Spirituality - "spiritual but not religious"? "atheist spirituality"?

[lpetrich]

15 Signs You're a Highly Spiritual Person — Purpose Fairy
1. You recognize yourself in all beings.
2. You live your life from a place of sincerity and humility.
3. You love without expecting to be loved back.
4. You are comfortable with not-knowing.
5. You trust life’s wisdom.
6. You have no interest in being who people think you should be.
7. Your wisdom is your own.
8. You forgive easily.
9. You give without expecting anything in return.
10. Your heart is at peace even in the midst of adversity.
11. You embrace all that comes your way with thankfulness.
12. You purified your soul of attachments.
13. You no longer look outside yourself for fulfillment.
14. You see yourself as a spiritual being having a human experience.
15. You delight yourself in quietness and solitude.

Some of it seems rather masochistic.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Some of it seems rather masochistic.

Yeah, some of the 15 signs, i don't even WANT to excel at.
1. You recognize yourself in all beings.
I suppose, technically, i have to admit that i'm the same species as Trump, and we breathe the same air, but...

5. You trust life’s wisdom.
I am not aware of any 'wisdom' life has to share. I don't see a plan or a planner. So, life being 'nasty, brutal and short,' the wisdom seems to be 'Shit happens.' And that's not wisdom, it's just a frame to keep from feeling personally targeted by random shit like ebola or my favorite bakery going out of business.

9. You give without expecting anything in return.
I often give without expecting a gift back, but i never give without at least feeling better about myself for the fact that i'm just so damned generous. So it's not always a transaction but at least an investment.

11. You embrace all that comes your way with thankfulness.
Okay, so, every time i go to the lab to get bloodwork done, i always thank the nurse if she can get thet blood sample with fewer than four stabs. But i'm not thankful that my health requires sitting still while i get stabbed. That does nothing for me except make me more tolerant of being stabbed. It's counterintuitive to go to a place and ask them to stab you, even though it has a long-term benefit. And if i start embracing pain, that's a long slide towards whips, tongue clamps and pierced...something.

 

[lpetrich]

What Does It Mean to Be a Spiritual Person? | HuffPost

People often confuse spirituality with religion. People can be both religious and spiritual, but it is also possible to be religious without being spiritual, or to be spiritual without being religious.

You go to church every Sunday and you say your prayers every day. Does this mean you are a spiritual person?

No.

You practice yoga and meditate every day. Does this mean you are a spiritual person?

No.

You belong to spiritual group and are devoted to following the teachings of the group. Does this mean you are a spiritual person?

No.

What, then, does it mean to be a spiritual person?

Being a spiritual person is synonymous with being a person whose highest priority is to be loving to yourself and others. A spiritual person cares about people, animals and the planet. A spiritual person knows that we are all One, and consciously attempts to honor this Oneness. A spiritual person is a kind person.

Author Margaret Paul says "My experience of God is that God is the energy of Love that created us and sustains us." She also mentions "the love, peace, joy, truth and kindness that is God" and "the love that is God". Horseshit. Love is something we feel, not some super cosmic force, and it certainly didn't create us.

If you want to be a spiritual person, then let kindness be your guiding light — kindness toward yourself, toward others, toward animals and toward this beautiful planet that is our home. Recognize that we all have the spark of love that is God within us, and learn to honor that love so that you can know and experience the Oneness of all that is.

Kindness, yes, woo-woo, no.

 

[Treedbear]

I have a problem with the gratitude part. I can't seem to separate it from the need to have someone I'd be grateful to. Which is my basic problem with spirituality. It seems to require a phantom existence. Gratitude and spirit can be useful concepts. But not as a fraudulent abstraction. There. I said it.

 

[abaddon]

"Eight Ways That Gratitude Boosts Happiness"

from The How of Happiness by Sonja Lyubomirsky

"... the research clearly demonstrates that you would be happier if you cultivated an “attitude of gratitude.”4 However, instead of your following this advice blindly, it’s important to understand why and how expressing gratitude works to make you happier. Indeed, there are no fewer than eight reasons for why I advise people to practice it." (pg 92)

1. grateful thinking promotes the savoring of positive life experiences
2. expressing gratitude bolsters self-worth and self-esteem
3. gratitude helps people cope with stress and trauma
4. the expression of gratitude encourages moral behavior
5. gratitude can help build social bonds, strengthening existing relationships and nurturing new ones
6. expressing gratitude tends to inhibit invidious comparisons with others
7. the practice of gratitude is incompatible with negative emotions and may actually diminish or deter such feelings as anger, bitterness, and greed
8. gratitude helps us thwart hedonic adaptation

(list extracted from Ch 4, pages 92-95)

The fuller explication of why practicing gratitude has these effects is in the book. But, roughly summarized, it's the difference of noting things could be worse and being glad they're not. I think the attitude requires a sense of relationship, but can't think of a good reason why the relation must be to a "someone". We can relate to self, others, objects, and life generally.

 

[Treedbear]

"Eight Ways That Gratitude Boosts Happiness"

from The How of Happiness by Sonja Lyubomirsky

"... the research clearly demonstrates that you would be happier if you cultivated an “attitude of gratitude.”4 However, instead of your following this advice blindly, it’s important to understand why and how expressing gratitude works to make you happier. Indeed, there are no fewer than eight reasons for why I advise people to practice it." (pg 92)

1. grateful thinking promotes the savoring of positive life experiences
2. expressing gratitude bolsters self-worth and self-esteem
3. gratitude helps people cope with stress and trauma
4. the expression of gratitude encourages moral behavior
5. gratitude can help build social bonds, strengthening existing relationships and nurturing new ones
6. expressing gratitude tends to inhibit invidious comparisons with others
7. the practice of gratitude is incompatible with negative emotions and may actually diminish or deter such feelings as anger, bitterness, and greed
8. gratitude helps us thwart hedonic adaptation

(list extracted from Ch 4, pages 92-95)

The fuller explication of why practicing gratitude has these effects is in the book. But, roughly summarized, it's the difference of noting things could be worse and being glad they're not. I think the attitude requires a sense of relationship, but can't think of a good reason why the relation must be to a "someone". We can relate to self, others, objects, and life generally.

I can understand how all those benefits occur. But there are probably less amorphous words for describing one's attitude of appreciation towards others. Any benefits that result from being part of the human community should be recognized for what they are.

But this:

What Does It Actually Mean To Be A Spiritual Person
...

• 
  ...
• It is being grateful for what you have.
  ...

and this:

15 Signs You're a Highly Spiritual Person — Purpose Fairy
...
11. You embrace all that comes your way with thankfulness.
...

can be reinterpreted as a trivial moralistic platitude meaning there is no way to change things because "it is what it is", and lulling us into acceptance ot things as they are.

 

[Keith&Co.]

But there are probably less amorphous words for describing one's attitude of appreciation towards others.

yeah, when the storm ends and the ship stops rocking 30 degrees @ wave, there is a diff between 'man, i am glad that's over' and 'boy, howdy, thanx for ending that.'

 

[Treedbear]

But there are probably less amorphous words for describing one's attitude of appreciation towards others.

yeah, when the storm ends and the ship stops rocking 30 degrees @ wave, there is a diff between 'man, i am glad that's over' and 'boy, howdy, thanx for ending that.'

That's what I think the word means. Thankfulness. "I'm thankful that's over" means something more than "I'm glad that's over" even though they get used pretty much interchangeably.