Hat tip: Greta Christina.
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Argh! If I had a dollar for every time someone’s said that!
I’d have, like, eight bucks!
Actually, if Moses is no longer a slave to dogma, he’s come a long way. It only took what, about 4000 years?
Go Moses!
It just goes to show you that anyone, even a dead prophet, can change their mind.
Hmmm… I recently heard Richard Dawkins agree that, while he was an atheist, he was also a spiritual person, enjoying music, art, nature for itself. Do we have different semantic connotations for this word depending on whose mouth it comes from?
@Anon.
Yes.
No – depending on what the person means when he says it. Dawkins means to imply you can get all kinds of floaty good feelings from beautiful and amazing (and real) phenomena, like the birth of a child, a symphony, a Monet. He certainly doesn’t use the word as a shortcut to some deist or pantheist god, as is being done here.
No, Dawkins is wrong.
@Anon
I think we have different connotations for the word depending on the surrounding speech.
Blasphemy!!!
Julian
Please explain your somewhat dogmatic comment.
And then/or fuck off.
Re: Spiritual not religious:
“I like to reply, ‘I’m not honest but you’re interesting. Let’s have cider and talk about your cats.’” – Daniel Tosh
I got the same sort of feeling when I heard that Jeffery Dahmer found GOD. Also if you have to find GOD does that mean he’s hiding?
prolific, that’s what you are! (this week)
So music, art, love, all those things that people like to believe have a transcendent quality and which make life kind of worth living (not exactly a trivial thing) … apparently we’re being awfully naive not to accept the fashionable dogma that actually they’re just meaningless by-products of physics and evolutionary biology … silly us … possibly Moses is one of those atheists like me who concede that the scientific method is a powerful instrument for discovering more about the universe … but cannot assist us in our quest for meaning.
So Moses is a Free Spirit. What %age proof is he? And is he free as in Buy one get one free? All these questions before going to bed…..
“I’m spiritual”= I am selfish narcisist who has come up with a way to deflect criticism from my boneheaded blathering about my own desires.
You are on a roll author.
Those who seek to discover meaning by gaining greater insight into themselves or to become better people by contributing to the welfare of others are not selfish narcissists infatuated with their own desires. But those who get off on caricaturing/stereotyping such people in a dismissive and contemptuous way potentially might be.
Best one yet!
Heh, should have known.
The barmaid has a very astute grasp of the obvious.
Dawkins is not wrong, he simply has a better command of the English language than some people.
Very occasionally, when I contemplate natural or man-made beauty (music, art, writing) I feel a nice sense of being transported, that is, connected to objective reality more strongly than usual. Getting outside of my own head a bit. Presumably this is what Dawkins means by “spiritual”.
I can’t stand the term myself, redolent as it is of new age infantilism. So what would be a better term for that sense of transport? “Transcendence” maybe? Still a hint of mystical cobblers there, I’m afraid …
(Interestingly enough, “surreal” strictly means “super-real”, and was a term devised by a group of artists who wanted to create that sense of connection to a more complete reality. Obviously they didn’t achieve it, since “surreal” nowadays is synonymous with “nutty paintings”.)
And I love how Moses says “I rise humbly above the believer and the atheist”.
Perfectly captures new age narcissism.
Mr Gronk said it all. Oh how I cringe when I hear someone use the S-word as Moses does here.
John, I don’t know where one might find God, but most folks find Jesus in prison.
Spoing:
“Those who seek to discover meaning by gaining greater insight into themselves or to become better people by contributing to the welfare of others” is not what most people mean when they describe themselves as spiritual.
Usually what they mean is “I have a selection of metaphysical/supernatural beliefs that I don’t think should be criticised from an empirical standpoint.”
Or sometimes: “I like to think that the ‘Big Questions’ have answers and that I’m better than other people for thinking about them. At the same time I don’t like to acknowledge that maybe the ‘Big Questions’ just aren’t valid questions at all.”
Spoing ooh- you got me with your “I’m rubber you’re glue” argument. Ouch. However I would like to rebut you by saying that “he who smelt it- dealt it.”
On a related note- perhaprs saying that you are spiritual is a bit like saying that you are famous, if you have to say it, then you ain’t it.
,
I’m not religious, I’m spiritual.
I like vodka, gin, whiskey – all the spirits really.
Spoing. Re-reading what you said I am inclined to believe that it was dopier than I first feared. “Meaningless by-products of physics and evolutionary biology”?
When you love something you pay it attention.
Who pays the most attention to the universe- an astronomer who devotes her life to studying the stars or some hippie who takes a couple of tokes and goes “hey wow” on a clear night looking up?
Who is most in love with nature- some tree hugger or some evo biologist like E.N. Wilson who has spent years in rain forests listening to life?
We “fashionable materialists” (i.e.scientists) find meaning in stuff that is real. There’s only one world.
Problem is that people don’t like it when science gets applied to humans because a lot of (spiritual?) humans think that they stand apart from nature. We don’t. We are part of it. No special rules. No ghosts. No spirits. No magic pixie dust.
Wow. Light blue touch paper and retire to a safe distance – this has only been published for less than 24 hours!
BTW, ’selfish narcissist’ is a tautology. Narcissism is characterised by selfishness (amongst other symptoms).
Nicely put Daoloth, I concur.
Daoloth: Who is E.N. Wilson? Do you perhaps mean E. O. Wilson?
Who has described his position on god as provisional deism? He has explained his faith as a trajectory away from traditional beliefs – which is like saying spiritual instead of organized religion…
Hey, wow, man! Daoloth’s spot on. Gimme another toke! I see spirits.
Daoloth, you compare different peoples ways of experiencing nature/reality and seem to suggest that the scientist has a more valid world view. Certainly, scientific education gives one the means to appreciate the wonder of the universe to a greater extent within ones specialised field of knowledge, but I don’t believe it affects the feeling that one has for it.
One can be awestruck by, say, a Giant Sequoia, without knowing anything about dendrology, or ecology, or climatology. One can be just as awestruck by learning that single-celled bacteria can synthesise 20 different amino acids, if one looks for the knowledge. That awe is one manifestation of spirituality, hardwired into us, which is perhaps one of the reasons why religion developed – to offer a cosy explanation in the absence of objective fact.
The other manifestation of spirituality might be thought of as compassion, or consideration of others before oneself (sometimes couched by wishy-washy types as ‘other-centredness’ or ‘ego-lessness’). Zen is a philosophy that seeks to develop this attitude, for instance. Zen might be known as a sect of Buddhism, but it is not a religion, nor even really Buddhism, when you get down to the core of it. It is spiritual atheism.
I agree with Dawkins – you can be spiritual (i.e contemplative and not self-centred) and an atheist, without being all new-age or hippy about it, and I agree with Daoloth that even we ‘materialistic’ oriented individuals can be spiritual too.
Shame the word has such negative (i.e. religious) connotations.
So sad that it has to be Julian, a latin american like me, the one with the stupid comment. But you know thats the problem when you have been raised in a Catholic dominated country. But not all latinos are like that, some of us have passed the mandatory religious indoctrination with our brains intact.
I was once told I had a very spiritual aura.
Spiritual? Tim Minchin gets it about right.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UB_htqDCP-s
Awesome, sick title for this very funny comic. Wonderful, thought-provoking comments! andrea wins. Mr Gronk a close 2nd. and to play devil’s advocate, I suggest Julian meant Dawkins was wrong in his use the word spiritual, or did I miss something?
Awesome, sick title for this very funny comic. Wonderful, thought-provoking comments! andrea wins. Mr Gronk a close 2nd.
And to play devil’s advocate, I suggest Julian meant Dawkins was wrong in his use the word spiritual, or did I miss something?
I got my spoing tshirt today, I’d just like to say it’s SO COOL! Thanks
Damn, Mo’s “Jesus Christ”-comment always makes me laugh. Ah, the irony.
Don: Minchin sure is the best. I think “Storm” is his best one so far. He seems to be a really smart guy.
HAHAHA Minchin is Bitchin’
I liked his bit how water can have a seemingly infinite memory of a long lost drop of onion juice but somehow forgets all the poo it’s had in it.
I like “joy.”
In writing, says Poor Richard, diction is everything.
For pure uplift following downshift, it’s Beethoven’s Fifth Piano Concerto.
PS from PR. ANDREA, yes! Can I buy you a drink?
A companion essay to this strip and to Greta Christina’s post:
Keeping an Open Mind Is a Virtue, but not so Open that Your Brains Fall Out.
Maybe we need to coin an entirely new word for the awed feeling we get when appreciating nature or art or music or whatever. It is a shame that Douglas Adams is no longer with us, he was a master at inventing new words that you could get the meaning of by the context. One of my favorites was “Voon” used by a mattress to show his appreciation of a sad story told to him by Marvin.
JC: EN Wilson is E.O. s less well-known older brother. His new book, “Sub-Organism”, is all about how humans are less inteligent versions of ants. I have been meaning to promote his book for ages.
Intelligent designer: Yep. I would say that scientists are more awestruck. That’s why they devote their essence to studying something.
Science is not a bunch of facts resignedly taught by some bored school- teacher (although some of those never lose their passion).
It’s not a set of beliefs, its an attitude to acquiring them- always provisional, always transparent in method, always testing, always acutely aware of the dangers of importing desire into belief.
Maybe this helps explain why people who seem to be saying: “You can’t challenge my beliefs, its a mystery, its beyond science, its my right and that’s that” piss some of us off.
They are saying, in essence, “I’m a lazy selfish child, not willing to do the work to make my beliefs worth a damn, but hey, fuck you- they’re good enough.”
“We desperately want to feel there’s an organising force at work in our bewilderingly complex world. And in the irrational mindset, if you believe in the mystical pattern you’ve imposed on reality, you call yourself… spiritual”.
Richard Dawkins – The Root of all Evil
Ah the old “spiritual” debate ;o)
As I see it we have a word that is teetering on the edge of two meanings. On one side it is very much a religious thing on the other a more Zen like sense of openness. I think that it is a word that will move away from its religious meanings over time and gain a more secular meaning, at least in the West. I have often described myself as a spiritual atheist as an introduction to the stance that I do not hold with supernatural explanations of the universe but see that “spiritual” experience (followers may call it religious) is a part of the wiring of the human brain and properly acknowledged as part of the mechanics of our thinking (in the sense that happiness or depression is) can be useful.
I’ve just recalled an alternative term which may serve us better than “spirituality”. Colin Wilson devised the term “peak experience” to describe those unbidden moments when things seem more real.
Granted, the guy can be a bit of a crackpot mystic sometimes, but I think he got this one right. It suggests a connection to objective reality rather than solipsistic piffle.