Philosophy Discussion Forums

Pattern-chaser wrote: ↑January 17th, 2025, 10:45 am

Gee wrote: ↑January 17th, 2025, 12:30 am I did not mean to imply that spirituality and emotion are one and the same, but they are related in the same way that 'father' and 'man' are related. A person can be a 'man' without being a 'father', but he can not be a 'father' without being a 'man'. Emotion does not have to have an association with spirituality, but spirituality can not exist without emotion. The reasons for this are both, very simple and profound. The simple reason is that spirituality is not recognized without emotion.

Ah, so faith is emotional, or at least partly so? That makes some sense to me.

When I was working in a science forum, I found a neurologist, who explained belief and faith to me. He said, "When you wake up in the morning and look out your window, you see the sun; and the next morning you see the sun; and the next. So you begin to associate the sun with morning and start to anticipate it." The sameness of seeing the sun every morning becomes a comfort, a familiarity that feels like home. That comfort is emotion and causes the belief that the sun will continue to light your morning. (Belief requires feeling/emotion) This is a truth that you have discovered, so if the day comes that the sun does not show up, you will be afraid. Your belief will be damaged, and your belief, and truth, is the foundation of your faith.

Pattern-chaser wrote: ↑January 17th, 2025, 10:45 am I believe because it *feels* right. I think that's what you're talking about, yes? But it also feels right, to me, that spirituality is emotional, but not solely emotion-based.

This part gets tricky to explain -- and understand. Emotion works through the unconscious aspect of mind like instincts do and maybe dreams and all of that psychic mumbo-jumbo. The problem with emotion is that we don't actually know it -- we feel it -- that is why the unconscious is unconscious. So if you are walking along and see a person, you can recognize and know that it is a person; if you see a landscape, you can recognize and know that it is a landscape; but if you feel emotion, you can recognize it but you do not know it, can not explain it. We know that the emotion that we feel always has a source. This is where spiritual ideas come from as we try to interpret what we feel, but do not actually know the source.

So even though I believe that all life reacts to some feeling/emotion because of the way hormones work in life, it takes a species with a brain and maybe language skills to interpret emotion and try to make it into an idea that could be called spiritual.

Pattern-chaser wrote: ↑January 17th, 2025, 10:45 am Would you agree?

I think that my agreement would depend on what you think emotion actually is and maybe what properties you think it has.

Gee