Mr. P wrote:So here again, I am not sure what you are reading from these folks, but I NEVER got that they simply offered calculations with no consideration of something more. Many folks seem to use the term spiritual because of a need to conflate every basis of morality with religion or religious thought.
Yes, many do. And usually, in their experience, religion is the sole basis for moral motivation. People who live in the concrete world of auto mechanics and tree-trimming don't spend a lot of time analyzing Stoicism or the enlightened theories of Spinoza. Dawkins and his pals make be deeply offended that Evangelicals care more about the implications for their community's commitment to respectability and responsibility than they care about the evidence for various theories of biology, but that's the world we live in. A person with as much intelligence as the Four Horsemen have should not have to have it explained that people resist being told they are ignorant for affirming their deepest values.
Mr. P wrote: And guess what, I admit that the spiritual and religious basis came first...it may have even been necessary because progress always requires an antecedent. But if we are being honest, spiritual and religious thought processes are all about the very physical mind reasoning things out. It did it poorly in the past, based on limited knowledge and understanding...as you would expect from children, but that is exactly what it did. Faulty reasoning created religion, thus the mind created the basis for morality.
In my view, religion was not created by faulty reasoning. The problem came when a scientific alternative to mythological communication arose and the fundamentalists, invested as they were in an authority-based religion, insisted on literal accuracy of the Bible. That, in turn, came out of an authority-based view of the nature of the church's mission. Karen Armstrong has done a good job of showing that fundamentalism is a broad reaction to modernity, not limited to Christianity or even to the Abrahamic faiths. The whole tension has helped a lot of us realize that the authority obsession was never the most faithful understanding of Christianity or even Judaism.
I think when you talk about "thought processes" and "understanding" you are understandably looking for an account of life and its struggles that can accommodate both the facts we know from science and the values we seek to cultivate within society. The problem with focusing on accounts, and thought processes, is that human motivation is caught, not taught (as the Evangelicals say). As a result, what is needed is both a viable, sustainable way of life (which can be caught) and an account of the reasons for pursuing it (which are the teachings, or doctrines, and help pass on the way of life). The militant atheists are much more interested in tearing down the supposed basis for religious authority than in constructing either a sustainable way of life or an account of why such a way of life makes sense.
If you are educated and like learning about science and nature, you are probably fairly well insulated from the demons of low self-esteem and frustrating material challenges and the resulting household tensions that ordinary people find spiritual solace from. So if you don't get the problem, you are probably unlikely to appreciate the solutions that are out there. In fact you are likely to focus on the authoritarians' challenges to your liberty, which makes you look even more like a dishonest advocate than motivated reasoning by an Evangelical would already have considered you.
There is a chicken-and-egg problem with changing ways of life while at the same time changing accounts of the reasons for a way of life. Which comes first, raising children without spanking them or explaining that thinking for yourself is more important than affirming the rules? People who live relatively stress-free lives have already moved through both major changes, and may not understand why other people think giving up the priority on affirming the rules is completely crazy.
A holistic approach is willing to walk with people struggling to make the transition, rather than just scolding them for their ignorance (as if sensitivity about that was not already a major reason for needing tough authority in the first place). It is willing to demonstrate tolerance and appreciation for the reasons others don't always agree, recognizing that the message of appreciation is actually more persuasive than all the facts and evidence. In essence, a holistic approach understands that evidence-based atheism is itself an authority-based approach to life, and is an enemy to the transition we are seeking.
Mr. P wrote:Are Paine's ideas spiritual? I guess you can use that as a term to help some folks understand it. But it is not spiritual in the same way that the experience of eating flesh and drinking blood is. Freedom, equality, etc... These are real concepts, based on the realization of the fact that we are all individuals trying to live together in a society. It's not an appeal to some mythical or mystical thing.
This is where I stand on rejecting a spiritual or religious basis for connecting with reality. I don't think approaching matters with a fact based approach necessarily precludes identifying holistic approaches to reality. I just think that I reject the hypocrisy of what the religious basis has shown, precisely because it is based on myth.
Paine was very concerned with courage, which is one of the true bases of spirituality. No courage, no spirit. He was also concerned with justice, which is the basis for democracy, and reflects the mutuality between people which is the animating force for the social side of spirituality ("if you cannot love other people, whom you can see, how can you love God, whom you have not seen?")
Consider a difficult question for a moment. You say freedom and equality are "real concepts" and not mythical or mystical. And yet the people who were moved by them to fight a war of independence were not moved far enough to insist on an end to slavery. So their reality was adapted to the social motivations of the time, rather than standing on their own conceptual ground. With such a glaring inconsistency between the real concept and its actual, living and breathing presence, are you sure it was not mythical?