Hmmm...  But can you define and/or explain "spiritual"?  'Cause I just can't identify with the word at all.  And of course, I disagree with much of what else you say except that it's "a right brain/left brain kind of thing" - simplified to say that it's all in the brain or mind of whomever feels 'spiritual' to any degree.  Still, I just don't get it... can't relate to it.

This is exactly what I was trying to say Bretta. That some folk can't relate to it at all but this does not make them "lesser"

Yeah...  I agree with you there, of course, CH... but you do consider yourself to be a spiritual person... can you not define and/or explain the term, at least as it applies to you?  That is, in any manner at all that might help me grasp the concept.

I guess this is where the problem lies. I DON'T consider myself a spirirual person because I am really not sure what it is.

Well, now you've completely lost me...  What about your "Do Atheists Pray" thread, such as in the OP (partly the basis of my previous):

"Everybody is in need of spiritual help in their lives."

Edit:  Don't get me wrong - I'm not trying to trip you up.  Maybe this whole "spiritual" thing is just so ingrained that few people actually consider themselves to be 'spiritual' - at least to the point of being able to explain it - but they just use the word because they've been indoctrinated from birth(?)  Just a thought, that ties into my thinking.

My brain tells me that love (spirituality) is a verb.  Ultimately, it's all about who you are in the world.  What you do and say.  Is it helpful or hurtful?  To be "spiritual" starts with a resolve to at least try not to do harm.

I get really pissed when some literalist with no imagination tries to tell me about spirituality.  It's my own informed choice.  No one else's business.  I'm not performing mass executions or indoctrinating anyone with my opinion on either side of the fence.  Look first to putting your own house in order.  When that's been done demonstratably, then share your particular "truth".  Hypocrisy is soooooo tiresome.....

Errr...  Is this based on my posts, NJ (asked since it follows mine)?

My opinion of Fundies, Brett.

Spirituality, as I experience it, is a feeling of oneness or synthesis, of unity or at-one-ment with everyone and everything.

To me, spirituality is experiential. The words and concepts we use to describe spiritual experience are arbtirary creations.

In other words, the spiritual experience is true, but the explanations are our creations. When we act directly from the spiritual experience, then we can't go too wrong.

We went wrong when we literalized and doctrinized the spiritual explanations of a few select people, and believed in them absolutely.

Well, that helps confirm it fer me a lot!  I don't think I'm capable of feeling unity with millions of infants being born around the world that I don't - and never will - know even exist.  The same with millions now on their death bed and/or dying over the the next few minutes and hours who I never knew existed except as digits in the now estimated 6,782,049,273 folk across the planet.  And the same with most of those between... otherwise, the word "unity" loses meaning for me where there is truly unity in my view and the way I use language.

And then there's 'everything', too.  Nope, I can't say that I feel 'unity' with some quark deep in a dying star humankind hasn't yet identified in Andromeda, much less all the molecules and sub-atomic particles that make up the ~30 to ~40 septillion stars in the known universe, not to mention all the unknown planets dust and pieces of rubble there and in the beyond - the as yet unknown universe.  And how can I feel 'unity' with whatever matter there is that makes up the bulk of mass - now so-called 'dark matter' - when I don't even know its nature.  Heck, I can't even feel unity in any meaningful way with some ant in the Gobi desert and the grains of dirt the ant experiences, much less things we don't know the nature of.

Now I could be 'literalizing' and 'doctrinizing' too much, but it just makes way more sense to dismiss the idea of 'spirituality' for me, if that's the alternative.

I feel like Spirituality is like a sixth sense. Something that allows you to be in tune with yourself and those around you. I can think that I'm spiritual but I can be mistaken it for something else.

Now I could be 'literalizing' and 'doctrinizing' too much, but it just makes way more sense to dismiss the idea of 'spirituality' for me, if that's the alternative.

I think this comment is well put because its easier to think your not spiritual. And in fact by reading all of her posts I think she is spiritual. I suppose its one of those complexe things that people can't be bothered with even though naturally they are spriritual. Its like when someone says they aren't funny then you talked to them and they make you laugh.

For me its a choice, I try to be spiritual and there might be a difference between trying and actually just being.

Brett and Jooly: I actually feel that cosmic energy is a self-creative or self-generative singularity in a state of synthesis, and that the actual or ultimate state of being is one of synthesis.

The analysis thereof is merely the analysis. It does not reflect the actual state of being.

We humans, as conceptual creatures, are so hung up on our concepts that we believe we experience what we concetpualize. Once we delve deeply into the unconceptualized experience—as in meditation—then we can break free from our conceptual prison and actually experience being as a synthesis, or being synthesis.

Great thread, crazyheart.

I agree that we all have spiritual selves, but perhaps we're not all aware of it.

Also, it's not an easy thing to define. To some, it's a "born again" moment, when there is a direct experience of the Divine. (such as when a fundamentalist "talks in tongues".)

To others, such as our friend Arminius, it is "a feeling of oneness or synthesis, of unity or at-one-ment with everything and everybody".

I experience my spirituality as connection with everything and everybody - a lack of awareness at that particular moment of my own ego or self. As such, it's a state that I slip in and out of. Different things arouse my spirituality - listening to classical music, playing with my grandchildren, listening to a good sermon, even playing tennis!

Anything that evokes at-one-ment defines for me a spiritual experience.

As to your point about arrogance on the part of those who define themselves as spiritual, I can only say that for me when I experience at-one-ment I feel blessed.

I was hoping you would stop by PP. This is also very helpful to me. thank you.

If it's a right/left brain thing, then it's a right/left brain thing, and not supernatural.  Why complicate the matter with superstitious, baseless assertions?

Nice to see you again Star Stuff. Thought maybe you'd left us.

Arminius said: "We humans, as conceptual creatures, are so hung up on our concepts that we believe we experience what we conceptualize. Once we delve deeply into the unconceptualized experience—as in meditation—then we can break free from our conceptual prison and actual experience being as a synthesis, or being synthesis.:

Good answer.

Brett, I found your post interesting, and I hope that someday you can open up to Everything and understand what we mean. It'll blow yer mind man!

It has also been said that the knowledge scientists have can make them seem arrogant at times. Well, I think both are worth a little seeming arrogance.

Gee, not many people who know me well, consider me 'closed', but why don't you help by telling me "what [you] mean" by "Everything" (and "everyone" for that matter), given that I've used what I perceive is based on the dictionary.  Simply implying that I don't 'get it' while still not giving seems not the least bit useful or helpful in letting me know "what [you] mean".

(I don't 'get' your last sentence "I think both are worth a little seeming arrogance".  Heck, I don't even find scientists 'arrogant' by and large and certainly not simply because they're knowledgeable - I do usually find them most helpful and that they'll usually answer questions directly and to effect... no beating around the bush, no evasion, no avoidance, no obfuscation, nothing but help :-) ).