Answer to a question directed to Amanaki from Evangelicalhumanist

[Spirit of Light]

Moss, og i places this in wrong part of the forum please move it to a propper area.

@Evangelicalhumanist this OP is a reply to your question " what does Amanaki mean by " spiritual practice "

Spiritual practice to me is first of all starting when a person chose to begin Cultivation of a spiritual teaching (religion included here). The practice in it self contain the reading of scripture/teaching, meditation is a Hauge part of spiritual practice too, but some paths have prayer instead of meditation. This lead to the different changes we have to do toward our own life from a non practitioner to becoming one who honestly can say they follow the guidelines within the teaching. This part is not done over night, this take time because there is so many aspects of our life that do not match up to spiritual standards( i explain spiritual standard later)
The practice also contain the observation of our self in family life, do we hold the higher standard of morality that we should do as spiritual practitioners? If we do find area in our daily life that does not are up to higher morality, this is area we have to work on, to remove our faults way of living, thinking or speaking.

But we also have to work on our behaviour outward toward others, refining our way of speech and acting.

When we get stuck and we realize we need deeper understanding or wisdom, we must read the teaching more, and by doing this we will realize our weakness and get a chance to correct our self.
It is always something to fix in our spiritual practice, or something to learn and understand. So a spiritual practice is never going to end, be sure we can always find area within our self to make better.

So you see, spiritual practice is everything within our speech, thoughts and action. And the refinment of our self.

You will maybe find other people who tell you a different understanding of what spiritual practice is, but i hope you gained some understanding of what i mean by spiritual practice.

Spiritual standard is, morality, truthfulness compassion forberance (in Falun Gong) and when cultivating upward in the path every aspect of our life should contain truthfulness, compassion and forberance.
So the standard is to become one who always follow the right way of life explained in the path we chose to cultivate.

If you have more questions feel free to ask.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

I will reply soon, Amaniki. It's a difficult topic, and requires, for someone like me, some real philosophical thinking. If I were smarter, that wouldn't take quite as long, but I am what I am, so patience, please...

 

[Spirit of Light]

I will reply soon, Amaniki. It's a difficult topic, and requires, for someone like me, some real philosophical thinking. If I were smarter, that wouldn't take quite as long, but I am what I am, so patience, please...

I will wait for your reply and question

 

[Spirit of Light]

Moss, og i places this in wrong part of the forum please move it to a propper area.

@Evangelicalhumanist this OP is a reply to your question " what does Amanaki mean by " spiritual practice "

Spiritual practice to me is first of all starting when a person chose to begin Cultivation of a spiritual teaching (religion included here). The practice in it self contain the reading of scripture/teaching, meditation is a Hauge part of spiritual practice too, but some paths have prayer instead of meditation. This lead to the different changes we have to do toward our own life from a non practitioner to becoming one who honestly can say they follow the guidelines within the teaching. This part is not done over night, this take time because there is so many aspects of our life that do not match up to spiritual standards( i explain spiritual standard later)
The practice also contain the observation of our self in family life, do we hold the higher standard of morality that we should do as spiritual practitioners? If we do find area in our daily life that does not are up to higher morality, this is area we have to work on, to remove our faults way of living, thinking or speaking.

But we also have to work on our behaviour outward toward others, refining our way of speech and acting.

When we get stuck and we realize we need deeper understanding or wisdom, we must read the teaching more, and by doing this we will realize our weakness and get a chance to correct our self.
It is always something to fix in our spiritual practice, or something to learn and understand. So a spiritual practice is never going to end, be sure we can always find area within our self to make better.

So you see, spiritual practice is everything within our speech, thoughts and action. And the refinment of our self.

You will maybe find other people who tell you a different understanding of what spiritual practice is, but i hope you gained some understanding of what i mean by spiritual practice.

Spiritual standard is, morality, truthfulness compassion forberance (in Falun Gong) and when cultivating upward in the path every aspect of our life should contain truthfulness, compassion and forberance.
So the standard is to become one who always follow the right way of life explained in the path we chose to cultivate.

If you have more questions feel free to ask.

I see an error in my text from the OP
It should say mods if this OP is in the wrong area please move it to the correct place in the forum.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

So, as I said, there's going to be a fair amount to say on this subject, so I will NOT do it all in one post. Because the subject matter is "spiritual practice" or "spirituality," I think it important to begin with what this atheist means by "spirit" to begin with.

So, let me say first that not believing in God does not prevent me from having a spirit. Same thing with ghosts, which are supposed to be "spirits" of previously living people. That sort of spirit, I do not believe in. But I do have a spirit, and I have to live in it, or use it, whichever formulation you prefer.

Many people live quite successfully and happily without religion, but I do not believe that anyone can live without social communion, trust in others, or love. And these things involve spirituality, for me, and therefore I don't believe that anyone can live without spirituality.

Spirit, for me, is not a thing, it is a function, and it is a function that makes us different from and superior to all other animals. (I suggest that many animals also possess some measure of the kind of spirit I'm talking about, but not even close to the level that humans do -- they don't create art, they don't find new ways to communicate, they don't explore solely for the joy of exploring.) And it is this function that is our human way of existing within the universe and within the absolute, and making them a part of ourselves.

Descartes thought that spirit is "a thing that thinks," That includes a whole lot of activities, like doubting and hating and imagining, etc. But to me, the "thing that thinks" is the brain. There is not now, nor has there ever been evidence of thinking without a brain. Not ever. So without a brain, there would be no place for spirit to exist.

So, as I said, the spirit is not a substance -- it's a function or a capacity.

…..to be continued.

Allen

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Well, you could always ask a Christian, Jew or Muslim what God they believe in, or how they would describe or characterize that God. We atheists have, and have found every answer we've heard to be wanting, and therefore we reject them.

There is, it would seem, some universal feeling in humans that there is some sort of "limit" to everything -- to everything the exists, let's call it "the All" (with the usual capital for the reason of form). I think that theists and atheists think about the All in different ways. Theists tend to think of it in terms of transendance (beyond us and what we can perceive), spiritual ("made up of" something that is immaterial) and personal (possesses the characteristic of having intention).

Atheists in general don't deny the All (or we may call it the Absolute, if you like). What we deny is its transendance, spirituality and personality. The Absolute is not God, but to be not-God does not mean to not be!


That probably needs a little clarification, as I doubt everybody will get it.

When I say we deny transcendance, what I mean is that we believe that we are part of the All, and the All is part of us. We are the same substance, although each of us exists in our own subset of the All -- though still connected by our kinship to the rest. To deny the "spirituality" of the All is to say nothing more than that there is no "separate stuff" that is not part of the All. And to deny the "personality" of the All is not to deny personality per se, but to insist that personality is merely a feature of some parts of the All, where the all permits it to emerge -- as, for example, in a brain. The All functions without guidance, with personality, but parts of the All can intentionally move the All.

 

[atanu]

So, as I said, there's going to be a fair amount to say on this subject, so I will NOT do it all in one post. Because the subject matter is "spiritual practice" or "spirituality," I think it important to begin with what this atheist means by "spirit" to begin with.

So, let me say first that not believing in God does not prevent me from having a spirit. Same thing with ghosts, which are supposed to be "spirits" of previously living people. That sort of spirit, I do not believe in. But I do have a spirit, and I have to live in it, or use it, whichever formulation you prefer.

Many people live quite successfully and happily without religion, but I do not believe that anyone can live without social communion, trust in others, or love. And these things involve spirituality, for me, and therefore I don't believe that anyone can live without spirituality.

Spirit, for me, is not a thing, it is a function, and it is a function that makes us different from and superior to all other animals. (I suggest that many animals also possess some measure of the kind of spirit I'm talking about, but not even close to the level that humans do -- they don't create art, they don't find new ways to communicate, they don't explore solely for the joy of exploring.) And it is this function that is our human way of existing within the universe and within the absolute, and making them a part of ourselves.

Descartes thought that spirit is "a thing that thinks," That includes a whole lot of activities, like doubting and hating and imagining, etc. But to me, the "thing that thinks" is the brain. There is not now, nor has there ever been evidence of thinking without a brain. Not ever. So without a brain, there would be no place for spirit to exist.

So, as I said, the spirit is not a substance -- it's a function or a capacity.

…..to be continued.

Allen

Without conscious mind no body-brain would be perceived. But dead brains that do not exhibit any conscious behaviour can be seen in abundance.

...

 

[Spirit of Light]

Well, you could always ask a Christian, Jew or Muslim what God they believe in, or how they would describe or characterize that God. We atheists have, and have found every answer we've heard to be wanting, and therefore we reject them.

There is, it would seem, some universal feeling in humans that there is some sort of "limit" to everything -- to everything the exists, let's call it "the All" (with the usual capital for the reason of form). I think that theists and atheists think about the All in different ways. Theists tend to think of it in terms of transendance (beyond us and what we can perceive), spiritual ("made up of" something that is immaterial) and personal (possesses the characteristic of having intention).

Atheists in general don't deny the All (or we may call it the Absolute, if you like). What we deny is its transendance, spirituality and personality. The Absolute is not God, but to be not-God does not mean to not be!


That probably needs a little clarification, as I doubt everybody will get it.

When I say we deny transcendance, what I mean is that we believe that we are part of the All, and the All is part of us. We are the same substance, although each of us exists in our own subset of the All -- though still connected by our kinship to the rest. To deny the "spirituality" of the All is to say nothing more than that there is no "separate stuff" that is not part of the All. And to deny the "personality" of the All is not to deny personality per se, but to insist that personality is merely a feature of some parts of the All, where the all permits it to emerge -- as, for example, in a brain. The All functions without guidance, with personality, but parts of the All can intentionally move the All.

Thank you for your reply @Evangelicalhumanist

I have to say i find a lot of good thinking in both your posts. Honestly you surprise me, because a lot of the things you write are questions i have asked my self up through the years when been practicing first buddhism and now Falun Gong so your thoughts are not unfamiliar to me.

Feel free to ask me more questions.
And thank you for your polite way of adressing this topic in discussion with me.

 

[Koldo]

Without conscious mind no body-brain would be perceived. But dead brains that do not exhibit any conscious behaviour can be seen in abundance.

...

And, therefore... ?
Is this supposed to be incompatible with what he stated?

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Give me one more day, folks. This is not what I was hoping to write. I was in the middle of it, when I hit some key or other that wiped out what I'd done and replaced it with what I started from. (I confess, I've been drinking beer!)

In other words, I am not finished, and I think what I've got coming (tomorrow, I promise) will be deeper, more authentic, and make better sense.

So please, just a little more patience....

 

[Spirit of Light]

Give me one more day, folks. This is not what I was hoping to write. I was in the middle of it, when I hit some key or other that wiped out what I'd done and replaced it with what I started from. (I confess, I've been drinking beer!)

In other words, I am not finished, and I think what I've got coming (tomorrow, I promise) will be deeper, more authentic, and make better sense.

So please, just a little more patience....

Take your time @Evangelicalhumanist so far your writing here has been interesting to read, looking forward to your next post

 

[atanu]

And, therefore... ?
Is this supposed to be incompatible with what he stated?

That nothing exists apart from the experience of it in consciousness suggests that ‘consciousness primary’ ontology is more parsimonious — there is no need to explain away consciousness or there is no need to rely on a promise that in future we will know how mass, angular momentum, and charge give rise to the subject ‘I’ and it’s phenomenal qualities. All human strengths and frailties and all laws can be easily explained without changing any other parameter.

But I should not derail the thread. Sorry @Amanaki
...

 

[Spirit of Light]

That nothing exists apart from the experience of it in consciousness suggests that ‘consciousness primary’ ontology is more parsimonious — there is no need to explain away consciousness or there is no need to rely on a promise that in future we will know how mass, angular momentum, and charge give rise to the subject ‘I’ and it’s phenomenal qualities. All human strengths and frailties and all laws can be easily explained without changing any other parameter.

But I should not derail the thread. Sorry @Amanaki
...

No problem @atanu you just answered a question directed to you

 

[Koldo]

That nothing exists apart from the experience of it in consciousness suggests that ‘consciousness primary’ ontology is more parsimonious — there is no need to explain away consciousness or there is no need to rely on a promise that in future we will know how mass, angular momentum, and charge give rise to the subject ‘I’ and it’s phenomenal qualities. All human strengths and frailties and all laws can be easily explained without changing any other parameter.

But I should not derail the thread. Sorry @Amanaki
...

You are not actually explaining anything when you assume that consciousness is primary. You are not explaining why rocks don't exhibt consciousness, or how exactly consciousness gave rise to the material world, or why there seem to be multiple consciousnesses rather than a single one. Your answer offers no explanatory power. It is the equivalent of 'God did it'.

Plus, you have not explained why your former post has any relevance, which is what I have asked of you.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

That nothing exists apart from the experience of it in consciousness suggests that ‘consciousness primary’ ontology is more parsimonious — there is no need to explain away consciousness or there is no need to rely on a promise that in future we will know how mass, angular momentum, and charge give rise to the subject ‘I’ and it’s phenomenal qualities. All human strengths and frailties and all laws can be easily explained without changing any other parameter.

But I should not derail the thread. Sorry @Amanaki
...

I shall have something to say about this, but not until after my next post tomorrow. (Gotta get through the hard stuff before I knock of the easy ones.)

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

You are not actually explaining anything when you assume that consciousness is primary. You are not explaining why rocks don't exhibt consciousness, or how exactly consciousness gave rise to the material world, or why there seem to be multiple consciousnesses rather than a single one. Your answer offers no explanatory power. It is the equivalent of 'God did it'.

Plus, you have not explained why your former post has any relevance, which is what I have asked of you.

Nor is he explaining why an anaesthetized body displays no consciouness either -- we've got to look at it from both sides. This, like all such, is just an assertion of "what I believe" while not bothering to notice what anything evidentiary can tell you about it.

Never mind, we'll deal with this in a day or so...

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

All of the definitions of the word "God" that I have understood from the beliefs that I know a little about do not make any sense at all to me, and therefore I reject them. Let me, first give a list of reasons for that:

• I have read all of the usual arguments for the existence of God (ontological and other so-called "proofs"), and when closely examined, they are all in fact very, very weak.
• I am convinced that if God did indeed exist, then it really should be easier to see or sense that "fact." Yet this is not the case.
• I find the effort to explain something I can't understand ("why does anything exist?" or "what is the purpose of life?") by proposing something that I understand even less to be essentially ludicrous.
• There just really is too much evil in the world to permit the existence of an all-good and all-powerful deity.
• It is a striking fact that the God proposed in the religions I know about corresponds so perfectly to human wishes that one really ought to suppose that he is a human invention.

There is, it would seem, some universal feeling in humans that there is some sort of "limit" to everything -- to everything the exists, let's call it "the All" (with the usual capital for the reason of form). That limit, by the way, is sometimes conceived of as being "unbounded." But we really are incapable of conceiving of anything as truly "infinite" -- no start, no end, no bounds. I think that theists and atheists think about the All in different ways. Theists tend to think of it in terms of transcendence (beyond us and what we can perceive), spiritual ("made up of" something that is immaterial) and personal (possesses the characteristic of having intention).

Atheists in general don't deny the All (or we may call it the Absolute, if you like). What we deny is its transcendence, spirituality and personality. The Absolute is not God, but to be not-God does not mean to not be!

However, I do not need God to have a spiritual life, and now is the time to explain why. People can do without religion, as is shown by the many people today and throughout history who have gotten on just fine without it. But I do not think that the can do without communion, without love and without fidelity. We are a social species by our very nature, and these things are integral to that nature.

And I also do not think we can do with some sort of spirituality, because we are also thinking, knowing creatures. We have an intelligence unlike any other that we know of in nature -- we can think of and imagine things far beyond our needs. We do not hunt only for food and shelter and mating opportunities -- we seek for the pleasure of the search. We create whole universes in our minds just because we can. We possess a mind that allows us to seek truth for the seek of knowing the truth, or imagining the unimaginable (how many decimals are there in PI), or to find humor in the world around us. That is the nature of our "spirit," and spirituality is the "life of the spirit."

So, taken at the very broadest sense, one must think of spirituality as being inclusive of all aspects of our existence as humans. And since what makes us human (as well as being an animal, but unlike other animals) is mostly about our mental states. However, nowadays, in conversations like this one, in forums and "new-age" chat rooms all over the world, that sense of the word spirituality is mostly ignored, with the focus being on what is really a very limited part of our inner life -- that which is absolute, eternal or infinite.

I think that misses the point. For me, I think of ourselves as finite beings who confront the infinite. I think of ourselves as ephemeral (we will all die, and we all know it from very early on), but who occupy some small presence within eternity. And I think of ourselves as relative beings (we live in relationship to some parts of the All) but who can contemplate being in relationship with the Absolute.

But we are not infinite, eternal or absolute. We can only frame our existence within the infinite, eternal or absolute through our reason. And our reason includes all of those lesser activities -- eating, sleeping, fornicating, dreaming, wandering through the meadows, gazing at the sky, enjoying scenery or plays or movies or books, communing with our friends, enjoying our hobbies and imaging more than we can ever grasp. And if we suppose that spirituality, or living a spiritual life, means putting all that aside, or pretending that any of it is less important than any other, is to live a lie, and to essentially empty oneself of most of what it means to be human.

And thus I end, saying that living a lie, and emptying oneself of what it means to be human -- well that cannot really be considered spiritual, can it?

 

[Spirit of Light]

All of the definitions of the word "God" that I have understood from the beliefs that I know a little about do not make any sense at all to me, and therefore I reject them. Let me, first give a list of reasons for that:

• I have read all of the usual arguments for the existence of God (ontological and other so-called "proofs"), and when closely examined, they are all in fact very, very weak.
• I am convinced that if God did indeed exist, then it really should be easier to see or sense that "fact." Yet this is not the case.
• I find the effort to explain something I can't understand ("why does anything exist?" or "what is the purpose of life?") by proposing something that I understand even less to be essentially ludicrous.
• There just really is too much evil in the world to permit the existence of an all-good and all-powerful deity.
• It is a striking fact that the God proposed in the religions I know about corresponds so perfectly to human wishes that one really ought to suppose that he is a human invention.

There is, it would seem, some universal feeling in humans that there is some sort of "limit" to everything -- to everything the exists, let's call it "the All" (with the usual capital for the reason of form). That limit, by the way, is sometimes conceived of as being "unbounded." But we really are incapable of conceiving of anything as truly "infinite" -- no start, no end, no bounds. I think that theists and atheists think about the All in different ways. Theists tend to think of it in terms of transcendence (beyond us and what we can perceive), spiritual ("made up of" something that is immaterial) and personal (possesses the characteristic of having intention).

Atheists in general don't deny the All (or we may call it the Absolute, if you like). What we deny is its transcendence, spirituality and personality. The Absolute is not God, but to be not-God does not mean to not be!

However, I do not need God to have a spiritual life, and now is the time to explain why. People can do without religion, as is shown by the many people today and throughout history who have gotten on just fine without it. But I do not think that the can do without communion, without love and without fidelity. We are a social species by our very nature, and these things are integral to that nature.

And I also do not think we can do with some sort of spirituality, because we are also thinking, knowing creatures. We have an intelligence unlike any other that we know of in nature -- we can think of and imagine things far beyond our needs. We do not hunt only for food and shelter and mating opportunities -- we seek for the pleasure of the search. We create whole universes in our minds just because we can. We possess a mind that allows us to seek truth for the seek of knowing the truth, or imagining the unimaginable (how many decimals are there in PI), or to find humor in the world around us. That is the nature of our "spirit," and spirituality is the "life of the spirit."

So, taken at the very broadest sense, one must think of spirituality as being inclusive of all aspects of our existence as humans. And since what makes us human (as well as being an animal, but unlike other animals) is mostly about our mental states. However, nowadays, in conversations like this one, in forums and "new-age" chat rooms all over the world, that sense of the word spirituality is mostly ignored, with the focus being on what is really a very limited part of our inner life -- that which is absolute, eternal or infinite.

I think that misses the point. For me, I think of ourselves as finite beings who confront the infinite. I think of ourselves as ephemeral (we will all die, and we all know it from very early on), but who occupy some small presence within eternity. And I think of ourselves as relative beings (we live in relationship to some parts of the All) but who can contemplate being in relationship with the Absolute.

But we are not infinite, eternal or absolute. We can only frame our existence within the infinite, eternal or absolute through our reason. And our reason includes all of those lesser activities -- eating, sleeping, fornicating, dreaming, wandering through the meadows, gazing at the sky, enjoying scenery or plays or movies or books, communing with our friends, enjoying our hobbies and imaging more than we can ever grasp. And if we suppose that spirituality, or living a spiritual life, means putting all that aside, or pretending that any of it is less important than any other, is to live a lie, and to essentially empty oneself of most of what it means to be human.

And thus I end, saying that living a lie, and emptying oneself of what it means to be human -- well that cannot really be considered spiritual, can it?

Thank you again for your answer

I will give my answer to your last part where you ask about the meaning of taking away this human way of living.
I answer only for my own understanding so others may.

This life in physical world is to me not the real life, therefore I trying to find the true from cultivation. And this realm we are in is one of the lowest life existing. So what we call pleasure here is not a good thing. We get attached to it and when we lose it or can not have it, it create suffering. So no we do need to remove it physically from our life. But attachments to it. When we do lose it or not have, we will suffer from any loss.

We only an illusions that need all of the belongings or the good feeling of pleasure. In my understanding will only be able to experience true pleasure in heaven, that is not the same pleasure as here on earth.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Well, I have seen many people -- all of them religious -- who make the same valuation that you do: that the only life that they have ever experienced, the only one for which they have any evidence whatsoever, is somehow not important, is "lower" than something else about which they know nothing, have experienced nothing, and can provide no evidence for.

I find that to be totally fascinating. I don't find it necessarily all that surprising, however, since it is about the only way they've got of getting rid of that horrible bug-bear that we all face -- that we will one day die. (Facinatingly, they do NOT make the same assumption for all other life on the planet, which they also know full well is likewise going to die. But I guess that comes under the heading of "human exceptionalism," again something for which I can find no evidence.)

 

[Spirit of Light]

Well, I have seen many people -- all of them religious -- who make the same valuation that you do: that the only life that they have ever experienced, the only one for which they have any evidence whatsoever, is somehow not important, is "lower" than something else about which they know nothing, have experienced nothing, and can provide no evidence for.

I find that to be totally fascinating. I don't find it necessarily all that surprising, however, since it is about the only way they've got of getting rid of that horrible bug-bear that we all face -- that we will one day die. (Facinatingly, they do NOT make the same assumption for all other life on the planet, which they also know full well is likewise going to die. But I guess that comes under the heading of "human exceptionalism," again something for which I can find no evidence.)

The way I see it and understand it is through the karmic system, the way I understand this is that it is a place we our karmic debt to the, thereby we suffer.

But I very aware that other people see it or understand it differently then I do.

Animals and plants going through the same suffering as we do as human beings, beings above our level of existence do have to suffer this way, my understanding