Reformed Nihilist

Well, a person could make a standard by which to judge these things, and then measure reality against that standard. Then things wouldn't be so fuzzy....

Not entirely true. Quantum physics is being interpreted in such ways that basically say "magic is real" and then being used by con artists and huckste...

We do have a choice how we frame this, and what conceptual models we accept or reject, right? Wouldn't we want to reject the ones that are fuzzy and a...

I have different reasons for rejecting spirituality, but they are not relevant to this discussion. I think you're jumping to conclusions regarding my ...

From what I know, some people's brains are just built in such a way that they require medication for their entire life to remain functioning and to ha...

I feel like you're trying to go for a "the eye cannot see itself" idea here, but if the thing (or one of the things) that the psyche does is makes con...

Well that just makes me feel... I don't know. I'm really glad. Cat's pajamas. I would say that I have personally avoided medication, but my partner ta...

What did I do? I hope I was right and it was helpful.

I'm more talking about Contemporary spirituality and Modern spirituality. Under either or both of which Higher consciousness may or may not fall. I fi...

Are you familiar with qualitative research and the study of morality in both the fields of sociology and psychology? How do these fit into your claim?

Then we agree.

I'm not questioning the motivations of those who think about themselves in those terms. I was one once, as were most of my friends and a great number ...

Ok, so I would formulate the traditional use of the term as meaning "of or relating to the spirit". How would you translate your proposed new meaning?...

Although I have problems with Davidson's conception of truth as it is described in that book, I'll capitulate that there are proposed models that have...

You've misunderstood me here. I'm telling you how I see the history of the idea, and within that history, what makes sense to me about how the term is...

It seems to me that you have concluded that because people can tie themselves up into knots of logic, that they necessarily must tie themselves up int...

Sorry, but I'm not rejecting that there is an idea called spirituality, nor any other idea based on it being religious. I'm questioning things about t...

I could make a few suggestions? You could give me your take on the discordance between the use of "spiritual experience" and "spiritual practice" that...

I'm not currently concerned with efficacy, I'm just trying to see if what we're talking about is both coherent and isn't a sort of unintentional conce...

This is where were going in circles. I think your answering a different question than I'm asking, so your appeal to the previous explanation of spirit...

You just made a jump that I'm not sire I'm following. What's a spiritual practice? Behaviours designed to change one's sense of self? To what end? Wou...

Sure. I hope my post added some information that was useful.

The brain activity, non-consciously constructs our perceptions. We don't experience "raw" perception. By the time a perception hits the executive part...

Nope. I don't think the idea of "inherent meaning" is coherent. Meaning is something that words have, and a dictionary can give you most of the meanin...

I'm trying to be charitable, which is why I keep asking questions, to make sure I do understand, or if not, to find out where the misunderstanding lie...

Something you think is the case. The same thing everyone means, isn't it? Quick formatting note: If you highlight the text of someone's post, a black ...

Let me explain how I read the last few exchanges, and perhaps we can uncover where the miscommunication lies. Here's how it looks from my point of vie...

So you think reasoning is just make believe? You don't think there is mental cause/effect? Do you think everyone's beliefs are arbitrary? By reasoning...

What is an absolute belief, and why should the lack of having one be a problem? Why do you expect anyone should have them? So when you're trying to fi...

So spiritual is synonymous with "life changing" then? Why not say that? Or "transformative"? Why cop-opt terms of religion, with all the baggage and p...

Then what does nihilism mean to you, and why is it a problem? Why do you think you have no belief system? You have beliefs, right? You create those be...

Well, if ever a thread played into my wheelhouse, this is the one, as you might guess by my username. I share a general worldview with you. I don't th...

I'm not as familiar with hypnosis as I am with placebo, but with placebo, it seems like belief gets focused on as the driving factor, where expectatio...

I believe there is no factual refferent for what spiritual is historically used to speak about. That doesn't mean I'm trying to translate spiritual in...

I'm still not sure what the distinction between you presenting the reasoning why the way to look at spirituality is valuable, and what you are doing (...

Well, nothing can be understood perfectly, and in terms of what is the best way to describe something, there is room to frame things broadly or at a v...

You may have been even-handed, treating both sides equally badly, but I'm not sure that's the same as being objective. I would suggest that the princi...

The lowest estimates have the population as low as 100 breeding pairs.

I don't know anything about Yellowstone, but I was talking about the Toba supervolcano theory. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory...

I think it was Indonesia. I think I'd rather live during the cold war than a 10 year long volcanic winter.

There was a time where human population had dropped to as low as 10k-30k. We might have qualified as an endangered species by today's standards.

I just think you have an odd approach to where the burden lies in this discussion. You said that something is demonstrable, so normally, I would assum...

Sure, it's not the end of the world. It just reminds me of the Carl Sagan quote "If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent ...

Ok, so when you say something is demonstrable, you mean only if I already agree with you?

If you burn a dollar bill, does the dollar (not the bill) still exist in a different state? Does it not exist? It doesn't really matter to me how you ...

What do you mean by comparable? They are two different states. Why couldn't we compare them? Or do you mean in a more colloquial sense "there's no com...

I did reply. Perhaps you think my reply was somehow unsatisfactory. However, if it is demonstrable, you shouldn't require my cooperation to demonstrat...

I can draw conclusions and make assumptions with imperfect information, which I do (and we all do all the time). We obviously have drawn different con...

To determine the probability of something, you have to establish a baseline to compare it to. Seeing as though we only have one universe to talk about...

Most atheists I know focus on the imperfection of human nature. On the ways that people consistently and predictably get things wrong. They attribute ...