From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Sun Sep 24 2000 - 19:44:29 MDT
QueeneMUSE@aol.com wrote:
>
> In a message dated 9/22/2000 10:15:06 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
> emlyn@one.net.au writes:
>
> >
> > Striving for excellence is excellent. Where's the room for
> > spirituality/mysticism/religosity? Why do we need it? Does it benefit us to
> > add it? What price do we pay?
> >
It depends utterly (of course) on what you mean by those terms. One
person's awe before the scope of nature and science is another person's
spirituality. They are not cleanly divisible. Trying to do so is a
largely a waste of time and shows a lack of understanding of the
richness of huamn experience and motivation imho.
Does it benefit us to rail against what might look less rational to you
or I? Probably not. It benefits us to point out rank superstition and
the refusal to look at evidence. It does not benefit us to rail against
being overcome by feelings of awe and feeling as if there is a Presence
within our experience that we cannot quite grasp. I would point out
that many of the greatest scientists were not so dismissive of that.
What is being added? For many of us these feelings and experiences are
the given, not something added. For those with an active mind who are
not lazy it requires a lot of seeking to understand just what it is,
what it means, what it is good for and so on. It does not lead
automatically into any superstitious and out-moded or anti-science
religious viewpoint although many religious try quite hard to own this
space and to coopt people who are touched by these things.
One place where you might need something very akin to
spirituality/mysticism/religion is in devising a vision, a collective
understanding and motivation, of where we wish to go with all our
expanded powers to change and do. Science and materialism generally
have not had much to say about ethics or such general goals and
over-arching concerns. Without a vision the people perish.
- samantha
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