is it ok to call oneself Spiritual when they don't believe in Spirits?
The Spiritual Atheist..
If the purpose of speech is to convey a message. And an atheist calls himself spiritual. Isn't that person misrepresenting himself by using a word that is most largely viewed to be synonymous with "soul"? Even if he himself has his own unique meaning for it (which takes a 5 minute video to understand)
Let's be honest most people hear the word spirit and think soul.. don't they?
It seems like a way of justifying for no reason. If there is a lack of a better word... make a new one. To me I find that people are kind of ridiculed or perceived in a derogatory way if they admit or "come out" with believing they do not have a soul. Like you are somehow less of a person, lacking mystery, etc.. So when someone tries to find a convoluted means of explaining why they call themselves "spiritual". I feel that they are pandering to this unfortunate misperception.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Unseen on -
I remember from either my college German courses or the German woman I was married to for 14 years that in German (and English is a germanic language) that the noun Geist means BOTH soul and ghost in German.
Dictionary.com's #1 definition for "illusion" is "something that deceives by producing a false or misleading impression of reality."
Notice the word "something." In other words, in its primary definition an illusion is a thing, not a nothing. A ghost is an illusion because it is not as it appears, but that is not to deny that something is the cause of the appearance.
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Permalink Reply by David Henson on -
Unseen, a soul isn't a spirit according to the Bible. Plato, quoting Socrates said: "The soul, . . . if it departs pure, dragging with it nothing of the body, . . . goes away into that which is like itself, into the invisible, divine, immortal, and wise, and when it arrives there it is happy, freed from error and folly and fear . . . and all the other human ills, and . . . lives in truth through all after time with the gods." - Phaedo, 80, D, E; 81, A.
The Bible says the soul simply dies. Ezekiel 18:4.
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Permalink Reply by Unseen on
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If the soul dies then it does not go to Heaven. What of Heaven, then? the afterlife?
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Permalink Reply by David Henson on
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Unseen,
The meek shall inherit what and live forever upon it? Not heaven. The Earth, according to the Bible, was made for man and heaven was made for spirit beings. People like to think heaven is as good as it gets, whatever you like is heaven, but that is nonsense. I sure wouldn't want to go to heaven.
A few, numbered 144, 000 will go to heaven after death to be judges with Christ Jesus in heaven. They will be in spirit form, for flesh and blood can't inherit Heaven. The reason for this is that Christ and Jehovah God have no intimate knowledge of what it is like to have lived in sin, so it wouldn't be fair for them to judge the sinners alone.
Interestingly, since sin = death then upon death we are acquitted of our sins. (Romans 6:7) so the alleged immortal soul couldn't be tormented in hell forever either. Religious bullshit, all of that.
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Permalink Reply by Strega on -
Plato and Socrates were guessing. Ezekiel 18:4 is more guessing. And I imagine, David, that you know of many other guesses. You may even be guessing something yourself. Just because something was written down, doesn't mean it suddenly becomes fact.
I really don't need anyone to guess for me, but thanks anyway.
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Permalink Reply by dragotron on -
Again, this is up to interpretation. (Whether or not ghost and spirit mean the same thing)... as you demonstrated both words have separate origins but infancy the same meaning in most cases... a fitting example would be this: "The Holy Spirit" is synonymous with "The Holy Ghost". Is it not?
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Permalink Reply by David Henson on
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Dragotron, No. If the meaning of the word is different, even though the word is the same, the application isn't. So if I say I'm gay it either means that I'm homosexual or I'm happy. Queer is either homosexual or unusual.
However, if you mean that given the context, the meaning could differ, of course.
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Permalink Reply by dragotron on
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So then... for quality of conversation shouldn't EVERY word with multiple meanings (doesn't every word have multiple meanings?) be specified which meaning you're referring to?
Wouldn't this take a while?
I never hear someone exclaiming the definition of spiritual they're referring to. I wish I did.
At some point. The sole purpose of conversation is conveying a message. Isn't it? And if you're using words in unknown settings (around people whose personal definition of spiritual is unknown to you) shouldn't you be sure they know what you mean when you say you're 'spiritual'?
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Permalink Reply by Gregg R Thomas on -
Soul is an understanding or feel for music.
Spirits is some really good booze.
I'm here to help.
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Permalink Reply by David Henson on
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Gregg, when spirits are applied to mean alcohol are they normally clear? Didn't the moonshiners used to judge the quality of the moonshine by it's transparency?
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