Spirituality

It could refer to only the positive, with hatred and sadness being negative; them being a lack of love and happiness.

That's the soul:

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The soul may be defined as the ultimate internal principle by which we think, feel, and will, and by which our bodies are animated.

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The spirit is:

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In Psychology, "spirit" is used (with the adjective "spiritual") to denote all that belongs to our higher life of reason, art, morality, and religion as contrasted with the life of mere sense-perception and passion. The latter is intrinsically dependent on matter and conditioned by its laws; the former is characterized by freedom or the power of self-determination; "spirit" in this sense is essentially personal.

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If you use the 0 - perfect scale for spirit, then being at zero doesn't mean that you don't have a soul, it would mean that you lack all of things of "our higher life". (Oni, insert pot-smoking joke here)Assuming there's a negative side does necessitate that the bad things are of a spirit too.I suppose that when I wrote this:

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It could refer to only the positive, with hatred and sadness being negative; them being a lack of love and happiness.

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I kinda contradicted myself because simply being a lack of, is not really a negative. I remember backspacing a few words out before submitting it and then having to go afk, but I don't remember my train of thought. There needs to be an either or, or something, in there. Peg seems to use the 0 to X scale, and I was going to advocate for the -x to +x scale. I didn't intend to equate them.If the spirit is "essentially personal" and "characterized by freedom or the power of self-determination", then there'd be bad spirits too, dontcha think?

Bwuh?Why eliminate all the distinctions if you're trying to understand the difference? You seem to have made the definitions as the same as possible.Sometimes the word "spirit" is used for the same concept as the word "soul" and sometimes they refer to different concepts. I didn't read any of those pages in their entirety. Lets see if simply be raised Catholic generates better or worse answers than you reading those pages.... I'd say that its the exact opposite. The soul is the universal medium and the spirit is the individual entity. No, the soul is what "causes all the vital functions of the body" as it is the "ultimate internal principle by which our bodies are animated.", although you're right that the "spirit" is A (note: not 'the') vital quality of the "soul". Again, I'd say its closer to the opposite. The "soul" is the substance from which the "spirit" is constructed, although, that phrasing doesn't seem to be very accurate at all.Shit... I got to go.

Feral children behave very differently than civilized ones. Assuming being civilized is the correct way to be, being without it could be seen as being "damaged or impaired". Know what I mean?That can easily get translated into spiritual experiences.

Sure they are... feral is the default state (by definition). They certainly aren't born civilized and then turned feral.

I disagree. Aside from the purely physical sense, babies are not born "completely human" as we can see with feral children.

Not bad! (although conservatives smoke pot too)Ya know, you could probably come up with a whole list of "dichotomies" like that... That could be pretty funny. Kinda like the whole you might be a red-neck thing, but:"I don't consider myself liberal or conservative, I think I fall somewhere in between the two. Like, I enjoy X, but only while Y."Where X and Y are a liberal and conservative thing, respectively, that are really funny when put together. I dunno, that might be worth working on.However, I was thinking of some king of sophmoric response to me saying "our higher life". Right after that it says:

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The term "mind" usually denotes this principle as the subject of our conscious states, while "soul" denotes the source of our vegetative activities as well.

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I can see how it looks like that. At the bottom of the page on "soul" there's this:

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Such is the Catholic doctrine on the nature, unity, substantiality, spirituality, and origin of the soul. It is the only system consistent with Christian faith, and, we may add, morals, for both Materialism and Monism logically cut away the foundations of these. The foregoing historical sketch will have served also to show another advantage it possesses -- namely, that it is by far the most comprehensive, and at the same time discriminating, synthesis of whatever is best in rival systems. It recognizes the physical conditions of the soul's activity with the Materialist, and its spiritual aspect with the Idealist, while with the Monist it insists on the vital unity of human life. It enshrines the principles of ancient speculation, and is ready to receive and assimilate the fruits of modern research.

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So, I think there's a little more to it that you're allowing for.

Using your definition of spirituality:

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Basically, Peg's right in that spirituality is "love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faith, mildness and self-control." Spirituality is all those virtues that we generally associate with the term.

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Feral children lack kindness, mildness, and self-control for starters. and using my definition:

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In Psychology, "spirit" is used (with the adjective "spiritual") to denote all that belongs to our higher life of reason, art, morality, and religion as contrasted with the life of mere sense-perception and passion. The latter is intrinsically dependent on matter and conditioned by its laws; the former is characterized by freedom or the power of self-determination; "spirit" in this sense is essentially personal.

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They also lack art and morality too.I'm not claiming that they are incapable of being spiritual, nor that they lack it altogether, just that they are not "completely human" in the sense that they have less spirituality than normal people. And that that is the default state for people suggests that there is something "damaged or imparied" in us if we use our normal civilized sprituality as the basis of comparison. Because they're just like every other baby except for the circumstances that they are born into. At birth, there is nothing different and you're saying that we're born full. But we're not, we have to learn our spirituality.

Check Message 42 for more clarification.Jaywill was saying that we start off spiritually damaged or impaired and Stile was disagreeing. I'm sayin that we do start off (our default) without much spirituality (as in not a "complete" amount of it). Well we can't quantify spirituality but we can see how some people have more of it than others and kinda of get at what the normal amout is with normal people and say that getting there makes you complete, or you could put complete at the far end of the spectrum as being completely spiritual but that's not really what were talking about. No, not at all. I'm suggesting that people can have more or less spirituality.

No, I gotcha. I'm saying that we are born defective or damaged or impaired if we accept being civilized as we our today with our current spirituality as the normal undamaged and unimparied state.A man left alone (or a feral child) will not have the spirituality that we have. If that were the case then feral children would not be so wild and lacking of spirituality... but they are... so you're wrong.

I think I compromised my anonymity some time ago so I'm not going to public admit breaking any laws... /wink-wink, /nudge-nudge. Now that is funny! Or you could have come at it from the other way by using Ellen Degeneres That sounds an awful lot like: "Wah, they just don't get me!" Yeah, your definitions ain't bad. But I think the Catholic one is better that you gave it, as in its not really that primitive at all.

For some reason, I'm thinking Buddhist monks here... Look at the definitions we're using again:

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spirituality is "love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faith, mildness and self-control." Spirituality is all those virtues that we generally associate with the term.

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In Psychology, "spirit" is used (with the adjective "spiritual") to denote all that belongs to our higher life of reason, art, morality, and religion as contrasted with the life of mere sense-perception and passion. The latter is intrinsically dependent on matter and conditioned by its laws; the former is characterized by freedom or the power of self-determination; "spirit" in this sense is essentially personal.

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Whadaya think now?

Oh So what? A controlling leader probably wears shoes too But that's just how and uncontrollable follower would word it I'm calling it what it really is You catch my drift?You're saying its 'not positive', he's saying it 'is negative'. I'm saying you could consider it negative if you want too.And now your saying: "yeah, but that's what a bad person would do" How is it abusive? They are missing the same stuff that they are missing that makes them civilized. You've kinda changed your position now....Here's my original reply in its entirety:

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But there is nothing damaged or impaired with the average human coming into this world.

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Feral children behave very differently than civilized ones. Assuming being civilized is the correct way to be, being without it could be seen as being "damaged or impaired". Know what I mean?

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That can easily get translated into spiritual experiences.

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I'm not saying that we must consider there to be something wrong with them, I am saying that we can accurately consider it that way.I suppose now is when you explain to me how that is abusive...