I have noticed that often spiritual wisdom/knowledge is seen as less valuable then science knowledge and I wonder why it is so?
For starters, what you are calling wisdom and knowledge don't meet my criteria for either.
Second, you claim that their is value in whatever it is that you are calling spiritual, but I don't find value there, you have never even tried to explain what you consider valuable about it and why.
And third, I don't see it having any value even for you. Au contraire. I see you and others who call themselves spiritual or their ideas wisdom or knowledge as philosophically untethered and floating in pursuit of something that isn't there.
Value to me, like truth, is grounded in utility - how useful is any given idea at helping one accomplish their goals, which for me is to maximize satisfying experiences while minimizing mistakes and pitfalls that lead to any of the various kinds of unhappiness such as sham, self-reproach, making enemies, etc..
I reject all other formulations of truth, knowledge, value, and wisdom such as yours because they simply can't accomplish any of that for me. If it meets some need for you, and it must for you to so doggedly pursue this path, then you must have some otherwise unsatisfied need that I don't have.
Just a few more things. You start threads like these bemoaning the lack of respect you get for your worldview and methods, complaining as if you are attacked by those who don't have that respect, but I don't see people telling you what they don't like about your ideas until you go demanding respect for them. That is, if you would just go about your business quietly and in the company of like-minded people, you would get all of the respect and validation you seek with no blow back from people like me.
But that's not what happens. Here you are in a debate forum asking others why they don't respect your methods as much as those of science, for example, and they tell you. I'm telling you. And then you'll go brood over the answer, because it's the opposite of what you seek - validation.
What do think somebody like me sees when he encounters somebody like you? Do you think I see I guy who's on to something big and better that I'm missing out on and need to look into again. If your life were happy and victorious and mine was not, maybe.
But I see the opposite. I see a guy chasing his tail seeking something lacking in his life. I see a guy who is unhappy, unsatisfied. Do you think that that is something I would want for myself? Should I follow in your footsteps? Should I consider what you are doing useful in helping me achieve an optimal life, especially given that I am content and satisfied?
Yet here you are bemoaning the lack of respect you get. It reminds me of those lost spirits in fiction such as those in Poltergeist, that are trapped in a place they can't find their way out of, wandering around and around the room looking for the door, or for happy people.
This is the opposite of what I want as described above. I want to live a life of honor, dignity, satisfaction. I want to experience self-respect, the respect of others. I want a life of accomplishment, relatively free of guilt, feeling adrift, a sense of meaninglessness or alienation, and self-reproach. I want to not make enemies and avoid strife. I want a happy marriage, and satisfying work.
And I want these things at the material level as well. I want freedom from economic insecurity.
I have those things, in large part, I believe, because I didn't and don't pursue the kinds of things you find valuable, which seem to me to be distractions preventing you from finding real contentment. I chose a different path, and accomplished my personal goals.
I could help you if you'd let me, but you don't like, trust, or believe people like me. Ironically, despite your clamoring for respect, you don't respect my world or my worldview. But here's a difference between us - I don't care if you respect me or my ideas. I don't need your affirmation, and will never start a thread complaining that I don't get it.
Wisdom aquired during spiritual practice often spiritual teaching.
Let's get a little more concrete. I think much of your problem comes from entertaining unclear ideas that don't knit into a unified mental edifice. I don't think you have a clear idea of what wisdom is. I have a very simple working definition that allows me to judge whether what you are calling wisdom meets those criteria, and having a clear idea is key.
If intelligence is successfully interpreting the signs in life such that one can exploit opportunities in one's pursuit of happiness, that is, get what they want, then wisdom is knowing what to want to achieve happiness and satisfaction. An intelligent person capable of amassing a huge fortune using that intelligence just might find out that though successful at his immediate goal of becoming wealthy, it left he empty - unsatisfied, still craving something and not knowing what. That person lacked wisdom.
Now take that definition back to what you are calling wisdom. Your ideas are not working for you. They leave you wanting just like the guy trying to accumulate great wealth to the exclusion of the things that would have made him happy. That's not wisdom. That's its opposite. You pursue things that will not make or leave you content.
So, as long as you call ideas that don't facilitate your achieving ataraxia wisdom, you will remain lost and in pursuit of that which cannot bring you happiness. Although I'm sure that my advice to you is excellent, I'm as sure that you cannot benefit from it. You'd first have to consider what I wrote to you might be helpful - wise even. But I think that ship has sailed for good. You have decided that people like me are way off base, lost in materialism, and too numb to see what you consider higher truths and why they should pursue them with you in search of enlightenment.
But I see it the other way around. I have the higher truths, and would gladly share them with you, but you are unprepared to receive them.
Spiritual knowledge is true and useful
Useful for what?
This is where you get lost. You are calling any idea that appeals to you truth, and calling it useful even if it accomplishes nothing for you. You need a better understanding of each.
I see so much of this on these threads - people using words like God and supernatural (and wisdom, and truth) with no clear idea of what they are actually claiming to be the case for lack of a clear and relatively limited idea of what they mean. They add unnecessary complexity that just confuses the issue for them.
Here's what I mean. Truth is the quality facts possess, facts being linguistic strings (sentences, paragraphs) that accurately map in words some aspect of reality. The way we know that we have a fact is its utility. If the idea helps us successfully anticipate outcomes and thus controlling personal experience, then it is useful, and a fact, and contains truth.
And the collection of ideas meeting these criteria constitute knowledge. These are clear ideas that keep me grounded in reality and to achieve my goals.
I find that as soon as one relaxes these standards and starts calling whatever they like truth even if it has no correlate in reality, they're lost. They've cut the cord that grounds them - that grounds me - and untethered, they drift into a mental space of useless ideas. I can call to you ("Carol Ann! Head for the light!"), but I have nothing for you until you rid yourself of the ideas that are holding you back, first and foremost being that you are on the right track, and my skeptical and empirical approach is the dead end rather than your dithering with ideas like spiritual truth and wisdom as I have suggested, you are locked in.
What is true and useful to you in spiritual teaching? Guess you will say spiritual teaching is not true or useful.......not so easy to have a serioues conversation then.
That's correct. I find none of it true or useful by my definitions above.
And you are correct. As long as we disagree not only on what is true, useful, wise, and valuable, and even on what those words mean or how to decide which ideas meet those criteria, there is nothing to discuss.
I'd ask you to give me a clear definition of spiritual, and explain how such ideas are either true or useful according to clear ideas of what those words mean, and thus how to decide whether those words apply to any given idea, but I know you can't. And that is a problem for you.
Anyway, good luck to you. And stop initiating threads that basically beg others to refute you if you don't like that treatment, which you don't. Stick with like-minded people if you don't like constructive criticism, not the general population of RF.
