Thanks to an email from Alex Szeto, I learned about Spiritual Naturalism. After reading some articles on the website of the Spiritual Naturalist Society, I haven't found much that I disagree with.
But given my often-disagreeable nature, I'm sure if I dug deeper, I would.
Which wouldn't bother Spiritual Naturalists, because they embrace science, reason, and such, not rigid dogma, blind faith, and unarguable thou shalt's.
"What is Spiritual Naturalism?" included a nice description of what "spirituality" can mean to someone who doesn't believe in God or the supernatural.
Naturalism is a view of the world that includes those things which we can observe or directly conclude from observations. Naturalists’ conception of reality consists of the natural world as outlined by the latest scientific understanding.
As for claims for which we have no evidence, we do not hold any beliefs in these and do not make any other claims about them. It is quite possible, even likely, that many things exist which we cannot detect, but we believe in a humble approach to knowledge. With humility, we can recognize that human beings are imperfect in their ability to know all things.
Therefore, we are careful to limit our claims about reality to what we can experience and measure, as well as reproduce and show to others. On all else, we are content to admit “we don’t know”.
Spirituality is the other word in Spiritual Naturalism. For many, the word ‘spirituality’ has an association with the supernatural. However, we mean the term in its more general and original sense.
The Latin root word spiritus meant ‘wind’ or ‘breath’, or the essence of something. As we might speak of the ‘spirit of the law’ or ‘school spirit’, the spiritual is that which is concerned with the essence of life – or the essential things in life.
Thus, a person with no sense of spirituality would be a person that lives on the surface, always dealing only with the shallow or the mundane; perhaps even a materialistic person. But to have spirituality is to be concerned with the larger, deeper, and essential matters of life and to apply ourselves consciously toward them in a committed practice or ‘walk’.
This includes, as Socrates put it, the ‘examined life’, and this is what we mean by spirituality.
Sounds about right.
I still don't like the word spiritual very much, because it has other-worldly connotations. However, given how many people identify with the oft-heard adage, "I'm spiritual, but not religious," it seems that this term is going to be with us for quite a while, even if religiosity takes a downturn.
The Spiritual Naturalism folks have a diagram that shows where they see themselves on the philosophical landscape.
It looks like just about anybody could be a spiritual naturalist. Supernaturally-inclined "spirituality" types just need to tilt in the natural direction more; scientifically-inclined "naturalism" types just need to tilt in the spiritual direction more.
This group must be for real, because they have t-shirts, coffee mugs, and other items for sale. My only problem with their merchandise is the decidedly space alien'ish look of their logo. Doesn't seem to jibe with "spiritual naturalism," but maybe I'm missing the connection.
Talk of the essence of things is creepy and pseudo-scientific, but the alien mug is the giveaway. Good of you to notice. I probably wouldn't have seen the face for the tree.
Posted by: cc | March 23, 2013 at 03:54 AM