Social Necessity of Spiritual Need

You have to have Hope

Thank you Skye17. That is interesting about CSLewis. I accept Sehnsucht as a justification for doing history i.e. finding put about man's past. I feel Sehnsucht when I watch Prof Alice Roberts on TV.
However my interest is not so much historical as political. I think we need to feel passionate about what is right and what is wrong.

(out)

Lucy Anne, yes, you have to have Hope. Also Charity. I am not so sure about Faith.

But your right might be my wrong and vice versa. I dont think 'spiritual' people are necessarily 'good' people if that is what u mean.

Galaxy, that is a problem for sure.
You can identify the good by its absence of

*indoctrination
* greed
*arrogance
*selfishness
*laziness
*apathy
*conceit

I agree it's important to long for the world to be a better place. Perhaps one could say to long for justice and compassion in the world? A sense that things are not as they ought to be, the world is broken?

I think the existence of this feeling fits right in with the idea that we are made in the image of God, by a God of justice and compassion. And with the teaching of the Bible that the world was broken when mankind decided not to trust and follow God, but to go their own way.

This feeling is harder to explain if physical matter is all there is, and we are only animals who came into existence by chance.

Can you. I am not being deliberately difficult. But take arrogance, it is for example a prerequisite of many skilled surgeons .

I think Caleo has perfectly described Humanism in my view and something I try to live by. I'm not so sure about the spiritual aspect.

I'm not sure that looking for indoctrination, greed, arrogance, selfishness, laziness, apathy and conceit is always enough to judge right from wrong on controversial issues (trans rights?)

If there is no objective moral standard, like a measuring stick to measure things by, I think right and wrong can only ever be a matter of opinion.

Galaxy

Can you. I am not being deliberately difficult. But take arrogance, it is for example a prerequisite of many skilled surgeons .

I would say surgeons need to be confident of their own skills in the light of their training, but they shouldn’t be arrogant (I know many are!)

Galaxy

Can you. I am not being deliberately difficult. But take arrogance, it is for example a prerequisite of many skilled surgeons .

Galaxy
What’s the difference between god and a surgeon. God doesn’t think he’s a surgeon 😂 Love that one.

Caleo, thanks for responding. As I said, I meant no offence and my posting was absolutely not meant personally.
I suppose "inner need" might be what you meant, rather than "spiritual need" which implies the presence of a personal spirit (internal or external). Many people don't feel they have a spirit, either in terms of conventional religious belief or secular principles. It's an interesting subject and one which requires some quite rigorous consideration in order for humanity to rub along successfully with each other.

By "spiritual need" I mean one's need to purpose to act in the general good,

I am not clear why you think that behaving in the general good has anything to do with anything spiritual.

Yes, surely you can be a good person and 'act in the general good' without there having to be some kind of spiritual input.

And can be a 'spiritual' person and not be very nice

A humanitarian person…..

Hmm ,Interesting as C S Lewis is ( and I have enjoyed many of his writings) I actually think that statement begins with a fallacy or at least an unproven statement which he asserts with such authority that people assume it is a fact rather than a belief.

It’s a clever sleight of hand that he uses often in his writing.
( And notice the nod to his misogynistic views😱😬)

He was undoubtedly a spiritual person. It permeates all his writing. But was he “good”. At lot of the time he was simply awful to those he considered less than himself. Arrogant, unjust, selfish, conceited and definitely indoctrinated.

Oh dear.

I have always followed a spiritual path, which involves ethics, since my late 20's.. I don't know whether it was a spiritual need it just seemed to me to be a sensible way to live...

Caleo By "spiritual need" I mean one's need to purpose to act in the general good, as opposed to being stupid, selfish, greedy, arrogant. conceited, or indoctrinated.
Thank you for clarifying that.
But I think acting for the general good has nothing to do with spirituality.
It is perfectly possible for atheists to act unselfishly and consider the effect on others of their acts or omissions.
And some people clearly have no need, spiritual or otherwise, to behave kindly towards others.

Janeainsworth , I defined what I meant by 'spirituality''. My definition does indeed pertain to the general good.

Lathyrus, concerning CS Lewis, perhaps he prayed "God make me the thing I would be and not the thing I am."

Lathyrus3

Hmm ,Interesting as C S Lewis is ( and I have enjoyed many of his writings) I actually think that statement begins with a fallacy or at least an unproven statement which he asserts with such authority that people assume it is a fact rather than a belief.

It’s a clever sleight of hand that he uses often in his writing.
( And notice the nod to his misogynistic views😱😬)

He was undoubtedly a spiritual person. It permeates all his writing. But was he “good”. At lot of the time he was simply awful to those he considered less than himself. Arrogant, unjust, selfish, conceited and definitely indoctrinated.

Oh dear.

Having read C S Lewis‘s autobiography, Surprised by Joy, I can say that whatever his faults may have been he was undoubtably an independent thinker and in no way indoctrinated. As he wrote, ‘I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.’ He had been thinking about this for years and was reluctantly convinced.

I do know that Lewis bothered writing back by hand to every reader who wrote to him via his publishers, including children, so he wasn’t that selfish.

Do you mean that ‘Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists’ is an unproven statement? I can’t think of any desires that creatures are born with without satisfaction for those desires existing, can you?

By ‘men’ Lewis may well have meant ‘human beings’ rather than ‘males’. He was writing in the 1940s, after all. So I don’t think he was necessarily being misogynistic there.

We're you looking to chat around the idea of need, good and belonging maybe Caleo?

I think I'm just not very bright tonight. Sorry.

I'm not sure if you have a premise/theory that you wanted to talk about?

petra

Galaxy

Can you. I am not being deliberately difficult. But take arrogance, it is for example a prerequisite of many skilled surgeons .

Galaxy
What’s the difference between god and a surgeon. God doesn’t think he’s a surgeon 😂 Love that one.

😂😂