hahn,joseph1013,johnnydon22 and lilbrown where una dey,make una come read better story not that winner01 yeye thread full of hatred that one cannot even gain anything

cloudgoddess, spirituality

Not bad though.

Maturity is beginning to set in.

winner01:
cloudgoddess, spirituality

Not bad though.

Maturity is beginning to set in.

you theists are so lacking in knowledge that you guys think spirituality has to do with the judeo-christian god just read this--------------Spirituality is a broad concept with room for many perspectives. In general, it includes a sense of connection to something bigger than ourselves, and it typically involves a search for meaning in life. As such, it is a universal human experience—something that touches us all.May 25, 2016
What Is Spirituality? | Taking Charge of Your Health & Wellbeing
www.takingcharge.csh.umn.edu/enhance-your-wellbeing/.../spirituality/what-spirituality---this is someone's view

donnffd:
To say i am awesomely inspired is to understate my feelings...

Amazing post you have there, fell in love the moment i saw the topic...

Most of what you wrote is the exact same way i feel about the cosmos and our part of it. I think it was carl sagan(might be wrong) that said we are the universe's way of experiencing itself.

Neil degrasse also said that the most amazing fact of th e universe to him is the fact that the atoms that makes up our body were born in the belly of dying stars. I, personally would go further and say the most amazing fact about the universe is that all the energy that makes up our atoms was around at the instant of the big bang, 13.8billions years ago...Amazing

I also ponder on the amazing fact that the odds of me being here, on this wonderful blue rock floating in space was freaking astronomical, and even if i am here for just a blink of the eye, i am eternally grateful to be experiencing myself(myself being the universe)

This in my opinion is true spirituality...

Nice work cloudgoddess, i hope my future wife is half as intelligent and awesome as you

Thank you for this extremely flattering and enlightening response! And yep that was classic Sagan! His perspective on things was just incredible. I think one can't help but learn about the cosmos and our real history (back before technology, countries, and cultures and even human beings), and be in total awe.

I love everything you wrote here but especially the bolded! I feel the exact same way.

And lastly that is very sweet

stephenmorris:
you theists are so lacking in knowledge that you guys think spirituality has to do with the judeo-christian god just read this--------------Spirituality is a broad concept with room for many perspectives. In general, it includes a sense of connection to something bigger than ourselves, and it typically involves a search for meaning in life. As such, it is a universal human experience—something that touches us all.May 25, 2016
What Is Spirituality? | Taking Charge of Your Health & Wellbeing
www.takingcharge.csh.umn.edu/enhance-your-wellbeing/.../spirituality/what-spirituality---this is someone's view

Nonsense . This is a materialist's view of spirituality . Spirituality started with religion . Religion goes beyond the natural .

stephenmorris:
you theists are so lacking in knowledge that you guys think spirituality has to do with the judeo-christian god just read this--------------Spirituality is a broad concept with room for many perspectives. In general, it includes a sense of connection to something bigger than ourselves, and it typically involves a search for meaning in life. As such, it is a universal human experience—something that touches us all.May 25, 2016
What Is Spirituality? | Taking Charge of Your Health & Wellbeing
www.takingcharge.csh.umn.edu/enhance-your-wellbeing/.../spirituality/what-spirituality---this is someone's view

What nonsense is this?

I refer you to the Bible, you reject it because it was written by men. Now you refer me to some trash written by some dude.

Oh please. Keep your "anything but godism" to yourself.

Antiparticle:
@cloudgoddess, this is an insightful post and I personally identify with most if not all of it.
You are an incredibly bright young woman.

Thank you so much truly I am surprised so many of you share similar views, very cool.

cloudgoddess in your last paragraph you sounded like a pantheist who rejects the existence of a personal god

Seun:
I agree with the idea of aiding the progress of humanity. Knowing that humanity has moved forward because of your life makes death less sad.

I think title should be Cloudgoddess's Philosophical Views or The Purpose of Life. The word spirituality is quite strongly linked to religion. I understand that non-religious people are trying to redefine it to suit their purposes but it's best to avoid the confusing quagmire of that word!

I understand your point Seun, but I personally think the word describes something really central to the human experience, that can & should totally exist without religion. Giving the word up to religion imo would just reaffirm the false perception that religion is the only means by which people can experience deep & profound enlightenment, compassion, wisdom, etc.

Sam Harris, an author & neuroscientist I'm a fan of, writes often on spirituality without religion & why he likes to keep the word. He wrote a short blog post about it in case you're curious.
https://www.samharris.org/blog/item/a-plea-for-spirituality

Seun:
I agree with the idea of aiding the progress of humanity. Knowing that humanity has moved forward because of your life makes death less sad.

I think title should be Cloudgoddess's Philosophical Views or The Purpose of Life. The word spirituality is quite strongly linked to religion. I understand that non-religious people are trying to redefine it to suit their purposes but it's best to avoid the confusing quagmire of that word!

Thank God even an atheist finally sees the sense in the rants . You cant just change the meaning of the word - its called SPIRITuality- simply because you are an atheist and then tell the religious who owns the word that his own idea is wrong .

All hope is not lost after all .

stephenmorris:
cloudgoddess in your last paragraph you sounded like a pantheist who rejects the existence of a personal god

I haven't done too much research on pantheism but I will now that you've mentioned it, I've been seeing it pop up a lot. It seems that the essence of it is that god = the universe?

herzern:
Poo as usual!....come down here to Ijebu and see someone turn a fellow human being into a goat...riqht in front of yhu!.......

Like really
Ah ah ah, don't make me laff jare....turn to goat kor turn to malu ni..

cloudgoddess:

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirituality

I would first like to make it clear that I have no intentions to argue semantics with anyone. I am well aware that the word "spiritual" is highly associated with religion and superstition (the Wiki article discusses this as well), but words can have multiple definitions.

The spirituality I'm discussing deals with our experience & existence as human beings -- our emotions & our relationship to them, our relationship with other humans, our place in the universe, self-concept and outer perspective, the meanings we attribute to things, subjects like love and compassion and joy, healing from past hurts, and feeling connected to something greater than the individual self. As you can probably tell, there is overlap with the religious definition, and there are reasons for this.

Religion was one of man's earliest attempts to understand not just our outer world, but this inner human experience as well. Unfortunately, most organized religions got a lot of things wrong. But this should be expected, because they were thought up during a time when we lacked much of the information we have now, but still had all of the cognitive biases, ego-driven motives, and subconscious fears that are a part of our evolutionary history -- religious books like the bible & Qu'ran are evidence of this.

Humanity has since progressed in our knowledge and understanding. This is why, like the Wiki article states, new expressions of spirituality are emerging. Expressions that make sense scientifically, do not make unsubstantiated claims (or at the very least, make less of them), do not require dogmatic adherence, are light and never oppressive, and acknowledge the human condition with dignity.

My views have been informed & inspired by various readings I've done on human psychology, neuroscience, philosophy of the mind, biological and stellar evolution, mindfulness, and traditional Buddhist teachings. I just thought I'd share a very tiny snapshot of them (maybe I will add more), and perhaps start some interesting conversation or maybe inspire someone. Please, if anyone has something to share or ask, feel free!

~~~
A short intro into my views

An atheist is someone who does not believe in the literal existence of gods. Someone who simply recognizes that Odin, Zeus, Yahweh, Allah and the rest, are fictional characters that were formulated by human beings and passed on through generations of indoctrination. But the rejection of these characters in no way leaves us barren. In fact, it frees up collective mental space for more enlightened ways of thinking about our human experience.

As more and more evidence emerges, it appears that we are not in any permanent way separate from the rest of nature. On the contrary, we are interconnected expressions of this same universe we gaze at in awe and wonder. We came from the same stardust that formed the sun and we're still exchanging energy with it today. The molecules that make our bodies up are being recycled with other matter on earth all the time. Each of us were born from the interaction of two beings, who were each born from two beings slightly further back in time, on and on till the first sexually reproducing organisms and beyond.

And as these connected beings, capable of traits like compassion and empathy and learning, we actually have the amazing power to aid the collective growth of humanity, within and through successive generations.

[b]We can each develop our abilities to embody and express the most loving parts of our nature, while taming our more survival-driven and reactive emotions & thinking patterns (the ones that lead to war, division, & oppression when unchecked). Neuroplasticity, our brains' potential to rewire itself, allows us to evolve our own brains towards more kindness, acceptance of ourselves and others, presence, creativity, openness, and endless more possibilities (one tool for doing this is mindfulness meditation, which I will probably go into more detail on later).
[/b]
The universe, including our planet and all the beings within it, is constantly evolving -- expressing itself in new ways. Biological evolution is just one expression of this. The evolution of galaxies and celestial bodies are another. The evolution of human societies, technology, etc. is yet another. The evolution of our collective thoughts and behaviors is another. We can all help progress towards a more compassionate and enlightened world, starting with personal change.

To sum up, we aren't separate from this universe. We are an inextricable part of it. All of the atoms in our bodies have a history. We are "star stuff" as the late astrophysicist Carl Sagan put it, experiencing a consciousness gift. We are free to do what we want with this gift, but surely it would be best spent aiding the progression of humanity, this collection of conscious beings who hold incredible potential, towards more peace, creativity, innovation, love, all that good stuff that makes us light up inside. And all of that starts within ourselves.
~~~

dont be offended,are you a New Age movement follower?

Strolls into thread, drop three gbosas for Cloudgoddess for a nice thead , looks at those crushing on her and Smh, make una babes catch una

cloudgoddess:
I understand your point Seun, but I personally think the word describes something really central to the human experience, that can & should totally exist without religion. Giving the word up to religion imo would just reaffirm the false perception that religion is the only means by which people can experience deep & profound enlightenment, compassion, wisdom, etc.

Sam Harris, an author & neuroscientist I'm a fan of, writes often on spirituality without religion & why he likes to keep the word. He wrote a short blog post about it in case you're curious. https://www.samharris.org/blog/item/a-plea-for-spirituality

I think this is the one thing that Sam Harris is wrong about, just as Richard Dawkins was wrong about rebranding atheists as "brights". A word means what people think it means. Words only change in meaning when a large number of people start using them differently for some reason. Atheists who are into "spirituality" just don't have those numbers. As someone noted earlier, the word is rooted in the word "spirit" which is something that does not exist as far as we know. Using the word "spirituality" to describe awe, compassion, wisdom, actually perpetuates the notion that those intellectual/emotional things are "spiritual" in the sense that most people understand the word, which isn't your goal.

kevoh:
Strolls into thread, drop three gbosas for Cloudgoddess for a nice thead , looks at those crushing on her and Smh, make una babes catch una

i no get babe ooo

A very deep and beautifully explained idea -- one that is based on a candid openness to objective criticism, progressive reform, and development. The world has never stood still. Things continue to change and evolve at a rapid pace. As humans, it is pertinent that we continue to adapt to these changes through constant self-reflections which should spur innovative suggestions not just for the development of the world but also an enhanced understanding of our role in it. Sadly, one disadvantage of some of the core belief systems is the stubborn attachment to unproven, and often retrogressive, dogma with very little room for critical evaluation or reform proposals. For the human race to keep moving forward, we have to be open-minded -- keep on learning and unlearning.

HardMirror:

Wow!!!
So we have such powers, yet the britons came looted our lands and colonized us successfully?

You stole my words from my head.... I hate you


Now Mr. Answer HardMirror!

The bosses have said everything, from flattering words to corrections. All I can say is keep it up.

Seun:

I think this is the one thing that Sam Harris is wrong about, just as Richard Dawkins was wrong about rebranding atheists as "brights". A word means what people think it means. Words only change in meaning when a large number of people start using them differently for some reason. Atheists who are into "spirituality" just don't have those numbers. As someone noted earlier, the word is rooted in the word "spirit" which is something that does not exist as far as we know. Using the word "spirituality" to describe awe, compassion, wisdom, actually perpetuates the notion that those intellectual/emotional things are "spiritual" in the sense that most people understand the word, which isn't your goal.

religionists' attempt at appropriating the word " spiritual" is eluding them everyday. Because of man's earlier voyages through religion which makes it seems synonymous with spiritual is not enough to equate the two. Naturally,there is a part of man that is of divine; that shares in the wholesome traits which bind everything in the universe; the transcendental part which humbles our mundane or material part.

It is the part of us which disagreed vehemently when religionists gleefully participate in slave trade, war, falsehood peddling, etc It is the grace that abounds even when alone in the misdt of general ignorance when religion says a creature from God born gay right from birth should be held responsible for the consequences of his/ her birth. It is that fine evolved state that looks biases and superstitions in their limited eyes, damn them and overcome them because its energy is from the infinite source which religionists claim is theirs alone. Isn't it the force that saved that little boy from being killed by religionists in Akwa Ibom some years ago - religionists who said God said the lil innocent kid was a witch?
No sir , religionists can't appropriate the word ' spiritual' which is a divine heritage of all men irrespective of feelings and perspectives.