Spirituality.. cause and effect

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

The history of spirituality is found within children…
a very young child will not think about something
suddenly appearing next to them… it is the most
natural thing in the world to suddenly have a person
or a dog just appear next to a young child…
they give it no thought… there is no attempt to
divine cause and effect here… it just is…
and that is the beginning of human spirituality…
it just is… with no thought as to any sort of cause
and effect… with this magical thinking, anything is
possible… and then at some point, the child will
suddenly be asking all sorts of questions…
why is the sky blue? Why do birds fly? why are trees so tall?
these questions are now cause and effect questions…
the sky is blue, what causes that? Birds fly, what causes
that? things happen, but unlike when they were younger
and they just accepted things as magic, they now want
the cause and effect of things…

So, the first stage of spirituality is magical thinking…
something just appears and it is accepted as is…
there is no attempt to discover cause and effect in these
magically happenings… the second stage, maybe age
three or a little older, 5, where the child learns about cause
and effect… if something happens, it must have a cause…
and what is that cause… Why is the sun yellow? a typical
child’s question… and asking cause and effect, a yellow sun
is caused by?

The answer to the cause and effect questions, why is the sky blue,
is the beginning of theological, philosophical and scientific
theories… depending on how the question is answered, it
could be science, or theology or philosophy…

the disciplines of science, theology and philosophy all come
from questioning cause and effect…

Now the next question comes from evolution…
with evolution, we have become more… we have gone
from animal to animal/human with the journey leading us
to becoming fully human…so the question becomes,
does evolution also impact our spiritual journey?
is spirituality also evolutionary impacted?
as I have laid out a child’s cause and effect
understanding of the world, where the first step
is magical thinking… there is no cause and effect
within the very young… things just happen… magically…
and the next step is to discover the cause and effect
of the world around us…Why is the sky blue?

Young children are rarely if ever, presented with the idea of
death… a dog dies and we say, it has gone to doggy heaven…
a magical place where people and doggies live forever…
and that is theological in nature…for a 5 year old, heaven
and death and living forever are pretty advance concepts to
understand… for me personally, I was never faced with
death at an early age… I was in high school before I faced
the question of death… and thus I had no need for magical
thinking in regard to death…and now that I am 66, death for
me, anyway, is just around the corner…

so, the question still stands, is spirituality also evolutionarily
based? does spirituality operate with the same rules as all
evolutionary theories? and I have accepted that
spirituality is a product of evolution… we can see this
by even a cursory glance at the history of religions…
the Vedas of India, show us a different sort of religion
and cause and effect that stems from that religion…
if spirituality can be based on evolution, then it
stands to reason that we continue to evolve
as does our spirituality… so, what does the
future of spirituality mean for us?

One of the major problems with religions, virtually
all of the major religions today… is what is
the mechanism for change in them? if we were to
take the bible seriously, there is no particular reason
to change or adapt to new conditions… for the final goal
is to reach heaven, not to adapt to new conditions…
and this is true of other religions, for example,
Islam… what is the mechanism for change within Islam?
again, to reach heaven… Christianity and Islam are both
relatively static religions… the goal remains the same in
both… and the way to reach that goal, remains relatively
the same…so, how has either Christianity or Islam
changed? and what has driven that relatively small
change in the two of them? has Buddhism changed
or evolved over the centuries? Not really… the goal
of the Buddhists has remained the same for 2,500 years…
What about Hinduism? Has the goal of Hinduism
remained the same over the years? I would say yes…

If evolution has impacted our physical lives, as it has,
why hasn’t our religions, philosophies changed?
I think part of the failure of religions come from
their lack of evolution, of changing with the times…

Now one might say that the rise of Atheism, is a change
in spiritualism in the world today… and I would tend to
agree… but that change leaves us with a problem…
if we agree that Atheism is on the rise, what do we, or
should we then, believe in? If we no longer have faith
in the gods or in heaven, where should our spirituality be
focused on? if there is evolution in spirituality, what comes
next?

In Anarchism, there is a saying, NO GODS, NO MASTERS…
Let us think about that in terms of spirituality… if there
are no gods or masters in our spirituality, now what?

Where does spirituality go from here?

Kropotkin

2

Let me quote Max Stirner [egoist, individualist, anarchist] on the topic at hand:

"Spirit is the essential point for everything, to be sure; but then is every spirit the “right” spirit? The right and true spirit is the ideal of spirit, the “Holy Spirit.” It is not my or your spirit, but just – an ideal, supernal one, it is “God.” “God is spirit.” And this supernal “Father in heaven gives it to those that pray to him.” [Luke 11:13]

The man is distinguished from the youth by the fact that he takes the world as it is, instead of everywhere fancying it amiss and wanting to improve it, model it after his ideal; in him the view that one must deal with the world according to his interest, not according to his ideals, becomes confirmed.

So long as one knows himself only as spirit, and feels that all the value of his existence consists in being spirit (it becomes easy for the youth to give his life, the “bodily life,” for a nothing, for the silliest point of honour), so long it is only thoughts that one has, ideas that he hopes to be able to realize some day when he has found a sphere of action; thus one has meanwhile only ideals, unexecuted ideas or thoughts.

Not until one has fallen in love with his corporeal self, and takes a pleasure in himself as a living flesh-and-blood person – but it is in mature years, in the man, that we find it so – not until then has one a personal or egoistic [egoistisches] interest, an interest not only of our spirit, for instance, but of total satisfaction, satisfaction of the whole chap, a selfish [eigennütziges] interest. Just compare a man with a youth, and see if he will not appear to you harder, less magnanimous, more selfish. Is he therefore worse? No, you say; he has only become more definite, or, as you also call it, more “practical.” But the main point is this, that he makes himself more the centre than does the youth, who is infatuated about other things, for example, God, fatherland, and so on.

Therefore the man shows a second self-discovery. The youth found himself as spirit and lost himself again in the general spirit, the complete, holy spirit, Man, mankind – in short, all ideals; the man finds himself as embodied spirit."

Note: for Stirner, spirit (Geist) is the mind, not the Christian idea of “soul”.

3

The point of religion is stasis, not change. To keep humans under control

4

Sounds like nonsense if im being honest. Almost NotEvenWrong-ish.

5

to me it makes perfect sense, as he’s metaphorically describing a man’s journey towards adulthood, ie, towards spiritual maturity

6

perhaps the future of, the cause and effect of
spirituality comes a bit clearer if we see it throughout
history…

If one recalls the past, the number of things that one
prayed to was large… from the Sun, to light itself,
to the spiritual crisis caused by any sort of physical
events like Thunder and Lightning, earthquakes,
(one of the most critical spiritual crisis in the 1800’s
came from the devastating Earthquake in 1755 in Lisbon
Portugal, entire books, including Candide written by
Voltaire, emerged in an attempt to explain that earthquake
in cause and effect terms)

and today, we don’t react in the same way to the various
devastation caused by physical events like Earthquakes
and Hurricanes and Tornados… events that caused
earlier times to have a spiritual crisis… and why?
Because we are aware of what causes Earthquakes
and there is no need to react spiritually to these events…
the cause and effect are quite clear in terms of earthquakes
and Tornados… We no longer attribute those events to
supernatural forces like an unhappy god…
science itself in its explanation of the forces of the universe
that causes events like Earthquakes or Tornados, has
limited if not eliminated much of the spiritual crisis that
shook up humanity during its early years…

Religious types still try to return physical events like
Earthquakes into a spiritual crisis, but the fact is, that
they are no longer the spiritual crisis that they once
were…as science and the other disciplines successfully
explain various physical events, they transfer from
spiritual events to just another day at the office…
Why would I get all spiritually engaged in something
that can be easily explained by science?

and as our knowledge continues to grow, I suspect
that we will see less and less and less need for
spirituality… for spirituality is just another
cause and effect explanation for most of us…

The rise of Atheism can be explained by the rise of
explanations of physical events… There is no need for
a god if we can easily explain thunder and lightening
and Earthquakes… the very need for spirituality
diminishes with the rise of other, better explanations
of physical events…

Given this factor, I think that spirituality will
continue to fade and will finally, maybe, hopefully
it will no longer play any sort of role in our lives…
the diehards will continue to explain the universe in
terms of spirituality, just as the Pagans continued well
into the Middle Ages, but finally being overcome by
Christianity…

or to say it another way, science itself will remove
much of what we consider to be spirituality…
as death and old age, can be explained today by
entropy, and thus the mystery of death and old age,
will slowly be reduced… recall that the Buddhist
call death and old age, suffering, but if understood
correctly, death and old age is not suffering, but
simply the price one pays to be alive… it is a due owed
to the universe… nothing in life is free and that includes
life itself… there is a cost due to just being alive
and the so-called suffering in life is that cost…
pay the piper and move on…

and if we should, heaven forbid, but if we should
by the use of science, we should no longer die,
that will be the end of spirituality… for that is
the final mystery and that mystery is the only reason
today, why spirituality even commands an audience
today… the end of death is the end of spirituality…

and the question becomes, as always,
What is next?

Kropotkin

7

it has been said that the ''mysteries" that is
the starting point of all spirituality, has been
reduced, but not stopped… for we are aware
of the world via our senses and our senses,
are very limited… thus what we can know is
also very limited… thus spirituality lies within
that small space where our senses don’t operate…
a small space indeed…

thus, those who are still religious, do so not because
of science, but despite the science… which has
deepened our understanding of the world…
but not only science but philosophy has a role in
this reduction of mystery, which is the heart of
spirituality…for spirituality can only thrive
in the presence of mystery… remove the mystery
and you remove spirituality…

or said another way, the path to spirituality in this day and
age, comes from an ignorance of science and philosophy…
Now one might bring up that rarity of rarities… the religious
scientist… but that particular species comes about
because the scientist in question, refuses to fully commit
to science…to remain religious in this day and age,
requires one to hold to the unknown aspects of the world…
and that is becoming smaller and smaller… I would
rather hold to that which I know, not to commit to that
which I don’t know… that is the case of spirituality…
it requires us to remain ignorant of cause and effect…
that god caused the Earthquake in Lisbon in 1755,
requires me to ignore the science of Earthquakes…
to remain ignorant… and remaining ignorant, despite
the evidence, is not what human beings do… we find
the evidence and act upon that…

‘‘So, what will I do?’’ ''What should I believe in?"
''What can I know?" The Kantian questions…
are as usual, the key questions we should be
asking ourselves in terms of cause and effect…

Kropotkin

8

Spirituality, has always been representative of health and to a certain degree, femininity.

For instance I dream of another dimension where we are not ruled by greedy Americans, Russians or the Chinese and that the world is not dragged down into conflicts in the Middle East. A characteristic of these dreams is that everyone is notably more healthy and dreamlike - notably a more feminine world as well. Not feminine as in the hysterical feminist but feminine as in, a purity of character, ie. the Holy Spirit. The opposite of masculine which is the Klingon.

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