What’s up with a whole 10% being ‘Atheist and spiritual’? It doesn’t seem to be a family thing, as you get only 4.9% with that belief in the family section, and the numbers don’t match up with the P(Supernatural) question.
I was worried about this last year when it was 8.1%, and the number seems to be increasing. Is this Will Newsome’s post-rationality faction or what?
“Spiritual” doesn’t necessarily imply a belief in anything supernatural: as Wikipedia puts it,
Since the 19th century spirituality is often separated from religion, and has become more oriented on subjective experience and psychological growth. It may refer to almost any kind of meaningful activity or blissful experience, but without a single, widely-agreed definition.
I’ve sometimes marked myself in the “atheist and spiritual” category in the surveys, though not always since I’ve been a little unsure of what exactly is meant by it. When I have, I’ve taken “spiritual” to refer to practices like engaging in meditation (possibly with the intention of seeing through the illusion of the self), seeking to perceive a higher meaning in everything that one does, enjoyment of ritual, cultivation of empathy towards other people, looking to connect with nature, etc.
It seems to me that religious belief and religious practice should be distinguished. The current questions are about religious belief and family background. Perhaps a question like this:
How many times in the past year have you done the following practices? Estimates are OK. The question here is whether you did the thing, not whether you believed in it, made it a habit, or did it voluntarily.
Attended a religious service?
Attended a “regular” religious service (e.g. a weekly church or synagogue service, Muslim daily prayers, etc.; not a wedding, funeral, or holiday service)?
Prayed to God, gods, saints, or other religious figures outside of a religious service?
Done yoga, qigong, or another movement practice derived from religious or spiritual beliefs?
Used or participated in psychic or fortune-telling practices (palmistry, ouija, I Ching, tarot)?
Meditated?
Meditated for thirty minutes or more in a single session?
Data point: I picked this option, because of a grab-bag of vaguely related positions in my head that make me feel dissatisfied with the flat “atheist” option, including:
I enjoy and endorse rituals such as the Solstice celebration, as opposed to the set here who are triggered by them (ETA: not in any way claiming they are wrong to be so triggered, or don’t have reasons)
I find the Virtues, and other parts of the Sequences with similar styling, to be deeply moving and uplifting, and consider this element of our house style to be a strength rather than a liability
We worry too damn much about the c-word, in a pointless attempt to appease the humourless, and we’ve compromised too much of our aesthetic identity doing it
Scott’s Moloch isn’t actually the Devil, but maybe acting as if is a good strategy for recruiting all parts of our minds to the fight. Ditto for Elua
After some experimentation, I think I understand better what the mindstate associated with “worshiping” actually feels like (really damn good) and suspect that the emotional benefits are totally available even if you know the targeted god doesn’t exist
(I actually wish it was reversed to “religious but not spiritual”, because “spiritual” feels more like the “supernatural/irreducibly mental” word, whereas “religious” feels more of a piece with perfectly sensible things like not breaking my word even to save humanity. But that’s just me.)
I have no idea whether this is remotely related to postrationalism; if anyone actually knows what postrationalism is, please write a FAQ. I do miss Newsome though; he wrote my favourite ever LW sentence.
I quite like this formulation, and if I had thought of it at survey time I might well have answered ‘atheist(spiritual)’ instead of ‘atheist(nonspiritual)’.
Regarding emotional benefits: I sing in moderately serious classical choirs, where inevitably much of the music is set to religious texts. I get some but not all of the emotional benefits from this that I used to get from religious worship, back when I was a committed theist. I think I would get more benefits if the texts were not religious, and still more if the texts were humanist / rationalist / expressed beliefs that I actively profess.
Postrationality appears to stand in the same relation to rationality as Romanticism did to the Enlightenment. That is, a falling away from the Way, not a progression past it; the easy, broad path and not the strait and narrow path that must be walked to hit the small target of truth.
Ah, yes. I read that page and scrunchyfaced, back when Scott posted the map. (Although I seem to remember reading other things on the same blog that were better thought out, so maybe the author was having an off day.)
I hope that something more rigorous and interesting comes along. The defensible heart of the position, it seems to me, could be something along the lines of “Yes, we must be ready to relinquish our beliefs with the slightest breath of the winds of evidence. But exactly so long as we do believe A, let’s really believe it. Let’s not deny ourselves the legitimate Fun that can reside in savouring a belief, including any combination of robes and chanting that seems appropriate.”
A question about religious views seems like the perfect place to signal that you’re not religious but still like some of the things that are commonly associated with religion.
What’s up with a whole 10% being ‘Atheist and spiritual’? It doesn’t seem to be a family thing, as you get only 4.9% with that belief in the family section, and the numbers don’t match up with the P(Supernatural) question.
I was worried about this last year when it was 8.1%, and the number seems to be increasing. Is this Will Newsome’s post-rationality faction or what?
“Spiritual” doesn’t necessarily imply a belief in anything supernatural: as Wikipedia puts it,
I’ve sometimes marked myself in the “atheist and spiritual” category in the surveys, though not always since I’ve been a little unsure of what exactly is meant by it. When I have, I’ve taken “spiritual” to refer to practices like engaging in meditation (possibly with the intention of seeing through the illusion of the self), seeking to perceive a higher meaning in everything that one does, enjoyment of ritual, cultivation of empathy towards other people, looking to connect with nature, etc.
It seems to me that religious belief and religious practice should be distinguished. The current questions are about religious belief and family background. Perhaps a question like this:
How many times in the past year have you done the following practices? Estimates are OK. The question here is whether you did the thing, not whether you believed in it, made it a habit, or did it voluntarily.
Attended a religious service?
Attended a “regular” religious service (e.g. a weekly church or synagogue service, Muslim daily prayers, etc.; not a wedding, funeral, or holiday service)?
Prayed to God, gods, saints, or other religious figures outside of a religious service?
Done yoga, qigong, or another movement practice derived from religious or spiritual beliefs?
Used or participated in psychic or fortune-telling practices (palmistry, ouija, I Ching, tarot)?
Meditated?
Meditated for thirty minutes or more in a single session?
I’m sceptical that this interpretation makes sense in a question about religious views, but I guess it may explain it.
Data point: I picked this option, because of a grab-bag of vaguely related positions in my head that make me feel dissatisfied with the flat “atheist” option, including:
I enjoy and endorse rituals such as the Solstice celebration, as opposed to the set here who are triggered by them (ETA: not in any way claiming they are wrong to be so triggered, or don’t have reasons)
I find the Virtues, and other parts of the Sequences with similar styling, to be deeply moving and uplifting, and consider this element of our house style to be a strength rather than a liability
We worry too damn much about the c-word, in a pointless attempt to appease the humourless, and we’ve compromised too much of our aesthetic identity doing it
Scott’s Moloch isn’t actually the Devil, but maybe acting as if is a good strategy for recruiting all parts of our minds to the fight. Ditto for Elua
After some experimentation, I think I understand better what the mindstate associated with “worshiping” actually feels like (really damn good) and suspect that the emotional benefits are totally available even if you know the targeted god doesn’t exist
(I actually wish it was reversed to “religious but not spiritual”, because “spiritual” feels more like the “supernatural/irreducibly mental” word, whereas “religious” feels more of a piece with perfectly sensible things like not breaking my word even to save humanity. But that’s just me.)
I have no idea whether this is remotely related to postrationalism; if anyone actually knows what postrationalism is, please write a FAQ. I do miss Newsome though; he wrote my favourite ever LW sentence.
I quite like this formulation, and if I had thought of it at survey time I might well have answered ‘atheist(spiritual)’ instead of ‘atheist(nonspiritual)’.
Regarding emotional benefits: I sing in moderately serious classical choirs, where inevitably much of the music is set to religious texts. I get some but not all of the emotional benefits from this that I used to get from religious worship, back when I was a committed theist. I think I would get more benefits if the texts were not religious, and still more if the texts were humanist / rationalist / expressed beliefs that I actively profess.
There’s Postrationality, Table of Contents, though the author hasn’t written any follow-up posts yet.
Postrationality appears to stand in the same relation to rationality as Romanticism did to the Enlightenment. That is, a falling away from the Way, not a progression past it; the easy, broad path and not the strait and narrow path that must be walked to hit the small target of truth.
I can’t tell if this is an Ideological Turing Test failure, or just a lie.
Upvoted for informing me that “straight and narrow” was a malformation. Also, yes.
Ah, yes. I read that page and scrunchyfaced, back when Scott posted the map. (Although I seem to remember reading other things on the same blog that were better thought out, so maybe the author was having an off day.)
I hope that something more rigorous and interesting comes along. The defensible heart of the position, it seems to me, could be something along the lines of “Yes, we must be ready to relinquish our beliefs with the slightest breath of the winds of evidence. But exactly so long as we do believe A, let’s really believe it. Let’s not deny ourselves the legitimate Fun that can reside in savouring a belief, including any combination of robes and chanting that seems appropriate.”
A question about religious views seems like the perfect place to signal that you’re not religious but still like some of the things that are commonly associated with religion.