Why do atheists care. [rhet]

Originally posted by googlefudge
Experiencing either awe or wonder is not in any way the same as being spiritual.

Being spiritual, or having a 'spiritual experience' is something different. What people
talk about when they discuss these things bares no relationship whatsoever to my experience.

People are NOT all the same.

I am not spiritual.

In your earlier post you were saying that spirituality does not exist ("woo".). However in this post you seem to admit it as a concept. If experiencing "awe and wonder" is not the same as being spiritual then what is?

This isn't a trap, I'm wondering about this, what does it mean to be spiritual if one is an atheist? Is spirituality just a matter of having an inner life or is there more?

Originally posted by DeepThought
In the absence of a focus of belief, I'm left wondering what a spiritual life is for an atheist.

Buddhism.

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Either your stance this whole thread has been wrong, or you just generalised based on one example.
Which is it to be?

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So your disagreement with the generalization of the OP is invalid?

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1. The OP contains a generalization.
2. It is in fact not based on a single example, but it is a generalization.
3. Your objection however is based on a single example, a practice you yourself have called out as invalid.

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And my point, which you seem to have missed, is that the OP generalization is valid whereas yours is not.

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Then your response didn't make sense.

The OP is an erroneous generalisation about billions of people.
It may be erroneous, but it is not erroneous because of the example given. I do not in fact think it is erroneous.

Perhaps you can prove otherwise. Can you?
Not without Googling for studies on the matter, no. But then you can't proof it is erroneous without doing so too. Posting what you admit is a flawed counter argument didn't help. It just demonstrated your refusal to engage the OP in a logical and sensible manner because you don't like what it is saying.

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Yes I can see how concerned you are about the harms being done by the theists in
the OP which is why you have spent so much time in this thread completely ignoring
all that harm and instead spent your time attacking me for supposedly overgeneralising...

Because that was the really important take home message from my OP...

Originally posted by DeepThought
In your earlier post you were saying that spirituality does not exist ("woo".). However in this post you seem to admit it as a concept. If experiencing "awe and wonder" is not the same as being spiritual then what is?

This isn't a trap, I'm wondering about this, what does it mean to be spiritual if one is an atheist? Is spirituality just a matter of having an inner life or is there more?

I didn't/wouldn't say that 'spirituality' doesn't exist.

That would be like saying belief in god's does not exist... It' obviously does.
What doesn't exist, are the gods being believed in.

Similarly, the feelings people have [and thoughts/practices/intuitions/whatever] that
people describe as being 'spiritual' I am sure exist. I do not doubt that they have
the feelings they describe. My point was that I do not have these feelings and
never have.

Awe and wonder 'might' be part of the gamut of feelings people have when feeling 'spiritual'
but they are not in and of themselves spiritual feelings, there is something else required.

I can tell you that I experience awe watching footage of [say] a Saturn V lifting off. But there
is nothing spiritual about that experience. [for me]