"Spirituality"
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21 May 2005 Dov, in Brights and IHS forums. Merriam-Webster Online : "religious" = relating to, or manifesting, faithful devotion to an acknowledged ultimate reality or deity. Most people I know, including "scientists" I know or whose writings I read, relate human existence, faithfully, to an acknowledged vague ultimate reality, i.e. they are unable to accept that death of some or of all human primates, unlike the death of other organisms regardless of their physiological complexity, is the definite absolute cessation of its occurrence-existence and is the incorporation of the components of the ex-life system into the totality of the relentlessly dispersing-diluting universe… DH ——————- PS 09-28-2006, Forum Hypo Dear cwes99_03, Reyr post #123, Science and "Spirituality" If you think that "a scientist can be spiritual" you are eligible for membership in the AAAS, the most "advanced" USA scientific organization, that plays a major role in upholding religious rather than scientific worldview in the USA. I do not understand what "spiritual" means, unless it is meant to be vague in order to circumvent "religious". In my opinion a scientist may "believe" in "God" only in reference to some matters, and only because the concept "God" is different for every person. Considering myself a 'scientism scientist', in my opinion whoever believes in a specific god of a specific religion cannot, plainly and obviously, be a scientist. In the above I refer to a scientist that adheres to scientism, to the committment to assess and treat everything scientifically, and not to a person just practicing scientifically defined research/investigation rules and routines, whom I regard technician-to-technologist depending on the nature of the work subject. ———————————- PS 09-28-2006, Forum Hypo America Doesn't Accept Evolution Posted by InfiniteNow: - define religious and spiritual persons… Dov: A somewhat modified post of mine elsewhere some time ago: Religious person: - feels desperately lost without an ID (Inteligent Design) or without "everything being shaped by…something", - needs to subsist under some form of Providence, - her/his peace of mind and reflective elation are founded on a feeling that human existence is purposed towards something vague of which it will somehow sometime become a part. "Spiritual" person: - peace of mind and reflective elation founded on a feeling that human existence is purposed towards something vague of which it will somehow sometime become a part. Science-informed humanist: - regards our cosmic circumstances, all reality, and our meagre comprehension of them as an invitation to ever continue exploring and charting the infinite aspects of the evolving universe, and to fashion ourselves in accordance with what we progressively learn about the universe and about the nature of life and about ourselves.
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