2nd November 2010
“In its most general sense, the spiritual is simply all that is not purely material. Love, morality, values, beauty and meaning all seem to be about more than just matter and molecules. Since a life without them is impoverished, it seems we must find room for the spiritual. Yet, the word ‘spiritual’ also carries with it some potentially misleading associations – most notably, that a spiritual world is a world inhabited by spirits.”
Julian Baggini
November 2nd, 2010 at 10:03
“Spiritual” isn’t misleading, its original intent was cartesian and implied that love et al comes from the soul not the mind. Those desirable and necessary human qualities, which in any case also come from matter and molecules could really do with a new collective descriptive.
November 2nd, 2010 at 17:36
The quote is accurate, humans never deal with issues of morality or emotion in terms of first principles, ascending from intermolecular forces, through self-replicating structures, past darwinian selection, up into the world of game theory, rationally judging that altruism is universally beneficial and therefore the better path to follow.
Those of us who have them treat our conscience as another of our body’s senses and listen to it. We cannot be completely materialistic. I understand that my conscience arose through natural selection. The religious listen to their conscience but believe it is the voice of God.