Spirituality

Then how many must feel this "spirit" for it to be considered existent? Like a court room if there is a witness there is usly unreasonable doubt. why does this not apply to this?

Hi Shane and welcome to the site. Well more than one for a start. The problem I see with some of your comments about spirit and spirituality is that you present no way to empirically confirm the existence of this spirit. It's all very well saying that you can detect your spirit by meditation, but how can confirm that? No matter how long I meditate, I won't be able to detect your spirit, will I? This kind of evidence is entirely subjective. In my opinion this makes it all but valueless.What would make me take notions of spirit seriously?Well, for starters, a definition of "spirit" and "spirituality" that we can all agree on. Then some kind of empirical, objective, repeatable evidence that anybody can observe.Until then (and I'm not holding my breath), talk of spirituality is always going to be vague, subjective and essentially fruitless.Mutate and Survive

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"A curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understands it." - Jacques Monod

If your looking for physical evidence that wont happen obviously a spirit can not jump out of a body and write down on a piece of paper that it exists. But what it can do is keep you from committing suicide after you lose your family or give you that driving force to have a come back in a football game. The evidence you seek comes from a materialistic view of life. Not saying that its neither optimistic or pessimistic view. When you have absolute nothing left what is there to turn to besides your self?
and when i speak of feeling the spirit im not talking about my self more like for anyone who feels their spirit or has access to the realmEdited by Shane20, : No reason given.

Hi, Shane.Welcome to EvC! Judging by the recent shift of the SyFy channel to showing almost non-stop ghost shows, I would say most people who believe in spirits disagree with you.This leaves us with the question of whether you or they should be considered more authoritative on the subject of the nature of spirits.I have led a very religious life. I was raised by highly religious parents. I am a member of a priesthood. I was a full-time missionary in Taiwan for two years. What I have come to recognize is that I don't "feel the spirit" in the same way, at the same times, or for the same things as other people.A few years ago, I learned that the differences in my ability to feel the spirit from others was very probably explained by the hereditary psychological disorder with which I was diagnosed about seven years ago.This means that, either I never knew what spiritual sensations felt like, or spiritual sensations emanate from my brain. How else could a psychological disorder scramble my spirituality?

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Shane, Well quite, and please don't imagine that I can't see the bind you are in here. It's not going to possible to provide material evidence of a non-material object.My problem is that, without any material evidence, what reason do we have left to believe in "spirit" at all? How do you know? Or, more specifically, how do you know that spirit is what's responsible? How do you rule out other causes?Given what we know about the workings of the brain, it seems to me that our thoughts and emotions are intrinsically linked to that organ; a material cause.How do you separate the two causes? The scientific method teaches us to take steps in experiments, whereby external or alternative causes are ruled out. This is important, because it allows us to hone in on the causes/effects that we are interested in. I just don't see how you can do this with a subjective, non-material entity like a spirit or soul. That is because I am interested in knowing, in terms as absolute as is possible. This is possible with a materialistic outlook. With a non-material approach, all is subjective and we can't be at all sure about anything. This is exactly what moves me to criticise your approach I'm afraid. You don't know that when others talk about a "soul", they are talking about the same thing. You have no way of knowing. You could both be talking about entirely separate phenomena, but merely couching them in the same language. How would you know? How would you rule out this possibility?You couldn't. That is why I regard talk of "spirituality" as, for the most part, meaningless.Mutate and Survive

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"A curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understands it." - Jacques Monod

Well perhaps your constant to exposure to the search of your spirituality caused it to enclose it self. I dont know your personal life so i can be wrong but if your parents made you be apart of religion growing maybe your sub concuss grew sick of it and now seeks enlightenment through more of a natural aspect. Like someone raised to being "in order" would be more likely to rebel then some one who was not. Saying that maybe it was not a bestowal but you were force fed maybe?

This is the basic question What created everything, some would say the big bang well something created the big bang. There is a connection between us and everything else in this universe. We are just as much apart of this history as anything else. From my own experience people with your same argument merely have a spirit who has not been awakened do to cosmic reasoning unknown. It may take a traumatic experience or the just simple showing of "light". Now I would call my self a transcendentalist perhaps but i have never been involved with religion. Just knowing that there is something after life is enough to one day deserve an awakened spirit for anyone.

Shane, This may be a basic question, but it's not the basic question, at least, not for the purposes of this discussion. The origin of the universe is not really the issue here. This is a pretty vague statement, but in essence, it sounds like a materialist observation. We are all indeed connected, to each other and the universe at large, by being composed of matter. Again, how do you know? You're not answering my questions. It's all very well for you to say that I have a spirit, but if you can't demonstrate the truth of your statement, why should I take it seriously? Doesn't the sort of independent minded approach mean that you have more responsibility than anyone to back up what you claim or believe? Aside from the difficulties of knowing what exists after death, it's not a matter of "deserving" anything. There either is or is not such a thing as a soul. Whether we deserve it or not is irrelevant.Mutate and Survive

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"A curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understands it." - Jacques Monod

"Feeling" it doesn't matter. You need to quantify it. Until you can quantify it, we can't do science with it. It remains in philosophy or one of the other soft studies.I approve of your meta-journey, don't get me wrong. But I strongly urge you to start keeping good records. A journey needs a journal. Write down every metaphysical experience you have, particularly dreams. Write down relevant aspects of your life that seem to relate to these experiences. Numbers are important, if you can't get a good count of this or that, estimate. When you can get a good count, estimate and check against the count, to see how much margin of error you normally have.Particularly keep track of what you are consuming. I don't mean just the psychedelics like marijuana or mdma, I mean everything. Not only nicotine or alcohol or caffeine either, carbs, proteins, quality and quantity. Beans vs meat, corn syrup vs real sugar. Are you understanding me?Keeping a good record means you can do charts and graphs and overviews which tell you what is really working and what isn't. Not keeping a good record means that none of the teachers you are wishing you had is going to take you on, and none of the students you would like to earn are going to get any value out of you except cotton candy ignorance-validation.Edited by Iblis, : "The universe is an intelligence test."

The question of how do I know is explained through the feelings. This is a feeling of fulfillment a robust flow of passion. The argument is like saying how can you prove happiness with a smile? Is that the evidence needed? there are triggers that make feelings happen Even someone logistic as your self has to admit that feelings are real. To me its common sense our matter is just that matter but what we feel and think just doesn't go into nothingness after death for some people the mystery will never be solved in this life only more question lay for them. Really though i understand that the concrete evidence is obsolete but something as real as love everyone agrees with but when some say feels there spirit it is dismissed why is this?

As for science that is all we know cause that is all that was said. That is a man made concept.

Shane, Well this is where we part company. Feelings may be important to us all, but they are a poor guide to reality. Feelings are often wrong. Then why not call it "fulfilment" or "passion"? Why conflate these emotions with notions of spirit?What has emotion got to do with spirit anyway? I see no connection between a spirit (in the sense of "soul") and emotional response. I do however see a connection between emotion and the brain; only entities with brains seem to possess emotion and emotional response is known to be affected by brain damage. That would be a good start! It is at least an objective measure. I agree that feelings are real. They are not always accurate though. Probably because our experience of love can be objectively observed, at least to some extent. Changes in behaviour, changes in brain chemistry and such like...You seem to be constantly conflating the concepts of "spirit" and "emotion". Why is this? Is spirit synonymous with emotion? If so, why refer to spirit at all? If not, how can they be differentiated?If you can't answer these kind of questions, I think that you should seriously consider the possibility that this "spirit" that you are pondering over is actually nothing more than a vague notion. Maybe it really is no more than a figment of our imagination.Mutate and Survive

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"A curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understands it." - Jacques Monod

I see the conflicting issue with the passion and fulfillment. But these manifest from somewhere its not like this is just effortless impulse to feel something more. This is effortless joy and happiness, waking up in the morning and feeling at complete perfect peace with your self. It sad that some need Financial stability for this because the money is not there when you die. I know there is no way to measure this or put into numbers. But if there was no spirit there would be no reason for mankind to pursue religion or any scientific objects, because what is it that we are trying to solve the nothing or the next? We would be stuck in the same age and never make progress at knowing more. If it takes physics discovering the higgs particle then so be it.

Shane, Yes. They emanate from the brain. Which prett ymuch leaves you chasing your tail... This is, in my view, a very selfish attitude. Every scientific advance improves the lives of future generations. That makes knowledge valuable in it own right. The reality or unreality of a soul or spirit has nothing to do with this. Just because spirits are unknowable doesn't mean that everything is. We can still learn much about our universe even if some things must remain speculative.Mutate and Survive

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"A curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understands it." - Jacques Monod

I know its distilled in you that reality is a number. But how do people manage to move past that like look at tarot cards or wigi boards. This phenomena happens and very much exists. Just because our ability as a people we havent been able to record it does not mean its not there. As for your own experiment go around and ask people if they feel a spirit with in them write all the ones that say yes and all the ones that say no then i think you will see your answer. If you have to think about your own spirit then so be it and when you feel the enlightenment you will know its unexplainable