there must be a balance between the two. To reject "spirituality" is to reject the "soul" as someone completely rational is not a human. Likewise, someone who rejects rationalism is someone who cannot function.

Hagoth wrote: ↑Wed Jun 14, 2017 5:59 am

wtfluff wrote: ↑Tue Jun 13, 2017 9:18 pmSo what's another word for spirituality that doesn't reference ghosts?

Farfegnugen?

More people who are conserned about ghosts might try to care a little more about people, so for starters maybe humanity over spirituality?

Far-From-Grüven it is! (Funny side-note: I just looked up what / how ü is supposed to be used, and it's NOTHING like that fake word I used.)

As far as Sir Tapir-Rider's second statement: YES! humanity over spirituality all day, every day.

And that next Tapir-Rider post:


I love your posts too Doc, except: I still reject the word "spirituality". Until I come up with something better, I'm just going to start calling it intense emotion.

Or Farfegnugen. Maybe Farfegnugen is better. "I just felt the Farfegnugen." Yeah; I like it.

wtfluff wrote: ↑Wed Jun 14, 2017 8:18 am I love your posts to Doc, except: I still reject the word "spirituality". Until I come up with something better, I'm just going to start calling it intense emotion.

Or Farfegnugen. Maybe Farfegnugen is better. "I just felt the Farfegnugen." Yeah; I like it.

I agree on loving Doc's post, especially the example of musical composition. However, I don't think equating spirituality to intense emotion is sufficient. I think that response is an important component to the experience, but I want to say that spirituality is more like the Greek concept of Eudaimonia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eudaimonia

It's a word that captures the well being of the entire person, body and soul. It's "human flourishing", a spirituality in the sense that material has been fully enmeshed with purpose. For example, we have the material world which simply exists. Then we have the material world that we perceive and imbue with meaning. Then we have the material world we interact with as if it has meaning. It's that latter instance, when our actions are filled with meaning and purpose that we flourish, that we experience eudaimonia...and that, I'm sure, creates intense emotion. But that intense emotion is the byproduct of "spirituality", for lack of a better word", and not spirituality in and of itself. It arises from it.

So I think our myths and daily patterns of action can inform and fill our world with meaning and purpose, if we can train ourselves to find it.

document wrote: ↑Wed Jun 14, 2017 7:30 am There have been times where I have listened to the march in the 4th movement of Beethoven's 9th repeatedly because of the physical and emotional pleasure it brings.

Me too! And I have to give some thanks to Stanley Kubrick for that.

Enlightenment.

That's a good word. American religions like Mormonism and Evangelicalism are only growing in undereducated third world countries now. We are exporting our dogma to places where ignorance provides more fertile soil.

Imagine an organization like the LDS church sending 80,000 science and humanities teachers out to enlighten the world, instead of 80,000 indoctrinators. Imagine that all of those emissaries became as converted to that cause and wanted to commit their time, talents, and everything with which they have been blessed to enlightening the world through actual education.

oliver_denom wrote: ↑Wed Jun 14, 2017 8:40 am

wtfluff wrote: ↑Wed Jun 14, 2017 8:18 am I love your posts to Doc, except: I still reject the word "spirituality". Until I come up with something better, I'm just going to start calling it intense emotion.

Or Farfegnugen. Maybe Farfegnugen is better. "I just felt the Farfegnugen." Yeah; I like it.

I agree on loving Doc's post, especially the example of musical composition. However, I don't think equating spirituality to intense emotion is sufficient. I think that response is an important component to the experience, but I want to say that spirituality is more like the Greek concept of Eudaimonia.

All-RIghty then. Eudaimonia. I like it!

Although: I'm not sure I can remember, or pronounce Eudaimonia. I might have to stick with Farfegnugen. I can remember the word, and pretend to know how to pronounce it.

wtfluff wrote: ↑Tue Jun 13, 2017 9:18 pm Can we please come up with a different word besides "spirituality" for: feelings of awe, wonder, meaning, and purpose?

I feel much the same about this. I've used the word metaphysical emotions, those feelings that seems to be outside the normal everyday things.

So my son and I were just talking about this last night. I told him of my transition struggle to figure out where my past "spiritual" experiences could be explained or fit into my new found agnostic and atheist playgrounds. Would I no longer experience those feelings? In some ways I was relieved to find out they were just confirmation bias in FAT meetings, which is a common place in religious and political groups. In other ways I was sad I might not ever experience those things again outside the Mormon chapels and temples or in the context of a caring God's tender mercies.

It didn't take long to find the videos showing the common testimonials from all faiths and beliefs to prove Mormonism had no corner on that market, that these feelings were emotions. It also didn't take me long to recognize that in my state of unbelief in all things religion, that I could and was experiencing even stronger metaphysical emotions by spending more time in nature, watching amazing sunsets, or the Milk Way galaxy reflecting off a still mountain lake. I was seeing the amazing world even more clearly without a set of religious spectacles. I've had several teary eyed and awe inspiring moments out in those natural places, just contemplating my existence in the big bang universe, without attributing it to any white haired old super man or god-like entity.

If those caught up in religions could wake up to this transition, we'd more rapidly rid our cultures of the tyrannical nature of those harmful organizations and humanity would evolve more quickly to altruism - IMHO.

Me too! And I have to give some thanks to Stanley Kubrick for that.

And Wendy Carlos.