Naturalism and Suffering Bodies

July 27, 2023 By Spiritual Naturalist Society

by Eric Steinhart Our bodies obviously suffer: they get injured and sick, they age and die. Life as a body is just plain painful. Lots of spiritual philosophies and practices are ways we respond to our suffering bodies. These responses often involve dissociation. Dissociation is a way of separating your consciousness from its awareness of the painful condition of your body. When you use dissociative techniques, your awareness becomes split off from the awareness of your painful body. When you dissociate,... Read more

Mysticism Naturally

July 17, 2023 By Spiritual Naturalist Society

by Thomas Schenk The year I graduated from high school (1971), my brother and I spent the summer traveling throughout the Western United States. Along the way, someone gave me a copy of The Upanishads, which I casually read as we traveled. In Washington, somewhere between Mount Rainier and Yakima, while my brother drove, I dozed off. While sleeping, I had a vivid dream. In the dream I saw a golden ball on the horizon. As I gazed at it, golden strings... Read more

Practicing Mindful Walking

July 17, 2023 By Spiritual Naturalist Society

by Leigh Anderson Photo by Sébastien Goldberg on Unsplash I want to move my mindfulness practice into more of my daily life. I am aware of wanting to be mindful while I walk, but that doesn’t mean that I’m practicing mindfulness at the time. I pay more attention to what’s going on in my environment or what’s going on inside my head. It seems so much easier to be mindful when I’m sitting still in a chair and concentrating on... Read more

It is Happening Now

June 29, 2023 By Spiritual Naturalist Society

by Daniel Shkolnik The point of this writing is not to make a rational argument or assert truth-claims, but to bring you into a state of presence. I invite you to read the following sentences without agreeing or disagreeing with anything I say and let the words lead you into presence: Be awake. Be alert. Or you’ll miss it. Be like a cat watching a mouse-hole. Be like a servant waiting for the master to return. You never know when “God”... Read more

Eat, Drink and Be Merry?

June 29, 2023 By Spiritual Naturalist Society

by Thomas Schenk (Having had more than enough eating, drinking and merriment over the holidays, I offer this piece to start the new year.) “Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die” – is this not the simplest, most natural philosophy worth putting into words? It cuts through all religious, metaphysical, and supernatural assertions and points directly to the obvious: we’re going to die and there is no credible evidence that death is anything but the end. So why... Read more

I Have Free Will

June 20, 2023 By Spiritual Naturalist Society

by SNS Guest (This article is by guest writer John Stokdijk. For a short bio, see below.) There is no consensus on free will among great thinkers who are far more intelligent and much more knowledgeable on the matter than I am. I could spend years trying to understand what Daniel Dennett, John Searle, Julian Biggini, Alfred Mele, Susan Blackmore, Christian List and numerous others have to say about free will. Therefore, on an intellectual level, I DO NOT KNOW if... Read more

A Look at Our SNS Community Half-Way Through 2023

June 20, 2023 By Spiritual Naturalist Society

June 15, 2023 by Gregory Gronbacher We’re considering this image, created by Danial Strain, for our new logo. NOTE: This week’s SNS article differs slightly from what you’re used to reading. Due to a scheduling conflict, the slot for this week’s article opened up, and I asked if I could use it to give everyone an overview of where SNS stands as of June 2023. So, here we go. Spiritual Naturalist Society at a Glance About ten years ago, Daniel Strain and others launched the... Read more

Inner Darwin

June 11, 2023 By Spiritual Naturalist Society

by Thomas Schenk I’m surprised that humans didn’t discover something like Darwinian evolution from observing human behavior. Metaphors comparing human behavior with the behavior of other animals date back to early times. Our sexuality is goatish, we eat like pigs, we lock horns in battle, we strive to be top dog, to provide a few examples. Such metaphors show that humans have long been aware that we share traits with other animals. It shouldn’t have been too hard, at least for... Read more

The Value of (Empty) Ritual

June 11, 2023 By Spiritual Naturalist Society

by James Jarrett Created by Jay Galvin “The Sabbath was made for people, not people for the Sabbath.” — Jesus of Nazareth I have been thinking about rituals lately. Amusingly, the English word “spiritual” includes the word “ritual”. How do you feel about ritual? For me, it depends on the purpose of my participation and the purpose of the ritual itself. For this article, I am using ritual as a pattern of thought, word, and/or action repeated on some regular basis.... Read more

Can You Love Nature?

May 27, 2023 By Spiritual Naturalist Society

by Eric Steinhart Painting by Elmer Wachtel, Credit: Smithsonian American Art Museum We humans often love other humans. We love our family members and our friends. And we often have more abstract kinds of love, like love for our communities and our countries. We might have love for non-human animals like cats and dogs. Humans also often love things that aren’t even alive, like food or power or money. We love activities like running or painting. And we can even... Read more