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SSJPython | 9 months ago

I should've said the worship of the temporal (material reality, etc.) rather than the spiritual.

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williamdclt|9 months ago

It’s not any less vague. Again, what definition of “worship” do you use? It’s certainly not any of the dictionaries

CamperBob2|9 months ago

What has the spiritual ever done for us? We know nothing of gods that we didn't learn from other men.

quotz|9 months ago

But men do not respect other men nearly as much as they respect the gods and the supernatural

lo_zamoyski|9 months ago

You're committing the same fallacy that many do which is to lump them all under "gods" and then make it a problem of distinguishing which of these possible beings exists.

But this fails to distinguish between a being and Being. You and I are beings, beings among many. The pagan gods, personifications of various natural phenomena, were like us, in this sense: they were beings among, only more powerful. Being, on the other hand, is the verb to be. You exist, I exist, all the beings of the world exist. The pagan gods, I submit, do not exist, save as fictions.

So how do you relate to your existence? We all exist, so it isn't particular to you. And you are not the cause of your own existence, here and now. Rather existence is something prior to any particular existing things in the order of causes. This cause, this existence, this Being itself, is God, and you can know quite a bit about it, analogously, through unaided reason and without appealing to authority.

> What has the spiritual ever done for us?

That question is premature for you.