What is spirituality?

This question has erupted in my mind due to a couple of other threads. I cannot answer it for myself, so tell me, what does it mean to have a spiritual life or to describe oneself as spiritual? What is spirituality?

Originally posted by DeepThought
This question has erupted in my mind due to a couple of other threads. I cannot answer it for myself, so tell me, what does it mean to have a spiritual life or to describe oneself as spiritual? What is spirituality?

I think as humans ~ whether we be theists or atheists ~ we are endowed with a capacity for projecting ourselves in abstract ways and also we are affected and influenced and shaped by the abstract projections of other people.

Added to this, we clearly have individual spirits ~ perhaps the same thing that most religionists refer to as a "soul" - although they would almost certainly define it [and explain it!] differently from non-religionists and atheists ~ which comprise personality, uniqueness, relationships, and other abstract aspects all bound together in the singular personal narrative that each of us accumulates as we live our lives.

This is the nature of the human spirit and is therefore ~ to my way of thinking ~ the domain of "spirituality" [i.e. concerned with or affecting or being affected by the spirit or "soul"]. I think it is clear that both theists and atheists exist and live out their lives in this domain.

For Christians, their human spirit ~ and all the metaphysical facilities and capacities attendant thereto (which I observe non-believers to also possess) ~ has taken them into the philosophical realm of religious belief. I see this as an inevitable and very common upshot of the human condition.

For Christians (and other theists), "spirituality" is intricately bound to a supernatural being with whom they perceive themselves to be in a relationship; for an atheist, the same ability and inclination ~ their spirit in action ~ to contemplate themselves [and what it is that they seem to be part of here in this world as they live their lives] has not resulted in them perceiving themselves to be in a relationship with a supernatural being, but it is the spiritual nature of both theists and atheists have in common that has led to these two different outcomes. [from that other thread].

Originally posted by DeepThought
This question has erupted in my mind due to a couple of other threads. I cannot answer it for myself, so tell me, what does it mean to have a spiritual life or to describe oneself as spiritual? What is spirituality?

Originally posted by Rajk999
Paul has a nice discussion on it in Romans 8.

I gather Paul is saying that worldly, fleshly, carnal are contrary to spiritual which are in essence things not of this world and of God.

Originally posted by FMF
I believe that when one gets away from the fleshly, carnal, mechanical side of our existence, and gets into the abstract side where we find music, literature, religion and philosophy, art ~ as well as things like ideology and morality and ethics ~ along with non-tangible capacities like compassion, aspiration, curiosity, where our each and every human spirit is ...[text shortened]... hom is largely determined by culture ~ itself a product of the spirituality of the human spirit.

Originally posted by FMF
I believe that when one gets away from the fleshly, carnal, mechanical side of our existence, and gets into the abstract side where we find music, literature, religion and philosophy, art ~ as well as things like ideology and morality and ethics ~ along with non-tangible capacities like compassion, aspiration, curiosity, where our each and every human spirit is ...[text shortened]... hom is largely determined by culture ~ itself a product of the spirituality of the human spirit.

Originally posted by rwingett
I think it is a mistake to assume that the flesh and the spirit are antagonists. They are each necessary parts of a balanced whole.

Originally posted by FMF
"Spirituality" is a word that we should not allow to be kidnapped by religionists.

And I also don't think atheists should allow theists to apply it only to themselves on account of the fact that they've used their spiritual nature and capacity for abstraction - something all humans possess (the human spirit - the only kind of spirit that every human being ca ...[text shortened]... with things like immortality and supernatural beings who have supposedly communicated with them.

Spirituality starts with the recognition that "the facts are not the end of the matter." (Wittgenstein)

Originally posted by checkbaiter
[b]something all humans possess (the human spirit - the only kind of spirit that every human being can agree exists)

I don't agree with this. Humans are born body and soul life. They have no spirit.[/b]

Originally posted by FMF
I am aware of your ideology. But you have to delve into Hebrew mythology to make your religionist case - which is your prerogative, of course. I suspect that DeepThought might be more interested in a discussion on spirituality in a broader, maybe more universal sense, rather than technocratic screeds pertaining to one of the major retail religions and its off-the-shelf curiosity-ending packages of explanations and solutions. 😉

Originally posted by FMF
I believe that when one gets away from the fleshly, carnal, mechanical side of our existence, and gets into the abstract side where we find music, literature, religion and philosophy, art ~ as well as things like ideology and morality and ethics ~ along with non-tangible capacities like compassion, aspiration, curiosity, where our each and every human spirit is ...[text shortened]... hom is largely determined by culture ~ itself a product of the spirituality of the human spirit.

Originally posted by checkbaiter
[b]something all humans possess (the human spirit - the only kind of spirit that every human being can agree exists)

I don't agree with this. Humans are born body and soul life. They have no spirit.[/b]

Originally posted by FMF
I believe that when one gets away from the fleshly, carnal, mechanical side of our existence....