Did 'Westerners' Lost their spirituality?

Alkindus
Alkindus Members Posts: 1,677 ✭✭✭
edited March 2010 in R & R (Religion and Race)
I mean I understand you growing up under the lies of the mosk/church/temple but I get the impression people in general here in the west have lost their sense of spirituality. Taking things way to literal.


Simple example: buddhist/taoist/christians/muslims etc all tend to go back to the purity/emptiness/compleylty hate free and objective state of mind which makes you live forever because you are forever caught up in the moment and the moment is eternal. This mind state (if you will) lets you all things on the best way possible, the energie it gives you is limitless. You must reach this state of mind through studies/enlightment which every individuels gets on their own way. Problem is maintaining it because we all get distracted doing stuff/worrying about things. In Islam, the call for prayer reminds you of the previously mentioned state of mind and brings you back to that enlightment.....It's a moment of inspiration that brings you back to that moment understand? Now a lot of people will say ? the 5 time prayer, but don't realize that it's meant to remind the masses of the stuff previously mentioned. It is not nesceseraliy meant for those who already reached enlightement

95% of the people are idiots. They need law and order, thus in Islam people created those law and order through the so called tradition of the prophet, society needs to be a society right. Samething goes with other relgions. It helped maintain law and order. Cultural stuff blendid with religious stuff.

I get the impression that people put the law and order stuff on par with the spiritual part and therfor forget the spiritual and only witness the negative aspects and put literal interpe . Both atheists and religious folk make this mistake, they tend to forget the spiritual and only think about what is written, not about what they feel or what enlightment is.

A true Christian/Muslim/Taoist is righteous,good etc, without knowing it, he or she has a pure objective mindstate and this spiritual part is universal truth. Do you think spirituality lost in the west?

Comments

  • And Step
    And Step Members Posts: 3,726 ✭✭✭
    edited March 2010
    No. But you lost all sense of subject and verb agreement.

    The East is not doing so hot either. You all claim to be the seat of Godly wisdom and spiritual enlightenment, yet in the Holy Land, people who claim to have receive divine revelation can't get along and are killing each other as we speak. Some of you even claim to have the same faith tradition. Jews and Muslims religious expression is damn near identical. Yet you can't get along. Shia and Sunni are fighting and killing each other as we speak, yet they claim to follow the same book and guidance. Don't even get me started on Hindu/Muslim conflict. The only people who seem to have a semi- grip on the true meaning of spiritual enlightenment is the far east societies. But even they are beginning to lose some of it with their beginning to accept more and more of western culture.

    Truth be told, the East can't lay a claim to spiritual enlightenment no more than anyone else. The fact that you need continuous prophets, messengers, and divine revelation shows that you are not right and exact yourself. Those are only for unrighteous people who have gone astray. You in the east are more dogmatic and literal than anyone I ever met. It's like you are stuck in a time warp.

    So before you go clamoring about the loss of spirituality in the west, maybe you should go look in your own backyard.
  • Alkindus
    Alkindus Members Posts: 1,677 ✭✭✭
    edited March 2010
    And Step wrote: »
    No. But you lost all sense of subject and verb agreement.

    The East is not doing so hot either. You all claim to be the seat of Godly wisdom and spiritual enlightenment, yet in the Holy Land, people who claim to have receive divine revelation can't get along and are killing each other as we speak. Some of you even claim to have the same faith tradition. Jews and Muslims religious expression is damn near identical. Yet you can't get along. Shia and Sunni are fighting and killing each other as we speak, yet they claim to follow the same book and guidance. Don't even get me started on Hindu/Muslim conflict. The only people who seem to have a semi- grip on the true meaning of spiritual enlightenment is the far east societies. But even they are beginning to lose some of it with their beginning to accept more and more of western culture.

    Truth be told, the East can't lay a claim to spiritual enlightenment no more than anyone else. The fact that you need continuous prophets, messengers, and divine revelation shows that you are not right and exact yourself. Those are only for unrighteous people who have gone astray. You in the east are more dogmatic and literal than anyone I ever met. It's like you are stuck in a time warp.

    So before you go clamoring about the loss of spirituality in the west, maybe you should go look in your own backyard.



    I realize that you are a great example of my plight: eventhough I was speaking about universal truth, spiritual views that all religions/philosophies seem to have and that it really doesn't matter whether you are christian or buddhist or atheist(!), it is about your state of mind and how you interpertate things and therefor have no need to pray,no need for prophets, no need to visit a church no need for all the mandatory stuff made up that keep law and order because 9 outta 10 people need law and order to function. Enlightment means independency. It is reached through study/circumstances which are different for most. Spirituality however is a key part to succeed in achieving the pure mindstate. My assumption/my generalisation is that here in the 'west' people have way to literal interpertations, new age 'nutcase' views of spirituality and religion

    You are in my backyard, I'm a child of the earth bro. Where does the hate come from mon ami? Forgive me for giving you the wrong impression that this thread was about regional/east west side non-sense. My assumption(I actually live in the west, but come from the southern continent) is: interpertation of religion(christianity/islam/'taoism' etc) is not really spiritual. It is more a literal interpertation, '? ' is seen as a bro chillin in the sky etc, a lot of facets which are seen from a spiritual/mystic point of view(or what should be seen from such a point of view) are viewed literal and interpertated literal(by both western religious and athist folk). So when both views collide there is a shitload of misunderstanding and hate, yet if both views would approach it spiritually(as it should be) things might be different.
  • And Step
    And Step Members Posts: 3,726 ✭✭✭
    edited March 2010
    Alkindus wrote: »
    I realize that you are a great example of my plight: eventhough I was speaking about universal truth, spiritual views that all religions/philosophies seem to have and that it really doesn't matter whether you are christian or buddhist or atheist(!), it is about your state of mind and how you interpertate things and therefor have no need to pray,no need for prophets, no need to visit a church no need for all the mandatory stuff made up that keep law and order because 9 outta 10 people need law and order to function. Enlightment means independency. It is reached through study/circumstances which are different for most. Spirituality however is a key part to succeed in achieving the pure mindstate. My assumption/my generalisation is that here in the 'west' people have way to literal interpertations, new age 'nutcase' views of spirituality and religion

    You are in my backyard, I'm a child of the earth bro. Where does the hate come from mon ami? Forgive me for giving you the wrong impression that this thread was about regional/east west side non-sense. My assumption(I actually live in the west, but come from the southern continent) is: interpertation of religion(christianity/islam/'taoism' etc) is not really spiritual. It is more a literal interpertation, '? ' is seen as a bro chillin in the sky etc, a lot of facets which are seen from a spiritual/mystic point of view(or what should be seen from such a point of view) are viewed literal and interpertated literal(by both western religious and athist folk). So when both views collide there is a shitload of misunderstanding and hate, yet if both views would approach it spiritually(as it should be) things might be different.

    Very condescending. Spiritual people are humble. I think you are a great example of what you decry. I don't believe in a formless ? ? .
    You criticized westerners, and it was cool. I in turn criticize your viewpoint and you call it hate. Contradictory don't you think. People sure can dish it out, but can't take it.
    All you said has nothing to do with my response. I agree with your response for the most part but it was short sighted. I know people in the east who are the exact same way.
  • Alkindus
    Alkindus Members Posts: 1,677 ✭✭✭
    edited March 2010
    And Step wrote: »
    Very condescending. Spiritual people are humble. I think you are a great example of what you decry. I don't believe in a formless ? ? .
    You criticized westerners, and it was cool. I in turn criticize your viewpoint and you call it hate. Contradictory don't you think. People sure can dish it out, but can't take it.
    All you said has nothing to do with my response. I agree with your response for the most part but it was short sighted. I know people in the east who are the exact same way.

    I guess there is a miscommunication, I am a ´westerner´ as well. I made this thread because I have been noticing a lot of hate towards christianity and religion in general(and vice versa)....the spiritual part is being swept a side(which is all about love/respect toward eachother, free mindstate etc, positive things). thats why I asked ´have westerners lost their spirituality´(I know generalsations dont make sense) I guess I should have worded it so that you could also understand, obviously you felt it was a regional 'east vs west' or whatever you got out of it. Reason I called it hate is because well......there seemed to be hate in all the 'you and yours' etc talk. my initial post was about what you call the 'east' I guess, because I was refering to islam and prayer meaning....than you replied with east/west backyard etc I didn't really get why you were talking about that.

    If we would be living in the south the thread title would have been 'did southerns lost their spirituality'. It should have been 'have we lost our spirituality'.
    I'll c if I can change the thread title.
  • And Step
    And Step Members Posts: 3,726 ✭✭✭
    edited March 2010
    Alkindus wrote: »
    I guess there is a miscommunication, I am a ´westerner´ as well. I made this thread because I have been noticing a lot of hate towards christianity and religion in general(and vice versa)....the spiritual part is being swept a side(which is all about love/respect toward eachother, free mindstate etc, positive things). thats why I asked ´have westerners lost their spirituality´(I know generalsations dont make sense) I guess I should have worded it so that you could also understand, obviously you felt it was a regional 'east vs west' or whatever you got out of it. Reason I called it hate is because well......there seemed to be hate in all the 'you and yours' etc talk. my initial post was about what you call the 'east' I guess, because I was refering to islam and prayer meaning....than you replied with east/west backyard etc I didn't really get why you were talking about that.

    If we would be living in the south the thread title would have been 'did southerns lost their spirituality'. It should have been 'have we lost our spirituality'.
    I'll c if I can change the thread title.

    I see.

    Well you did kind of insinuate that somehow the east was more spiritually superior. And it is in some ways, but in a lot of ways it is not.

    It is ironic, but minus the debauchery and savagery, America has done more to demonstrate a universality of people than any other place I know.

    Muslims have Hajj, but that is just a ritual that is not really put into practice when hajjis depart and go back to their homelands.
  • Rock_Well
    Rock_Well Members Posts: 2,185 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited March 2010
    spirituality isn't lost in the west...u lost me on that one. are you trying to say most people in religion seem to have the wrong attitude about it? if so, this can go for anywhere on the earth. but i don't know what u mean by 'spirituality'. people love to use that term in ways that can mean so many different things.
  • bless the child
    bless the child Members Posts: 5,167 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited March 2010
    westerners never had spirituality to begin with
  • alissowack
    alissowack Members Posts: 1,930 ✭✭✭
    edited March 2010
    There is a sense of the west "losing their way", but I don't think it is just because of a lack of enlightenment or obedience. It is a lack of trust. The west...I'm a westerner so I will say we...we don't trust each other as much anymore. We can't take each other's word for anything because there is a chance that either we are outright lying, or saying what is true with false motives...and most of the time we are right. Any attempt to say we are "enlightened" and we have the truth leaves us questioning the integrity of what we say instead of being faithful to each other or the things we claim to be true. Though I don't think this is any different from any other place in the world, I believe no matter how much we try to write a law for every possible scheme, it won't stop us from questioning someone's word. We may even question the ones who make the laws...can they be trusted? Is there a law that protect us from even the lawmakers?