You jumped to a conclusion about atheists and I let you know you were wrong. Asserting that your “spiritual realm” (whatever that is) is special because you believe yours is in tune with “God” is just that - an assertion. Here’s my assertion - theistic frameworks are completely unnecessary for “spiritual realms”.
I’m confused. One post you say faith isn’t reasonable then you say it is. Which one is it?
you have no idea what you are talking about. The mind can choose to use logic and reason or the mind can choose to use faith.
To the Church of Corinth, Paul wrote…
"For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.
Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness; But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.
Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men"
The mind’s logic and reason are of no help to a man’s spirit. But the mind can choose to act and believe on faith. And the mind can choose to be delighted in the law of the Lord and can choose to meditate on the law day and night.
don’t bother me with your parsing of bible verses.
I jumped to no conclusions. I live in a family of atheists, have atheist friends and I’ve never heard them any of them voice what you have decided to expound. So, since reading your post, I asked some of them directly. It appears you have come up with your own definitions, or at least that is their take. First any of them have heard of it, and frankly they are quite skeptical of you. Many of them believe in Body and Mind, but not Body, Mind, and Spirit. (The mind, they say, not the spirit, prompts and runs emotions. When the body dies, so does the mind, including emotions. No part (which people with religious faith call ‘spirit’) lives on.
Religion teaches that God is a spiritual being, and then “heaven” God’s place, is a spiritual realm. If you want to expand that definition to include your beliefs, it doesn’t bother me, but do understand it originated with belief and faith in God. As an atheist, do you believe in the afterlife known as heaven? Do you believe part of you is spirit and that part lives on?
Spirituality is used in many forms outside of “thing that exists not attached to your body after you die”. You still haven’t even defined spirit outside of “it’s where God lives”. It’s not anything. Its just a catch all phrase to put complex emotions or mental states that are difficult to put into words. The notion of “spirituality” is much more broad than the Christian/religious notion of a ghost in your body that goes to heaven. So, yes, if you look at “spirituality” only through the lens of your religion (a phrase you still haven’t defined) then I can see why you are confused. As I said multiple times, being “spiritual” doesn’t necessitate a theistic God. Spirituality can fall into pantheistic frameworks or even general philosophical frameworks, say, existentialism. And let’s not forget that this whole conversation started because you claimed atheists aren’t capable or “stop at the physical” regarding spirituality, which is completely false. When I think about the universe, I go into mystical, emotional, almost platonic states of mind - some Christians might say “spiritual experience of God”. I just say, “spiritual experience of the universe”, and I don’t use those experiences to make claims about the validity of ancient mythology or fairy tales of magic people.
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No I believe we are experiential beings fundamentally, and what lives on is the generic state of experience. Our bodies merely produce said experience, and the experience of the memories stored within those bodies. There isn’t a self directional meta physical entity capable of being separated from the body that transcends into some non physical realm. It is fused into the physical realm as a property of reality. Reality is dualistic.
And as I said, spirit is not “mind”, mind is part of the physical realm, even when you believe your mind has created a mystical, emotional, platonic state of mind. If it is not your mind that thinks about the validity of ancient mythology or fairy tales of magic people, what part of you does?
Basically, being atheist means you don’t believe in a Theistic God. It doesn’t mean you are required to be a pure naturalist. It doesn’t mean you can’t believe in a duality of reality’s properties. It doesn’t mean you can’t believe in metaphysical properties of phenomenon as they arise in the context of your own being. Spirituality and “the spirit” in classical Christian terms are two different things. And it can be argued that sticking dogmatically to a religion INHIBITS deep spiritual exploration, due to the shackles of faith, rather than ruthless skepticism and exploratory risk taking.
You’re not following along well because you keep looking at the subject through the lens of your religion. The mind is not only physical and atheism doesn’t require a belief in only physical substances. And being spiritual doesn’t require that a spirit can exist without a body.
Exactly. As I said before, you believe in a physical realm. There is no indication you believe in spirits or a spiritual realm. In fact, you seem to dismiss such as “magic” or “fairy tales”.
Yes, all religions, and lack thereof are equal.
All rely on human imagination.
Scientology == Christianity
As Einstein said, All huge scientific discoveries have required a great leap of imagination. He also noted that often times we don’t know how great knowledge came to be known. People of faith possess both these qualities and proceed from there.
Science also relies heavily on imagination.
Science, however, can work from imagination to hypothesis, to theory.
Religion has no such path. It’s all imagination.
Science has physical matter and measurements to work with. Spiritual matters do not, but that doesn’t make them any less true.
Because spiritual matters are in your imagination
No serious Christian theologian believes this dreck.
Its called a leap of faith for a reason.
As though the thoughts of a Christian theologian have any relevance here. Salvation is not an academic exercise.
it very much is there are whole university devoted to the very subject.
Perfect answer from a lib. Thank you. Your post should be bronzed and set up on a forum mantle for all to see.
