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Sam Harris' Book, "Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality without Religion"
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STT
Guest
I am no sure of all those stuff, dark matter and energy. Standard model apparently is not the complete model.
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Dan_Defender
Guest
There is currently no scientific explanation for dark matter and dark energy. It is all theoretical to try and explain why the universe has not been torn apart by its continuous accelerated expansion.I am no sure of all those stuff, dark matter and energy
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Annie
Guest
Maybe God created us with a tool in our brain, as He did with our imaginations, and with that we have certain experiences.
From hazy memory, I remember St Therese of Lisieux explaining a similar type of experience of wonder: it is just an experience if that is all you do with it, it becomes spiritual when you relate it to God. So looking at a sunset can be a wonderful experience, but it is not spiritual until you follow to movement towards God. (She explained it much better! But I can’t find it.)
So we could call the experience ex-spiritual ((out of the spiritual) until we make it spiritual by following it up to linking it to God through thought or prayer.
Sam Harris is not linking it up to the God in Whom he does not believe, so he is missing the point.
From hazy memory, I remember St Therese of Lisieux explaining a similar type of experience of wonder: it is just an experience if that is all you do with it, it becomes spiritual when you relate it to God. So looking at a sunset can be a wonderful experience, but it is not spiritual until you follow to movement towards God. (She explained it much better! But I can’t find it.)
So we could call the experience ex-spiritual ((out of the spiritual) until we make it spiritual by following it up to linking it to God through thought or prayer.
Sam Harris is not linking it up to the God in Whom he does not believe, so he is missing the point.
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Zach
Guest
Yes when I used to read athiest books some years ago I always felt Harris was the most level headed and non-polemical of the so-called four horsemen of the new athiesm. Hitchens and Dawkins were way too one sided and hostile towards religion. Dennett was in between and was the most interesting to read because of the breadth of his knowledge of science and philosophy even if one disagrees with him.I give Sam Harris credit for looking deeply into religion and spirituality. Though his overall world view binds him, I assume, to strict materialism, he recognizes that religion offers something else, and he is trying to find out what it is and make it more accessible to other non-believers.
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edwest
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That is the problem.
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edwest
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As far as I have read, Sam Harris is right up there with Dawkins and Hitchens.
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0Scarlett_nidiyilii
Guest
If you don’t believe in a spirit, how can you be spirit-ual.You can be spiritual and still don’t believe in God.
Unless you’re referring to a pantheistic god-consciousness or anamism (everything has a spirit but there’s no Great Spirit).
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Zach
Guest
Thanks for the link. That broadens my impression of Harris. My Impression was from reading a couple of his books. I don’t read anything by those guys anymore and don’t even think about them unless they come up like they did in this thread.
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STT
Guest
There could be no creator yet other beings.
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Shakuhachi
Guest
Yes, maybe a better term would be “abstractual” since it has to do with intangibles of meaning and purpose.If you don’t believe in a spirit, how can you be spirit-ual.
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edwest
Guest
Pope Benedict XVI goes on to say:
"We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one’s own ego and one’s own desires. The church must defend itself against threats such as “radical individualism” and “vague religious mysticism”. [emphasis added]
Commentary by The Practical Catholic:
Pope Benedict does not play language games, he is unconcerned with the postmodernist’s corner on untruth. Neither should we be. Notice how he calls relativism a “dictatorship” instead of agreeing that no values and no Truth are the way forward for society. What many fail to recognize is that imposing nihilism and arbitrary tribalism is a form of dictatorship. Where untruth or half truth is the common order, there can only be oppression. Political correctness has asked us to abandon our value-laden language and to pick up a new language proper to the secular forum. However, this secular newspeak is value-laden against the traditional claims of the Western world and as such, is a poison rather than a new order. We can and should bring our own conviction laden language to the table, if we’re going to have any sort of real dialogue at all. Misinformation and restrained convictions are not the proper building blocks for a democracy."
"We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one’s own ego and one’s own desires. The church must defend itself against threats such as “radical individualism” and “vague religious mysticism”. [emphasis added]
Commentary by The Practical Catholic:
Pope Benedict does not play language games, he is unconcerned with the postmodernist’s corner on untruth. Neither should we be. Notice how he calls relativism a “dictatorship” instead of agreeing that no values and no Truth are the way forward for society. What many fail to recognize is that imposing nihilism and arbitrary tribalism is a form of dictatorship. Where untruth or half truth is the common order, there can only be oppression. Political correctness has asked us to abandon our value-laden language and to pick up a new language proper to the secular forum. However, this secular newspeak is value-laden against the traditional claims of the Western world and as such, is a poison rather than a new order. We can and should bring our own conviction laden language to the table, if we’re going to have any sort of real dialogue at all. Misinformation and restrained convictions are not the proper building blocks for a democracy."
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Lucretius
Guest
God created man to be unified with the Spirit, and so our soul has the potential to be spiritual, and thus is reflected in how we can, by our own works, manipulate our soul to imitate spiritual effects.
The Spirit is the true source of the spiritual life and its spiritual effects, and without the Spirit and his grace, these spiritual effects are dead, aggregates within a being with spiritual potential cut of from its source of spiritual life.
After the fall, Adam was doomed to die like a pine tree cut from its roots is doomed to die: it doesn’t die right away, but without its root, without the life which brought all of itself together and nourished it, fades. The clay was breathed to life by the Spirit, but without the Spirit, although Adam might have had still had many spiritual effects that arose from that Grace, nevertheless without the Spiritual, all of them will decay back into the dust. And this is what the “spirituality” that Mr. Harris speaks of, or the Hindu you allude to: an inner life that manipulates spiritual effects, creating an illusion of life, but in reality these effects and experiences are merely the pieces of a dying corpse that just happens to be together, for a moment, before fading into dust. They have no life, they are just the leftovers of the spirituality of a dead man. Vanity of vanities, all is vanity and vexation of the spirit.
Just as the flower in the vase works in vain to sustain itself, this “spirituality” is just at the effects of spiritual life cut off from its source, an artifact, falling apart as we speak, an attempt to do what only the Spirit of God can do.
However, through the internalization of the grace given under the symbol of baptism, all of these dead works can be resurrected in Christ, if only we work with the Spirit to order these effects in him and for him. This is why God accepted the works of Cornelius the Centurion, even if they were not formed by the Spirit, if Cornelius believed in Christ and brought these works up as an offering to be made living by the Spirit of God.
Just as the body without a soul is just an aggregate of parts and forms that just so happen to be next to each other, even if it looks like a living body for a time, an inner life without the Spirit of God is just an aggregate of fading spiritual effects. But just as material parts, although dead by themselves, can become living in being integrated within a soul being born, these spiritual approximations that Harris speaks of can be a part of being born again in the Spirit.
Or something like that.
The Spirit is the true source of the spiritual life and its spiritual effects, and without the Spirit and his grace, these spiritual effects are dead, aggregates within a being with spiritual potential cut of from its source of spiritual life.
After the fall, Adam was doomed to die like a pine tree cut from its roots is doomed to die: it doesn’t die right away, but without its root, without the life which brought all of itself together and nourished it, fades. The clay was breathed to life by the Spirit, but without the Spirit, although Adam might have had still had many spiritual effects that arose from that Grace, nevertheless without the Spiritual, all of them will decay back into the dust. And this is what the “spirituality” that Mr. Harris speaks of, or the Hindu you allude to: an inner life that manipulates spiritual effects, creating an illusion of life, but in reality these effects and experiences are merely the pieces of a dying corpse that just happens to be together, for a moment, before fading into dust. They have no life, they are just the leftovers of the spirituality of a dead man. Vanity of vanities, all is vanity and vexation of the spirit.
Just as the flower in the vase works in vain to sustain itself, this “spirituality” is just at the effects of spiritual life cut off from its source, an artifact, falling apart as we speak, an attempt to do what only the Spirit of God can do.
However, through the internalization of the grace given under the symbol of baptism, all of these dead works can be resurrected in Christ, if only we work with the Spirit to order these effects in him and for him. This is why God accepted the works of Cornelius the Centurion, even if they were not formed by the Spirit, if Cornelius believed in Christ and brought these works up as an offering to be made living by the Spirit of God.
Just as the body without a soul is just an aggregate of parts and forms that just so happen to be next to each other, even if it looks like a living body for a time, an inner life without the Spirit of God is just an aggregate of fading spiritual effects. But just as material parts, although dead by themselves, can become living in being integrated within a soul being born, these spiritual approximations that Harris speaks of can be a part of being born again in the Spirit.
Or something like that.
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Lucretius
Guest
Harris and the Hindu are using the same neurocircuitry as the Christian then, but the Christian is using it as it was intended, a part of ourselves being integrated into the life of grace for which it was designed, while the others are perverting these facilities or idolatry, one worshiping false gods, the other worshiping himself as a god. Our bodies, after all, were created to be encoded by spirit, for spirit to be immersed in. Our bodies are the image of the incarnated God: is it not surprising our psychology and neurocircuitry works so well with the Gospel, it was designed to be a temple of the Holy Spirit. But Satan wants to deface the temple, using its gold for idolatry instead of for the worship of the true God, and Harris and the Hindus have unfortunately fallen into his trap.
In essence, his book is, even though it might have some useful things to say, especially with the relationship of spiritual effects with our neurobiology, his “spirituality” is ultimately striving in vain at best, and just straight false at worst. Read with care, for the blind lead the blind into the ditch.
In essence, his book is, even though it might have some useful things to say, especially with the relationship of spiritual effects with our neurobiology, his “spirituality” is ultimately striving in vain at best, and just straight false at worst. Read with care, for the blind lead the blind into the ditch.
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