> On another list it has been suggested that a concern with spirituality
> is
> not necessarily incompatible
> with a naturalistic or materialist outlook, and reference has been
> made to
> the Humanist Association.
>
> I rather agree with this. Spirituality refers to the important
> emotional
> and cognitive processes within and between people in a social
> organisation,
> reconciling their own identity with that of the group in which they
> live,
> and move, and have their being. It is inconceivable that human
> society
> could have emerged and survived in material struggle with the
> environment
> over tens of thousands of years, without spirituality in this wider
> sense.
>
>
What really is a problem, though, is another way the word gets used, at
least in the United States. Here, it frequently occurs in the statement:
"I'm not religious. I'm spiritual."
The most charitable interpretation of this popular mantra is that it means the speaker feels a disposition towards masochistic submission of the sort that used to find expression in systematic religious faith, but that he or she doesn't really believe in what you have to accept to be religious, and is too vapid to grapple with the issue. The new age sections of bookstores like Barnes and Noble testify to the prevalence of this phenomenon.
I saw Shawshank Redemption too, and I agree it's a superior movie. In fact, it probably could be seen as a serious effort to think these issues through.
Christopher Rhoades Dÿkema