askchapo

Spirituality, by looking inwards, tends to replicate the hegemonic structure of the world its trying to find a remedy to.

It'd be a pleasant surprise to me if there was more to existence and death than creating your own meaning before going back into non-existence, but that's p much where I land, something like that fake mark twain quote

“I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.”

like idk, that kinda sucks in its own way but at least beings dont suffer after they're gone. still mind-blowing that there even is existence to begin with, and that consciousness can happen like dang. and its cool we got to exist at all (luv u comrades)

in terms of spirituality in general I'm in a weird spot where I simultaneously indulge in it while knowing its fake? I want to believe, even though I don't.

at the very least, I do think there's value in secular spirituality, like the kind of optimistic belief that humanity would come together and reach the stars you can see in those soviet time capsules from the sixties.

or maybe that line of thinking and cultural zeitgeist engenders passivity and destroys the future it seeks to build, idk, im not john philosophy

Its worth learning about the real practices of buddhism instead of the orientalist version. Generally any religion or spirituality is worth learning about because they are also intertwined with culture. For example, learning that people's tendency in america to not exist in material reality wrt evangelicalism is an important fact to know, as people in this culture are easy to manipulate and make them submit to fascistic authority.

i am personally an animist, and i do ancestor work and other stuff.

I don't believe in a spirituality separate from material reality - but I do believe that human thought is complex and varied enough that we shouldn't attack peoples personal sources of strength and healing.

Well recently while exploring ideas related to consciousness and how it works I've come to the conclusion that it's likely there exists something beyond the immediately physical so I'm kinda becoming skeptical of materialism, at least the hardline "consciousness is merely just physical stuff interacting" version of it.

Beyond that I'm in the dark, I've explored various strains of spirituality and while some of it makes sense the arguments in favor of it mostly boil down to some version of "it came to me in a dream". Furthermore from a political standpoint these philosophies rarely have much to say and the usual tone is "suffering is the nature of things and you should tolerate it and not try to change your surroundings too much beyond your own personal choices" or some form of "the universe manifests what you really want so if you're suffering it must be you're not vibing hard enough" both of which rubs me the wrong way.

Bogus hogwash, but if it helps you cope with death and mortality, go wild (but keep it to yourself)

I define spirituality as the practice of cultivating the human spirit. I haven't seen any other definition that isn't just some wishy-washy way of getting out of saying you're religious.

It's too vague to mean anything substantial. Things like enlightenment and reincarnation come directly from Buddhism and are often misunderstood.

People trying to break free from Samsara are probably leading a pretty good life, but I'm more of a fan of solidarity first which does cause one to engage more in samsara than trying to break free from it.

The only real spirit is the human spirit (to progress, to overcome, to grow, to care for one another).

Spirituality is most often just a word for superstition without organized religion. That can be better than the alternative I suppose as religions are stuck in the decade, social mores, and thinking of their creation which is for the biggest of them thousands of years ago when women were property not equals and where ignorance of our reality reigned supreme (thus they reinforce unjust systems such as patriarchy and too often reject the material reality we need to address in favor of comforting lies that make our reality worse through inaction).

Way too broad word to be usable, not even in casual conversation, not to mention as definition. When elaborated it's nearly always either just a religion or searching for some other superstition.

I can accept that it's part of the yearning for fulfilment, but it's neither anything special nor anything greater than any other way that should be especially protected.

I really hope death is the end but I also like to think there’s a certain energy to consciousness that we haven’t been able to fully observe or measure yet.

I’d say I believe in higher dimensional beings before any “god” type beings (like a human-ant relationship or a human-bacteria relationship).

Either way since I’m not an experimental physicist I don’t want those ideas/beliefs affecting my day-to-day in any way.

Wack

I'm mostly mad the TESCREAL bundle looked at the ideas of building a machine god and ending death and transcending human frailty and exploring the cosmos, then took it and turned it into a grift for promoting productivity software and doing weird sex cult shit.

Wanting a world where no one ever has to say goodbye ever again should be inspiring, not a theme for a Harry Potter fanfic.

I have a biology degree and my mother is a biblical literalist, like literal young earth creationist. Straight up rejects evolution etc.

My opinion on religion - which spirituality is generally a form of, although it is obviously not an organised religion - is not entirely fair.

going to need a consistent definition to have an opinion on it. in the meantime it seems like a lot of people vibe when they should be doing materialism.

I pray. For myself and for others. To Tiamat and Jesus.

People can say God is dead all they want but Faith ? Faith is real

I feel like I have a lot to say about this but this has always been a topic that has been hard for me to grasp. It seems that a lot of my feelings have been shared by others in this thread. Despite not having a fully fleshed and holistic understanding of what spiritually is and how I relate to it I'm gonna give describing one aspect of my current perspective a shot.

Love is something that describes our social relationships with others in society. To characterize love is to see it as a mixture of different qualities and actions we seek from ourselves and another person (such as care, affection, respect, communication etc). But to describe love in short, it is the willingness and action required for another person to grow, for you to grow alongside them, and for the relationship between you two to grow as well. So love describes the yearning for the internal relationship within you and another person to grow and develop as well as the external relationship between you two to grow and develop as well.

When I hear people talk about spirituality they're usually talking about their relationship to reality. I think one of the hallmarks of talking about spirituality is going beyond recognizing the external relationship between the individual and reality that often externalizes reality outside of ourselves and instead recognizing the subjective experience of being a part of reality in a way that sees our relationship with reality as an internal one. So to connect it with my previous paragraph about love, maybe spirituality describes my willingness and the actions taken for the internal relations within myself to grow and develop in addition to my external relationship with reality, that reality outside of society, to grow and develop as well. All the while, trying to internalize that I am the reality around me as much as the tree outside my window, an ant, or a rock in space.

It is (at best) cope and I cannot take someone who is spiritual in any sense seriously.

The big religions involve some kind of life after death. They also either have nothing good or nothing at all to say about fighting climate change. That combination of ideas means you are not to be trusted with regard to preserving the planet and the creatures that live on it.

That said, I know several based people who are religious, so it’s not impossible, but it’s seems to me like they are exceptions.