I can say that the word 'Spirituality' is a very broad and vague in its use by many people.
To some, it's taking drugs and feeling any distortion of reality as 'spiritual' in its experience.
To many, it is Fashion - what you wear, is what you are.
To others it can be 'numinous'.

I've always liked this though.
A Scientist will tell you that Earth is NOT the centre of the Universe. And they are right.
A Spiritualist will tell you that the Earth IS the centre of OUR Universe. And they are also right.
...so the perception of Earth being 'our' centre of persepective (also right) is considered 'spiritual', but really - it can also be Scientific as well.

I'll stick to Fashion being the most obvious 'expression' of Spirituality and a physical manifestation of who/what/etc people are. It's more a 'visual' thing of expression than anything else.

I also find that indigenous people using the word (or white people giving them the word) Spirituality from Aborigines to Amerindians is basically a way of talking to sound 'wiser' than others.

Does Cape Canaveral have 'spiritual' significance to NASA and Astronomers?
Does a few stones in a circle have 'spiritual' significance?
Does a FJ Holden have 'spiritual' significance?
Does the Australian GST have 'spiritual' significance?

Basically, the word is being mis-used and placed upon anything as an 'excuse' to justify empowerment, etc.

By sticking to Fashion, the word Spirituality, can not be exploited to be above and beyond without discipline for the big 'whatevers' people decide to stick it to.

Man wins Lotto and says it has spiritual significance.
...it goes on.

Jasin wrote on Oct 5^th, 2023 at 2:31pm:

I don't think anyone would use the term 'spiritual' or 'numinous' to describe a feature of the prosaic or the mundane.

Lisa Jones wrote on Oct 5^th, 2023 at 2:56pm:

Modern Greeks wouldn't use 'theos' or 'atheos' in terms the ancient Greeks would understand.

Lisa Jones wrote on Oct 5^th, 2023 at 3:06pm:

I would argue that the ancient Greek philosophers were closer to being actively antitheists, as opposed to passive atheists.

Plato's insistence on 'the true' trumping 'the good' caused a tendency to be irritated with ancient Greek theism as obstructing the Greek mind from apprehending 'the true' (and, by that, expanding its reach) due to belief in and deference to the gods.

Frank wrote on Oct 5^th, 2023 at 4:47pm:

It was you who smuggled the Greeks into this thread.

Words come to mean whatever the culture that bears them says they mean - the Arabic word for atheist (Mulhid) can also refer to 'apostate' and 'heretic', so the word has a darker side in Arabic than what the Greek word is used for in English today.

In English, atheism almost universally refers to a passive form of non-belief in god(s). The general term for those who have an intense dislike for religion is antitheism.

MeisterEckhart wrote on Oct 5^th, 2023 at 5:04pm:



Atheism and theism are greek words. In particular, the a- prefix is significant. It is present in our thinking in concepts like apolitical, apathetic,  or in with its Latin equivalent in disinterested, etc.

There is no Arabic sense of heresy today in in atheism, although there was in the 17-18th centuries.

God is a readily understood concept in every culture even if different people imagine it with different attributes and have diffe recent philosophical, theological descriptions and explanations of it. To an atheist none of these details matter, all are dismissed as being without foundation and unprovabable in the parameters of the atheist conception of the world.

There are very silly and totally unbelievable conception of the divine/God. That is where atheism starts and ends. However, from that it does not follow that all conceptions of the divine/God are silly and unbelievable.

Flat earth is a very stupid materialist concept. It does not follow that all materialist concepts are therefore stupid.

A sense of the numinous grows in direct proportion to the sense of self.

At the edge of the nascent ego, between ages 2 and 4, the child will begin to discern phenomena as mundane or evoking a sense of the numinous, like fire, thunder, lightning, magic tricks.

By seven, the child will usually have rationalised those phenomena that once evoked awe and replaced them with a more complex sense of the numinous, like imagination, dreams, religious concepts (primarily as taught by family and educators) and god/the divine (where those concepts are reinforced by family and educators).

From seven to puberty, the child's concept of the numinous will become even more complex and nuanced.

After puberty, the adult will likely retain much of what has been taught from seven but may also make profound existential choices - which may result in consciously reinforcing a sense of the divine as real, or rejecting that sense (as supported by family, friends and educators) as an infantile hangover from childhood and adopt an atheistic stance.

Oh you’ve finally returned! Thank you.

Wordsworth vs Prophet Samuel??

Let’s compare John Lennon with the Prophet Samuel then.

Why not?