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Vicki Williams's avatar

If you can approach the world's complexities, both its glories and its horrors, with an attitude of humble curiosity, acknowledging that however deeply you have seen, you have only scratched the surface, you will find worlds within worlds, beauties you could not heretofore imagine, and your own mundane preoccupations will shrink to proper size, not all that important in the greater scheme of things. Keeping that awestruck vision of the world ready to hand while dealing with the demands of daily living is no easy exercise, but it is definitely worth the effort, for if you can stay centered , and engaged , you will find the hard choices easier, the right words will come to you when you need them, and you will indeed be a better person. That, I propose, is the secret to spirituality, and it has nothing at all to do with believing in an immortal soul.

Daniel C. Dennett, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon

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Timothy Johnson's avatar

I've been thinking about this for the last few days, and I'm a little dissatisfied with using the word spiritual based on a "scattering of meanings".

Most concepts, even if they're fuzzy, have a recognizable core. But from the list of seven things that you've defined as spiritual, it's not clear to me what exactly they have in common. What do these things share that makes us want to group them under the same label?

The one answer I can think of is that all seven are profound sources of meaning and purpose for most people. So perhaps instead of using a loaded word like "spiritual", it's better to say that education should provide people with a deeper understanding of what they consider the most important sources of meaning in their lives.

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