Are you Spiritual or are you Religious?

Survey: 72% of Millennials 'more spiritual than religious' - USATODAY.com: "If the trends continue, 'the Millennial generation will see churches closing as quickly as GM dealerships,' says Thom Rainer, president of LifeWay Christian Resources. In the group's survey of 1,200 18- to 29-year-olds, 72% say they're 'really more spiritual than religious.'"

Americans do not seem to become more secular. Rather they distance themselves from the Church into something spiritual if the above poll is correct. I wonder if it is the traditional Congregation, 50% of Americans are known to go to Church every week, that is losing the grip on the young? This could mean that the family unit is breaking up and that individuals are becoming part of other groups?

Henri Bergson (1859-1941) talked about a direction in life. Striving to higher forms. Striving to consciousness. Indeed, life represents an increase in order against the thermodynamic law that states that everything is striving to less order.

Spirituality, can be interpreted as what Nature is. We are not talking about ideas as such but about the phenomena that constitutes Nature, which are not only a substance. The God of Bergson is creativity. It is interesting because business today, more than before, strives after "innovation". Maybe the youth of today are trying to catch this high-speed train which mean they have to shake the Church and its dogmatic character?

People have opinions on the interpretation of the second law of thermodynamics.

Spring is here!

The Sun shone finally this enlightened season and I had a coffe outside at the harbor café. There was not really much warmth in the Sun and a cold wind blew. A few boats passed by but I had to have another cup at home to warm myself up after this years outdoor première.

Apparently other people are also thinking on the perennial question "Vart är vi på väg?". One escapist disappeared in culture and this is an old trick when it comes to flight from reality.

Another became geopolitical and started to divide Europe into the Germanic and Slavic, bar Britain, and the Latin. Britain I guess will remain in its historical cradle, in splendid isolation. Especially now when the US has a Pacific president. Deutsche Welle, however, said the other day that France and Britain are talking defence together. According to Montesquieu the Nordic countries belong among the German länder. I am not so sure. What is interesting is if the predicted fusion of Eastern Europe with Russia and Germany is going to become smooth. They have been bent rather to America.

Dividing Europe up in new functional constellations is probably an irritating pastime to some that still believe it is possible to fuse the different cultures further. This was an excellent goal for Europe as long at it functioned. Now separate goals will begin to crystallize and the question is if history is going to repeat itself. The division is not just geopolitical there are philosophical bounds. The German philosophers created marxism and nazism. The English liberalism. Now, after a financial crisis in liberalism, Germany is going to modernize Russia and according to some they want the Baltic region with them. Theoretically a new cultural region post-1989. So what is your enthusiasm for this new development?

After giving up on the EU project, I have begun to think that maybe Sweden is best poised in another peninsular splendid isolation with its old neutrality politics, peace and feminism line of work. Germany is one third Catholic. Poland more so. This does not mix well. The non-EMU Norway and Britain are closer. Germany is however our largest trade partner. This is another reason for why a splendid isolation could be the best--it is not possible to chose.

So I end up with the problem of choosing the new government. It would probably be best and let Anders Borg finish our exodus from the financial crisis along the lines he has been so far. Changing strategy in the middle can only be bad. However, the Red-Greens offer that splendid isolation. We should have a woman PM, of course, and a vice-PM environmentalist. A Red-Green government would replace religion in our secular country with egalitarian environmentalism. A devout nation.

Spirituality or Religious Humanism

Bosse är troende fast utan Gud Existentiellt SvD: "Enligt Antoon Geels handlar spiritualitet om en förändring i kulturen, en rörelse i tiden. Begreppet har förstås sitt ­ursprung i engelskspråkiga länder. Där säger många: ”I am spiritual, not religious.” De tror på något ”högre”, ”en kraft”, ”kärleken” – exakt vad är inte fastslaget, fast vad det än är finns det nära, närmare än den egna halspuls­ådern, och det är inneboende i naturen."

Is this a development of religion, of Judeo-Christianism, or is it something distinct? Considering the psychology of religion God is created in our minds and therefore exists as part of Nature. "God is love" says the Pope, actually, so this is nothing new. For me it is very straight forward to imagine love as a force of Nature. However, I have preferred to consider only that which is yet unknown as a replacement of supernatural forces. I call it scientific discipline. It fuses science and religion.

Bo Ahrenfelt is a little fuzzier than myself on the third existence, what Ahrenfelt call "medvetandet". What he discusses can easily be called divine inspiration. After some study of the Philosophy of Mind it became clear to me that people seem to think that thoughts cannot be reduced fully onto physiology. Philosophy thus leaves a supernatural touch to consciousness. I have called it the third existence in my blog as a hypothesis where the first existence in materia and the second existence is life as biological tissues. The third existence is consciousness or human life. I have speculated that further human development will occur from the third existence into a fourth existence.

In summary, if you prefer to talk about something "higher", "a force", or "love" which is inherent in Nature without calling it God is a matter of preference. However, I see my non-personal, materialistic pantheism as a development of the Judeo-Christian God concept. I am fully aware that this might get me killed in Mecca and that it might irritate people of the Book in general. It follows from the biology of religion though.

Are we doing the right thing in Afghanistan?

Avatar (2009 film) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "Worldwide, Avatar grossed an estimated $232,180,000 on its opening weekend,[15] the ninth-largest opening-weekend gross of all time, and the largest for a non-franchise, non-sequel and original film. After 17 days in release, it became the fastest film to reach $1 billion in box office receipts[16] and the fifth to gross more than $1 billion worldwide. Less than three weeks after its release, the film became the second highest grossing film of all time worldwide."

According to reviews of the film, I have not seen it myself, the US army is beaten up by a spiritual people called Na'vi in a sensitive ecosystem, a planet Pandora. In other words there is both save-the-earth and anti-war sentiments that seem very popular. It is fascinating to observe capitalism in action against its main proponent. Don't misunderstand me, I'm very grateful that it is the US that has the largest military in the world.

Yesterday I referred to a speech by Hillary Clinton, the US State Department Secretary, where she spoke of development as a means of lowering risks to the US in the future from states that are on the verge of failing. Military would be used to secure such operations. She makes use of an axiom: if we don't invest in this today, it will be more costly tomorrow. Is this axiom correct if the countries in question are indigenously hostile to the West in general and to the US in particular? Because, development will not work under such circumstances and it then smells of waste of good money, not mentioning the loss of lives. Making war, polluting and devouring raw materials apparently do not make the US, China or the EU popular.

Used as a world opinion poll Avatar might be more important the many seem to think?

A Problem with Political Science

Spirituality, in my humble opinion, does not involve the concept of power. Therefore science and religion, with Religious Humanism now fused, represents spiritual domains.

Where does that leave the "science" of political science? Michael Walzer asks on BigThink.com whether the listener is going to interest himself in politics or political science.

This problem is similar to that of technology and basic science. There is weapon technology which is very power oriented. There is also political Islam.

Religious Humanism does not concern itself with power.

Spirituality--does it need a supernatural God?

Speaking of getting pointers. I have recently gotten emails from Svenska Evangeliska Alliansen--SEA. The latest has a title reading "Sortering av människor i ateismens kölvatten", or Sorting of people in the wake of atheism.

I do not need much imagination to understand that I might be considered worse than atheists with my religion Religious Humanism by SEA? The only way I can imagine that they can argue this is by saying this is by requiring that spirituality needs a supernatural God of the preferably Christian variety.

During the first year of my blog I went through various aspects of science and religion and I discussed this matter to some degree. I did not manage to combine a scientific stance with the traditional Christian stance. It is also related to the serious spiritual feeling I encounter in a church building, as house built by spiritual people. When I began blogging I considered myself a spiritual person that had never been an atheist--I still do.

I consider my God the same as that of the Abrahamitic religions. Nature is grand, unlimited, of eternal wisdom and knowledge it is love. It is easy today with our 500 years of scientific revolution to know that we will be able to find anything in Nature, should we just care to look carefully enough. The supernatural can, if you wish, be incorporated into a non-personal materialistic God concept. The prize is that no conflict remains with science. This is important when for example more than half of Americans believe literally in the Bible. Looking a few hundred years down the line, this might improve matters considerably.

Love, for example, or agape, is reasonable to describe as a natural phenomenon that fits easily into Religious Humanism. Scientifically I don't think it is completely elucidated yet. I spent some time on this topic as well.

I believe that spirituality is a state of mind when a person contemplates important matters. Matters that has to do with the future of mankind and similar ideas. Listening to music itself is not spiritual but it is often combined with a spiritual mindset and might enhance it.

I would not be surprised if I encounter people that don't think I should call myself religious but I don't think they are correct in their opinion.

If you consider yourself having the same view on God, please join the Facebook group Religious Humanism.

By the way, TTDE has been used many times in order to prevent me from being religious--in churches, before church visits etc. I don't know who these people are that break the law of religious freedom in this way but I have nothing to do with them personally.