Beehaw Support @beehaw.org alyaza [they/she] @beehaw.org 2y ago

minor PSA: we have a Spirituality community now

this was made a few days ago when i was off but nobody announced it, so i guess i'm doing that now. the sidebar describes its purpose as follows:

Spirituality is a broad concept with room for many perspectives. In general, it includes a sense of connection to something bigger than ourselves, and it typically involves a search for meaning in life. As such, it is a universal human experience—something that touches us all. People may describe a spiritual experience as sacred or transcendent or simply a deep sense of aliveness and interconnectedness.

Some may find that their spiritual life is intricately linked to their association with a church, temple, mosque, or synagogue. Others may pray or find comfort in a personal relationship with God or a higher power. Still others seek meaning through their connections to nature or art. Like your sense of purpose, your personal definition of spirituality may change throughout your life, adapting to your own experiences and relationships

32 comments

Was miss reading "we are a Spirituality community now" and thought that this is very unexpected.

But to have c/spirituality as a community here is very welcome.
- I feel better I'm not the only one who misread it.
Fantastic news. Appreciated
I don't know whether I'll participate in this one, as I'm an atheist (though I do I think experience the same emotions in other contexts and this looks like it's meant to be inclusive of that), but I'm happy to see it after seeing some blindly anti-all-religious-people (I don't know a good word for this) hate comments recently.
- Also an atheist. I applaud a well-rounded description of this new community! It also doesn't particularly include atheism which is maybe fine.
  
  I’m happy to see it after seeing some blindly anti-all-religious-people (I don’t know a good word for this) hate comments recently.
  
  Sounds like overcompensation? Some people who gravitate towards, let's say atheism, come from another bad experience and need a safe place to talk about that. Some need that answer to the meaning of life, etc. And some don't
  
  Since this doesn't necessarily include atheists -- How about a philosophy community? Or is it better to have more specific communities?
  
  Anti religious is definitely not atheists. Entirely different but of course too many make it the same thing. I personally am not religous but am spiritual. Not atheist but not a 'beliver' as some would consider, it's not black and white. While I don't believe an actual proclaimed atheist would want to deal with a spirituality group, a difference if opinion without attacks, is welcome in my opinion.
  
  Not sure if I'm overcompensating as well, but religion and spirituality feel very anti-knowledge to me. That is, in my view they try to fill the gap of what we don't know (and may never know) with their own projections (although science isn't free from doing exactly that either). Like, I know that we will never be able to understand the whole world etc, but spirituality just feels like giving up on trying to explain the world based on knowledge. I theoretically understand that other people need to fill this gap with something because they would otherwise face existential crisis or whatever. But I don't have these feelings so it seems pretty alienating to me. Well, the same goes for many things 'normal' people feel, like heteronormativity, which I don't get either.
  
  Anyways, it always feels very weird to me when people talk about spiritual or religious ideas. In my view spirituality is problematic because I consider it to be anti-knowledge, but I don't have a better alternative either.
- I've heard "Anti-Theist" used as a term for this
Awesome, thank you so much!
!spirituality@beehaw.org
It's interesting the most of the comments are from atheists. Maybe there should an atheist community as well although it would be better to call it something like 'not a theist' as the term atheist has become so loaded. On the other hand atheists don't have much to say about not being a theist as not stamp collectors don't have much to say about not being stamp collectors.
- Maybe there should an atheist community as well although it would be better to call it something like ‘not a theist’ as the term atheist has become so loaded.
  
  we already have a lot of communities and there's one we said we'd make we haven't even yet so i'd say anything like this would be well on the backburner. atheist communities online obviously don't have a great history with being productive and non-toxic spaces, and i'm not even specifically thinking of /r/atheism when i say this (i remember the Atheism+ stuff and Rebecca Watson)
  
  My suggestion that there should be an atheist community was mostly in jest. It's been my experience that atheists aren't interested in talking about atheism. I share your observations about existing atheist groups. It would make more sense to create a group to discuss non-spiritual explanations for why we are here. Again, just kidding. I don't think anyone has a such an explanation.
- It's the Internet. It would be weird if they weren't the first to jump on it.
Doesn't matter, because I already predicted it.
subadubdub!

32 comments