From: Lee Daniel Crocker (lee@piclab.com)
Date: Tue Nov 20 2001 - 12:06:02 MST
> At this point I think we have reached functions that folk psychology might
> dub `spiritual', because it long ago mistakenly theorized that such states
> were a kind of `communication with the ineffable', or even with a `god'. If
> all this, however crudely put, is so, then obviously anyone of any subtlety
> will be well acquainted with the spiritual--but the more earth-bound and
> `practical' and `no bullshit' one is forced to be, the less access one can
> have to those processes. One might end up as Babbitt.
>
> Spirituality without spirits, that's the way to go; consequently, as Emlyn
> notes, it'd be useful to have a new or at least less
> metaphysically-encrusted term than `spirituality'.
When self-proclaimed "spiritual" people I've known finally get
around to describing what it is they are talking about, the impression
I usually get is something like a "sense of beauty", where "beauty"
is extended beyond the mere immediate senses, to ideas and values.
The mistake made by most of them is that they try to apply it
directly to actions, rather than using reason to determine which
actions are likely to support one's spritually-chosen values.
-- Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/> "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past, are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC
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