3 ms·

This only works if the Christian god is real, which the majority of the world finds not to be the case. I think it may be possible to develop practices and com

This only works if the Christian god is real, which the majority of the world finds not to be the case. I think it may be possible to develop practices and communities that provide similar benefits without the supernatural baggage, but it will take some work. I've been looking a bit into spiritual naturalism lately (and related groups), but it seems it is still quite early days for these movements.

yters 7y ago
I liken it to the law of gravity: everyone falls down cliffs whether they believe in gravity or not. Similarly with the Christian ethic: it'll work regardless of whether everyone believes the underlying rationale. In fact, that is what happened in the West, its social construct is based on the Christian ethic, and continues to function despite most of the West no longer believing the underlying reason.
- dwaltrip 7y ago
  Ah ok, yeah I'm game with importing values and perspectives, which as you state has already happened to a certain degree. It is a non-trivial process through, and I do believe we need to build up a new shared foundation, supporting layer, rituals, etc. that don't have the supernatural baggage.
  - yters 7y ago
    It isn't possible without the 'supernatural baggage'. You need a basis for why humans are different, but if everything reduces to natural processes humans are fundamentally the same thing as everything else.
jariel 7y ago
"This only works if the Christian god is real, which the majority of the world finds not to be the case" Just past 1/2 of the world's population believe in the 'Abrahamic God'. [1] I think it would be a total misinterpretation of spirituality to put it in terms of 'god is real/not real'. Even within Abrahamic faiths, at the end of the day, God is generally 'unknowable' and these ideas of God being 'a guy up in the clouds' are borderline heresy. Point being: the Abrahamic 'God' is a concept, not a 'dude', and it shares a lot in common with other spiritual foundations. The developing morality in humanity may be a function of some greater purpose/force/unknowable power that the Abrahamic God alludes to, and possibly shares with other metaphysical ideals and religions, which provides us the basis for a Spiritual version of equality referenced by the OP. I would argue this is really important, because as we move into the age of materialism and individualism, it's going to get ever harder to justify general artefacts of morality and kindness. We are losing a lot of common ground that we used to take for granted at least in the belief we were all 'Children of God' so to speak. I believe the social implications of our current secularism is quite profound, in some ways good, but in some ways bad. The article presents of foundational data to probably what many of us already knew; I don't suggest there's going to be a problem if we just try to act like adults about it. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_religious_populations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_religious_populations

yters 7y ago

I liken it to the law of gravity: everyone falls down cliffs whether they believe in gravity or not. Similarly with the Christian ethic: it'll work regardless of whether everyone believes the underlying rationale. In fact, that is what happened in the West, its social construct is based on the Christian ethic, and continues to function despite most of the West no longer believing the underlying reason.

dwaltrip 7y ago
Ah ok, yeah I'm game with importing values and perspectives, which as you state has already happened to a certain degree. It is a non-trivial process through, and I do believe we need to build up a new shared foundation, supporting layer, rituals, etc. that don't have the supernatural baggage.
- yters 7y ago
  It isn't possible without the 'supernatural baggage'. You need a basis for why humans are different, but if everything reduces to natural processes humans are fundamentally the same thing as everything else.

jariel 7y ago

"This only works if the Christian god is real, which the majority of the world finds not to be the case" Just past 1/2 of the world's population believe in the 'Abrahamic God'. [1] I think it would be a total misinterpretation of spirituality to put it in terms of 'god is real/not real'. Even within Abrahamic faiths, at the end of the day, God is generally 'unknowable' and these ideas of God being 'a guy up in the clouds' are borderline heresy. Point being: the Abrahamic 'God' is a concept, not a 'dude', and it shares a lot in common with other spiritual foundations. The developing morality in humanity may be a function of some greater purpose/force/unknowable power that the Abrahamic God alludes to, and possibly shares with other metaphysical ideals and religions, which provides us the basis for a Spiritual version of equality referenced by the OP. I would argue this is really important, because as we move into the age of materialism and individualism, it's going to get ever harder to justify general artefacts of morality and kindness. We are losing a lot of common ground that we used to take for granted at least in the belief we were all 'Children of God' so to speak. I believe the social implications of our current secularism is quite profound, in some ways good, but in some ways bad. The article presents of foundational data to probably what many of us already knew; I don't suggest there's going to be a problem if we just try to act like adults about it. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_religious_populations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_religious_populations