River
Active member
As a spiritual and mystical nontheist, I share a good deal in common with my atheist brothers and sisters. But the one thing I and my atheisit brothers and sisters hold most strongly in common with one another is an aversion for religious authority (and orthodoxy, dogma) and its typically accompanied enclosures of inquiry. That is, we are committed to what I call Open Inquiry.
To understand what I mean by Open Inquiry, we should begin by naming three basic kinds of Open Inquiry.:
As a spiritual and mystical nontheist, I don't think any of these facets of Inquiry are complete in and of themselves, but that each needs the others to be whole and wholesome. I also think the boundaries between these three aspects of Inquiry are necessarily quite vague and ambiguous. One cannot draw a clear, firm line enclosing one of these three apart from the others without doing damage to Inquiry itself. Inquiry should always be open and free. It should never be rigidly bound by systems of institutionalized authority and control.
Inquiry is inclined always toward truth, and being so requires that inquiry be also free.
Open inquiry is suspicous of all forms of narrow-mindedness and control of open discourse and discovery, including those of contemporary and modern science (e.g., scientism).
And I could go on, but this is not an essay, it's a conversation. Jump in wherever you like.
Spirituality
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirituality
To understand what I mean by Open Inquiry, we should begin by naming three basic kinds of Open Inquiry.:
- Scientific
- Philosophical
- Spiritual
As a spiritual and mystical nontheist, I don't think any of these facets of Inquiry are complete in and of themselves, but that each needs the others to be whole and wholesome. I also think the boundaries between these three aspects of Inquiry are necessarily quite vague and ambiguous. One cannot draw a clear, firm line enclosing one of these three apart from the others without doing damage to Inquiry itself. Inquiry should always be open and free. It should never be rigidly bound by systems of institutionalized authority and control.
Inquiry is inclined always toward truth, and being so requires that inquiry be also free.
Open inquiry is suspicous of all forms of narrow-mindedness and control of open discourse and discovery, including those of contemporary and modern science (e.g., scientism).
And I could go on, but this is not an essay, it's a conversation. Jump in wherever you like.
Spirituality
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirituality
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