Comment by marnett
2 months ago
Humans are animals. Spiritual animals.
As for faith, why do we all toil when, in godless philosophy, everything we do is fundamentally meaningless? Why do you persist? What is that reason, if not illogical faith in some purpose. Read Camus.
> Humans are animals. Spiritual animals.
I have no idea what “spiritual” means in this context, so until you can clearly define that, my position is: no, we’re just animals.
> As for faith, why do we all toil when, in godless philosophy, everything we do is fundamentally meaningless? Why do you persist? What is that reason, if not illogical faith in some purpose. Read Camus.
I don’t believe I (or anyone else) have any fundamental purpose for existing. If you have evidence to the contrary, please share.
“it is difficult to imagine how the human mind could function without the conviction that there is something irreducibly real in the world; and it is impossible to imagine how consciousness could appear without conferring a meaning on man's impulses and experiences. Consciousness of a real and meaningful world is intimately connected with the discovery of the sacred. Through experience of the sacred, the human mind has perceived the difference between what reveals itself as being real, powerful, rich, and meaningful and what lacks these qualities, that is, the chaotic and dangerous flux of things, their fortuitous and senseless appearances and disappearances"
Eliade, Mircea. The Quest: History and Meaning in Religion. University of Chicago Press, 1984
Now, while Eliade’s word is not final, I think it touches on your question of what spiritual means in the context of mankind. Being a spiritual animal means being an animal embodied with consciousness, an animal that is aware of its existence in both space AND time.
Eliade is a great read for a number of reasons but the best reason is because he can be read from an atheistic or religious perspective and his passages are no less revelatory. If you want to believe that there is no purpose to existing that is fine, I wouldn’t recommend it, but that is fine. But that doesn’t take away from the fact that consciousness transcends evolutionary necessity and by that nature alone deserves serious and legitimate thought and preservation.
This quotation appears to just replace the word "spiritual" with "sacred," another word that I find to have nebulous meaning. It contains a lot of words, but appears to be saying vanishingly little of substance. Or maybe it's just over my head.
> Being a spiritual animal means being an animal embodied with consciousness, an animal that is aware of its existence in both space AND time.
So, you're defining "spiritual" as "conscious." That's fine, but why not say "conscious"? It's clearer that way.
Under this definition, I agree that we are spiritual (conscious) animals.
But I'm willing to bet that the original poster I responded to used the word "spiritual" in a different sense than you do, which is a problem. When you both sort out what you're actually saying, let me know!
Edit to add one more point:
> But that doesn’t take away from the fact that consciousness transcends evolutionary necessity
I think the phrase "evolutionary necessity" is problematic on its own from a biological perspective, but even if we ignore that, do you have any sources for this claim?
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> I don’t believe I (or anyone else) have any fundamental purpose for existing. If you have evidence to the contrary, please share.
I didn't say existing, but persisting. This is kind of the basis of the point I was making. Clearly you do believe you have a fundamental purpose for persisting, as do most people - otherwise we would see more people deciding to stop living once they have come to the conclusion they have no fundamental purpose.
As to the point of humans being "just animals", you are correct; we are the only "just animals" that have spiritual religion as an emergent property of our species. Given where you are anchoring the beginnings of this discussion, I feel starting your research on the evolutionary origin of religion would be a good starting point to understanding what I mean when I say homo sapiens are a spiritual species.
Sorry for the confusion on terms, but it doesn't change the substance of what I previously said.
> Clearly you do believe you have a fundamental purpose for persisting
I don't. Also, believing that I have no fundamental purpose for persisting is not the same as me wishing to die.
Edit: after thinking about this a bit more, I realized that maybe we disagree over the meaning of the word "fundamental," so let me clarify: I do have reasons for wanting to continue to live, but those reasons are 1) many, and 2) not static over time. 10 years from now, I will likely have different reasons for wanting to persist. I also dislike the word "purpose," as it can imply some kind of "grand plan" or other woo that I vehemently reject. I apologize if I'm being too bristly at your use of terms, but I would better characterize my thoughts as: I have multiple reasons for wanting to persist, which change over time, are grounded in well being of myself and others around me, and not necessarily inherent to me as a person.
I don't believe any of this rises to "illogical faith in some purpose" as you originally asserted.
> Given where you are anchoring the beginnings of this discussion, I feel starting your research on the evolutionary origin of religion would be a good starting point to understanding what I mean when I say homo sapiens are a spiritual species.
If you claim something (especially something containing a term as fraught with varied meanings as "spiritual"), you should be prepared to explain what you mean, not say "go start some research," which among other things is presumptuous. Based on what you said here, I'll assume that by "spiritual animals" you just meant "animals that have developed religion," and we are in agreement. You can drop the term "spiritual" in that case as it just adds confusion.
So we are animals that have developed religion. So what? It doesn't change my initial point, which is that faith (in the traditional definition of the word) is irrational. People are of course free to believe whatever they want, but when their unsupported beliefs start to affect my life via the legal/educational/judicial/healthcare systems in my country, or when people try to assert that my evidence-based beliefs are somehow faith-based, you better believe I'm going to speak out about it.