Due to a recent influx of comment-spam, all commenters now have to be pre-approved. Basically, once you write one comment and it’s approved, you will be able to leave additional comments without moderation. I’ll try my best to approve comments on a regular basis and I apologize for the inconvenience.
“Spirituality” in a Secular Context
Jewish Atheist quotes Carl Sagan as saying “Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality.” This statement by a well-known atheist struck me as strange. What definition of “spirituality” could Sagan have in mind that would comport with naturalism? The simplist definition that comes to mind is “concerning things of the spirit”. In response to my comment asking for a “working definition of ’spirituality’”, JA writes:
[I]t’s simply the feelings of wonder, of flow, of awe, of transcendence, etc. etc. Basically, the same thing it means for religious people, except without the supernatural explanations.
First of all, that doesn’t capture what a typical speaker of English generally means by “spritual” and most dictionaries explicitly identify spirituality with God. I’m particularly struck by JA’s usage of “transcendence”. What exactly, in Sagan’s physicalism, are we supposedly transcending?