Naturalistic Spiritualities are spiritualities (WhatIsSpiritual?) developed by people who more-or-less hold NaturalisticCommitments (WhyNaturalisticCommtiments??).
I’ve grouped all of the naturalistic spiritualities I’ve seen out there, into roughly three buckets:
I have a point, and that point is coming, but I invite you right now to the task of verifying my categories.
That is, as you go through life, and as you encounter naturalistic spiritual visions, – that you ask yourself which of the three buckets your given naturalistic spirituality fits into.
Exposition on the three follows:
These are people who retreat into the abstract.
They think about ideas.
They tend to often be attracted to, or otherwise strongly engaged with Buddhism. Or perhaps it’s Taoism; Makes no difference.
They are attracted to these things because: “It doesn’t require that I believe in anything.”
They like that they can still think about things, but don’t have to “believe a giant raven birthed the Earth,” or they don’t have to believe that “fairies are real,” or any such stuff.
So they are much happier talking about: void, consciousness, peace, beingness, breathing.
They will endlessly recite: “First it was a mountain, and then it wasn’t a mountain, and then it was a mountain again.” (and so on.)
Or they study philosophy, and if there’s any element of praxis (or “action”) to the philosophy, they start to bleed in with the humanists, the activists.
Primary frequencies: Abstractions, Ideas, Beingness
Many people who have NaturalisticCommitments, but none-the-less feel the heart of spirituality, because humanists, and/or activists.
Championing social justice, economic justice, gender wars, or what have you. Union organizing, political legwork, informing, reaching out to kids, and so on and so forth)
Very occasionally, a few of these people step way back, and consider Humanism, or a vision for society.
Some of them form communes and co-ops.
There are all these different manifestations.
This is the active part of those who are spiritual, and hold naturalistic commitments.
Primary frequencies: Action, Justice, Change
Finally, there is a third arm.
This is what I call “the Carl Sagan crowd.”
You know you’re in their company because the walls are plastered with photographs of galaxies, of natural scenery (forests, lakes, mountain ranges, seas,) and of The Earth, the paragon image.
They could be Geologists, they could be Astrophysicists. But not strictly so.
They’re the voices that sing about the deep time ages of the Earth.
Primary frequencies: Wonder, Awe, Science, Time
These are just labels; They’re not strict.
A friend challenged me, “Well, what about the science-fiction fans?”
The science-fiction fans are here; They’re in with the GeologistsAndAstrophysicists.
They’re primary frequencies are wonder and awe, and that’s just what you spoke to me about finding value in- that is what you said that your spirituality was about: Finding wonder and awe in the possibilities and immensity of the universe, in the size of the universe, in the possible powers of technology, and so on.
So, this is very much in the GeologistsAndAstrophysicists sphere.
Yes, there’s overlap with the PhilosophersAndBuddhists.
The point isn’t that “this is an ultimate ontology;” – the purpose is to roughly characterize pretty much all of naturalistic spirituality.
When we have a good characterization, and when you come to recognize it, then I can point to systematic points of failure in existing naturalistic spiritualities.
“What’s it mean for a naturalistic spirituality to be deficient?”
Well, it’s deficient if it doesn’t manifest the Divine. If it isn’t a powerful, creative, spiritual, imaginative, virtuous, heart based spirituality. (to draw from MyQuestionOfEvolutionarySpirituality.)
The main point here is this:
They are trapped in MaterialLiteralism.
Some of them are even down-right hostile towards the imagination: Many PhilosophersAndBuddhists, for example, and many GeologistsAndAstrophysicists.
What I mean is: The people in these circles are very commonly allergic to the imaginative.
Try to see my point here; Don’t go fishing for the exceptions. I know they’re there. Yes, yes; You have a hipster geology friend, who also has astral scenery pictures on the walls. Yes, yes: I know that. But surely, you can also see the validity in what I am saying, none-the-less. The mindset, the social convention, the assumed mode, in these settings, is allergic to the imaginary.
They speak homage to imagination, of course; Even the secular humanists do that. But it feels weak; It is not at all comparable to the embrace of the imagination held by, say, the New Age crowds.
It’s very much a remote, “Well, yes, books and plays and fictions are all very well important, and we wouldn’t want to live life without them,” but it is nothing like a collasol embrace.
(See also: BoxedImagination?.)
You can see it on these folks’ websites– there’s very little to the imagination.
Now, I want to note the date here: This is 2008. I’m noting the date, because I believe that all of this will change, as people realize what’s happening, and a new zeitgeist takes effect. All of the present realities can change. And I’m hoping they do.
But at the time, if you browse these people’s websites, you’re going to find pictures of nature, pictures of galaxies, pictures of kids, and so on. All natural. “We’re not those crazy people who see visions, and put vision to ideas,” is the underlying message.
Unfortunately (for the present form of things,) all this imagination-allergicness has a consequence:
Lack of Heart.
The unmistakable conclusion of my thinking is that not only does the Heart “do” imagination, but that imagination is actually crucial to the exercise of the Heart.
It is as if: Without the Imagination, the heart is limp, and can’t go anywhere, or do anything. It is as if Imagination were the running legs and the arms of the Heart.
And what we find is that, very often, these groups, these Naturalistic Spiritualities, lack arms or legs for their hearts.
Even the HumanistsAndActivists – the ones who have the very word “active” in their name- are at a loss of heart, for their loss of imagination.
The best of the activists truly do see the other side of the mountain. But it is very rare: Most commonly, I have found that activists who “think about it” (“it” being “the big picture,”) end up depressed, negative, devestated, fallen to fatalism. They keep their body moving, it’s the only thing they can do, but many of them feel, in their hearts, that “nothing good can come.”
And all of these problems – the occasional callousness of the PhilosophersAndBuddhists, the terminal emptiness of awe felt by the GeologistsAndAstrophysicists (witnessable in the imagined AI dreams envisioned by Ray Kurzweil,) the deep depression of the HumanistsAndActivists, – all of these stem from the Lack of Imagination, which is the true vehicle of the Heart.
This is why we need to find new ways for NaturalisticSpiritualities.
“But that’s impossible.”
People who really get what I’m saying about there being 3 categories, and then notice that everything is fitting into them nicely, have difficulty even imagining something different. “Anything else just wouldn’t be a naturalistic spirituality!”
Well, hold on.
I’ve been reflecting, and thinking about this, for quite a while, (see MyQuestionOfEvolutionarySpirituality,) and here’s what I’ve come up with:
We have to change our attitude towards the imagination.
If we can change our attitude towards the imagination, then we can change the way our thoughts go at a fundamental level, connect with the oceans of spiritual wisdom that exist within the soul, and release the awesome powers of the Heart.
This is my basic premise.
Read “LivingImagination,” to get a sense of what a different naturalistic spirituality might be like. It’s very much still emerging for me today, (2008-09-23,) so it’s not quite at “the answer” levels, (see also: BeaFinder?,) but it should give “enough” to help spark the critical thoughts.