I didn't say thet spiritual implied the presence of disembodied ghosts. Something spiritual generally implies something that feeds or touches one's soul or spirit in some way. Souls and spirits are religious ideas.

On behalf of this member of the "snarky agnostics and atheists" may I say there is a word for this feeling in fact there are several tranquility (or tranquillity) awstricken, wonderment, reverence, fascination, peaceability, sentimentality, love, aduration, enchantment and those are just of the top of my head and all those feelings or combinations of feeling have no connection to or connotations of "Spirituality"
snark snark

RIGHT!! It's completely off topic, if you can't stay on topic - the topic is NEVER about the poster or commentor - shut your piehole.

@LenHazell53 point taken. I just think we sometimes get too worked up over semantics

I must've missed that discussion. I know that feeling well, I feel it myself when humbled by the beauty and majesty of nature, I just don't see it as a spiritual experience since I reject the concept of a spirit/soul.

I guess we need to make up a word for that particular state of emotion. So for the time being, I'll call it 'tremulescent.'

@Sgt_Spanky see @LenHazell53 response above, he’s got some very good words. I’m too lazy to look for the previous discussion. If I run across it I’ll post a link

@LenHazell53 Good point. We have a variety of words that could descibe this feeling that don't reference any religious ideas.

@silverotter11 Since when is it against the rules or even a bad thing occasionally to digress, and since when is it okay, or your purview, to tell anyone to shut their piehole?

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@genessa I only do that if they attack ME, rules of good conversation state use I statements, if you can't do that or feel you must attack my opinion or person. Digressing is okay to a point but sometimes it becomes away of dissin' a person.
I rarely tell someone to shut their piehole, twice since I joined agnostic.com and one failed to stop verbally attacking so I blocked them. I have read some really trashy comments but since I was not a part of the 'discussion' did not say anything but felt someone should have told the jerk to stfu.

@silverotter11 well, i have been sick in bed all day and admit i didn't read the whole thread so i defer to your judgment. all i saw was your telling someone to shut his/her piehole and the explanation about being off topic. the two didn't seem to match, digression and therefore telling someone that. my eyes still hurt so i will take your word for your reasoning, but i have to say if your post had said (approximately) "you attacked me so shut your piehole" instead of "you're off-topic so shut your piehole" i probably wouldn't have responded at all. nonetheless i DO take you at your word as to why you responded as you did.

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@genessa I hope you are feeling better, it's already cold up in your area and just starting to get cold here in eastern WA but I already know of one case of the flu! Thank you for responding and we have worked this out. I just wish we did not hear of the discord that has occurred on this site, we all came here to find like minded folks who don't believe in fairy tales and a guy up in the sky managing our silly ways. Be well and stay warm.

@silverotter11 thank you. i have a restful weekend ahead of me and intend to spend most of it in bed, snug and warm with two old cats, a kitten, a young dog and even a resident human of the male persuation. if anyone rings my doorbell they can leave a message!

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The world is just a breeding ground and a kindergarten for your soul, you can't get in tune with nature you can't get a spiritual connection with a tree or a rock woew

Good explanation. I find a lot of non-believers get extremely offended over a word, even when the user of the word doesn’t necessarily mean spirit like a ghost or holy spirit

I really like that definition. Thanks for sharing it.

@GreatNani Thank you for that, my heart felt warm.

@Marcie1974 If they don't mean to say what a word means then they should not use it.
English has more words in it's vocabulary than any other language, hence it can be used extremely precisely. It is not the fault of the interlocutor if they take a statement made as meaning what it actually means and not what the the ill educated other party thinks it might mean.

@LenHazell53 but words change. 100 years ago being gay meant happy. Now it means being attracted to the same sex.

I do hear non-believers use the word spiritual as I described it.

I understand where you’re coming from though. For me it’s not something I get worked up over. However, there are things that get my panties in a bunch that you probably wouldn’t think is a big deal. What I’m trying to say is I hear you and am not trying to minimize your frustration over the word spiritual.

@Marcie1974
"100 years ago being gay meant happy. Now it means being attracted to the same sex."

Not true actually Gay meant carefree and colourful, it's homophone Gai/guy meant promiscuous as in a Gai/guy House (Brothel).
However both of these became confused with the third meaning of gay as in the original names for the two genders given to infants in English
Gay Girl ( F )
and
Knave Girl ( M )

The word girl actually simply meaning child, gay in this sense simply meaning good or excellent and Knave meaning rascally. Male bashing was around even then in the world of Nannies and governesses

Effeminate males came to be known as Gay Girls in the homosexual circles to simply mean good in the sense similar to calling an attractive person a babe that still exists today.
After the Cleveland street scandal in the 1880s and and the prosecution of Oscar Wilde in the 1890s the illiterate press in the UK and the USA carried out a demonising campaign of "The Gays" within Victorian society this mistook Gais/guys meaning the promiscuous homosexual prostitutes of Cleveland street and placed a dark meaning on the word Gay (meaning excellent) while turning gai to the very masculine Guy (again confusing it with the existing name Gui )
So by the 1890s Girl came to mean simply young female child instead of just child and male children were given the term Boy which up until then had simply meant an apprentice or servant and was often a pet name for a son.

Today contextually gay still means colourful or pretty, guy can and does in some circumstances mean a promiscuous man and gay has been reclaimed by the homosexual community to again mean a homsexual man, they are entirely different words that have fundamentally never changed their meanings only their spelling..

@LenHazell53 thank you for that long explanation. Pretty much missed the point I was trying to make but hey, you got to tell me I’m wrong so good on you

How are you defining spiritual then?

Beautiful landscapes. I think I need to visit Wenatchee next summer. Probably good MTB opportunities also.

@Sgt_Spanky

Christians who don't know me often demand that I explain:

1. Why I am an atheist.
2. How the universe began (as if being an atheist automatically makes me an astrophysicist). "Nobody knows," I reply. "Science is advancing more every year."
3. What happens when people die. "Nobody knows," I reply.
4. What is spirituality.

I would never corner Christians and demand that they explain themselves like you did.

@LiterateHiker Unlike speculative explanations for the origin of the universe or what happens after death, words have definitive/objective meanings and "spiritual" means something that feeds or touches one's spirit or soul. If you call yourself spiritual then I'm simply askeing you to define its meaning relative to your use of it as a non-believer. It's not a 'gotcha' question. It's a perfectly reasonable follow-up.

If you don't want to answer it, don't, but don't feel triggered by me for asking it.

@Sealybobo Operative word being "might" - as this does not apply to everyone. The only ones I thank for putting me here, would be my parents.

@Sealybobo Well yeah - you have a couple too. - check your umbilicus However there is no worship going on. No prayers. Nobody hangin' on a cross, or quoting the bibull, or dyiing for my (gasp) sins ...

I like that

Really? Does this hold true for all words or just those words that confuse people? Nobody has alternative meanings for words like tired, smelly, or drunk. Words have definitive meanings. That's what dictionaries are for.

@Sgt_Spanky Dictionaries supply the current/common/colloquial usage of a word which is useful. However any word can be redefined for equivocation.

@Sgt_Spanky I'm laughing a bit because in any dictionary, there are usually multiple definitions for any word. And definitions change and evolve all the time. That's the fluidity of language--unless you mean Latin, which is frozen in time.

@Ellen-SoCal Yes - depending on how the word is being used, ie. noun, verb or adjective. But when it comes to the use of rather vague terms that are open to subjective interpretation, then the word should be defined beforehand so the reader knows in what way you're using it.

@Atheist3 Good point. There's a silly quiz that states they'll know which part of the US you come from by the words you use for pictures they show you. Vagaries in language is an ongoing puzzle, for casual and social conversation.
When I watched the debates featuring Christopher Hitchens I was very impressed that he was always clear in the words he chose to make a point. We should all be so disciplined. I was fortunate enough to see him from a second row seat with a rabbi (name lost) a devout Xtian (also name lost) and Sam Harris.

Wrong.

@Sgt_Spanky Your opinion, of which I really could not possibly care less about.

That's a fancy way to say it's people being full of shit.

@OwlInASack Sadly many do not understand the rules of good converstion or the definition of the word ignorant. Ignorant is a lack of knowledge, attacking someone instead of trying to educate is a huge problem. Always use I statements and demand anyone commenting stay on topic. Attacking the poster or commentor is not staying on topic .

@OwlInASack Maybe.

Or are too frightened to completely come out as atheist/agnostic.

Or not even frightened but trying to placate grandma and the family that they haven’t completely gone rogue

@Marcie1974 what is to be frightened of? This not the middle ages we don't burn heretics and atheists anymore.
and if your family are willing to dismiss you for being yourself, they are pretty rotten family, funny how it is almost always the loving christian family who reject the atheist and not the other way around.

@LenHazell53 I’ve been at my job for about 6 months. I’ve observed that this area of Minnesota is one of the few really conservative areas. People are also fairly religious, including my boss. I’m not necessarily afraid to come out as atheist, but being treated differently than I am now is a real concern. I am Facebook friends with several coworkers and it’s pretty obvious on there that I don’t believe. I’m taking a “know your audience” approach.

I don’t consider a 90 year old grandma “rotten” for being upset if they found out their grandchild is atheist. Again, know your audience. I don’t feel the need to blast what I don’t believe in to every person I encounter. Especially at work. Grandma doesn’t expect me to pray or go to church with her...what purpose would it serve to tell her?

There are no stupid words, just stupid people saying stupid things that make the worrds they use look stupid.

I should put that on a t-shirt.

You just used several fantastic words that are clear in their meaning. Spiritual is nebulous and confusing, so why use it?

Was the Buddha an historical person or just cognitive imagination?

If you like science you would not like spirituality. Science can carry you much further forward. In whatever belief you decide to adopt.

Deism makes no sense to me. Deists accept the natural order of the universe then shoehorn an umproven god into it based on no evidence. Why do you see the need for a god in a universe you acknowledge functions without one?

@Sgt_Spanky Deism was the big thing before we had science to explain many things. God set it all in motion and then left. It is impossible to communicate with him.