The spiritual journey
Blogging after reading this on the BBC site.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4903424.stm
I suppose this has been brought up because it's Easter time which at least for Christians should be a time of thinking. Though it depends on how they interpret Christianity how they will interpret any Easter message.
Quote:
We're losing our sense of spirituality,which doesn't necessarily have to mean a belief in God. What it does have to mean is that there is more to life than material values. We're reluctant to talk about the human spirit, a process which began when the Enlightenment shook traditional opinions about Christianity.
Well, to start off with I find blanket looking at religion as having anything to do with spirituality. The amount of cruelty that has resulted from religious beliefs is so high and that kind of behaviour has nothing to do with spirituality at all. Any doubt I had about anything like this, and I had virtually none at all, maybe even none then, was totally lost when I read the excellent book A History Of The Trial, where religious cruelty was well documented.
Ofcourse being a woman and of an alternative sexuality has left me with nothing about scepticism and cyncism about the foundations of religion. I know not everyone belonging to different religions is closed minded and some are more accepting and loving than non religious people. But it still doesn't change the fact that most religions have part of their base well founded in hatred and othering other people to the point of ostracising and at times to death. And spirituality isn't even considered while these religions consider the people they are hounding or saying are less than equal to other people on the point of gender or sexuality .... or belief.
I read in A History Of The Trial that a whole village was burnt down in Germany because the people there had embraced what was seen as the wrong branch of Christianity by the people in power.
Spirituality? I think not.
I agree that spirituality is seeing more in life than the quest for material wealth in various ways. It doesn't have to exclude earning a good salary but there has to be a spiritual life enfolded within it.
Praying and performing various rituals is to me outside of spirituality if it doesn't involve a kindness of heart which in some ways trickles out into society.
Strangely I agree and disagree with this article. There is a lot more acceptance of people's differences these days than there was at a time when some people might consider society more "spiritual". It's about seeing people past the colour of their skin, past their gender, past whether they are heterosexual or not etc. Past a lot of things.
If you don't I guess you are practicing something like blind hate.
But at the same time there is definitely a feeling that what matters is social position to the point where designer clothes became almost a badge of acceptance in society and individual creativity was out of the door and mostly rejected.
I think that advancement of ideas is a good thing. Though science has us in an unhappy position at the moment. If spirituality was more advanced we could probably tackle the situation because we wouldn't be so scared about what might happen if we were left without the money to keep society stable or to protect ourselves from other regiemes.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4903424.stm
I suppose this has been brought up because it's Easter time which at least for Christians should be a time of thinking. Though it depends on how they interpret Christianity how they will interpret any Easter message.
Quote:
We're losing our sense of spirituality,which doesn't necessarily have to mean a belief in God. What it does have to mean is that there is more to life than material values. We're reluctant to talk about the human spirit, a process which began when the Enlightenment shook traditional opinions about Christianity.
Well, to start off with I find blanket looking at religion as having anything to do with spirituality. The amount of cruelty that has resulted from religious beliefs is so high and that kind of behaviour has nothing to do with spirituality at all. Any doubt I had about anything like this, and I had virtually none at all, maybe even none then, was totally lost when I read the excellent book A History Of The Trial, where religious cruelty was well documented.
Ofcourse being a woman and of an alternative sexuality has left me with nothing about scepticism and cyncism about the foundations of religion. I know not everyone belonging to different religions is closed minded and some are more accepting and loving than non religious people. But it still doesn't change the fact that most religions have part of their base well founded in hatred and othering other people to the point of ostracising and at times to death. And spirituality isn't even considered while these religions consider the people they are hounding or saying are less than equal to other people on the point of gender or sexuality .... or belief.
I read in A History Of The Trial that a whole village was burnt down in Germany because the people there had embraced what was seen as the wrong branch of Christianity by the people in power.
Spirituality? I think not.
I agree that spirituality is seeing more in life than the quest for material wealth in various ways. It doesn't have to exclude earning a good salary but there has to be a spiritual life enfolded within it.
Praying and performing various rituals is to me outside of spirituality if it doesn't involve a kindness of heart which in some ways trickles out into society.
Strangely I agree and disagree with this article. There is a lot more acceptance of people's differences these days than there was at a time when some people might consider society more "spiritual". It's about seeing people past the colour of their skin, past their gender, past whether they are heterosexual or not etc. Past a lot of things.
If you don't I guess you are practicing something like blind hate.
But at the same time there is definitely a feeling that what matters is social position to the point where designer clothes became almost a badge of acceptance in society and individual creativity was out of the door and mostly rejected.
I think that advancement of ideas is a good thing. Though science has us in an unhappy position at the moment. If spirituality was more advanced we could probably tackle the situation because we wouldn't be so scared about what might happen if we were left without the money to keep society stable or to protect ourselves from other regiemes.
posted by Zeb at 5:35 AM
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