My mistake. I meant anthropocentric. My point still stands.
No, I'm not requiring the spirituality to be human oriented. I don't expect the evidence to be "in our image" physically or psychologically. I do expect some projected physical evidence that clearly indicates the great apes have a theory of mind sufficient to indicate a belief in the supernatural. No one claims we are being anthropocentric when we look for evidence of tool use or language in animals.
How do you mean?
I don't mean to be glib, but I've already answered this. Scientific evidence. The same thing you expect from any scientific endeavour. Watching apes "ponder" or engage in repetitive behavior is not sufficient.
For what it's worth, I should point out that I'm just playing devil's advocate here. I really don't know whether non-human apes exhibit some form of spirituality or not. Does the pondering and repetitive behaviour of chimps constitute spirituality? Maybe. Maybe not. I don't think we can say definitively one way or another. As such, I also don't think we can confidently say that humans are the only apes capable of spiritual behaviour.
__________________ We can allow satellites, planets, suns, universe, nay whole systems of universes, to be governed by laws, but the smallest insect, we wish to be created at once by special act.
For what it's worth, I should point out that I'm just playing devil's advocate here. I really don't know whether non-human apes exhibit some form of spirituality or not. Does the pondering and repetitive behaviour of chimps constitute spirituality? Maybe. Maybe not. I don't think we can say definitively one way or another. As such, I also don't think we can confidently say that humans are the only apes capable of spiritual behaviour.
That is precisely why I abandoned this thread as pseudoscience. Even proving that another human experiences spirituality would be difficult.
We could accuse you of solipsism but it might just be your imagination.
I wont resort to solipsism, but how could you prove to me that you experience spirituality? And btw, "rituals, shrines, artifacts and talismans" dont cut it, as spirituality is a mental phenomenon.
Maybe I could chew on your pituitary gland and see if any dimethyltrytamine leeks out?
But watching humans ponder (meditate) and engage in repetitive behavior (rituals) is? Several religions consist in a large part of those two things.
We don't need every human to engage in the exact same behavior to conclude humans have deeply spiritual psyches. There exists people who demonstrate zero outward spiritual behavior. I still know given the totality of evidence that humans are deeply spiritual .
The evidence for spirituality in humans is leagues beyond what is being proposed for the great apes. We incessantly project our spiritual beliefs onto the outside world in observable ways. This is one of the reasons God has such strong admonitions to idolatry.
For what it's worth, I should point out that I'm just playing devil's advocate here. I really don't know whether non-human apes exhibit some form of spirituality or not. Does the pondering and repetitive behaviour of chimps constitute spirituality? Maybe. Maybe not. I don't think we can say definitively one way or another. As such, I also don't think we can confidently say that humans are the only apes capable of spiritual behaviour.
Obviously, I disagree, but we are past that portion I guess.
Let me play devil's advocate too ...
If apes do have spiritual needs why is there no evidence of salvation revelation to the great apes? If a person believes in salvation through Christ then they must conclude that this is at least a relevant question. If a person just concludes the apes are hiding that too, then the whole argument in favor of spiritual apes starts to look like the same type of argument evolutionists say are wrong with creationist arguments. No explanatory power. Never observable.
I wont resort to solipsism, but how could you prove to me that you experience spirituality? And btw, "rituals, shrines, artifacts and talismans" dont cut it, as spirituality is a mental phenomenon.
Maybe I could chew on your pituitary gland and see if any dimethyltrytamine leeks out?
Sorry do you mean prove that spiritual experience involves a connection to a non material reality beyond the study of science? I would have though the existence of the spiritual was matter of faith rather than proof. Or do you mean that humans from very different backgrounds and throughout history share similar experiences that they can recognise from the descriptions of others, that they call spiritual experience?
Mental phenomena, and spiritual experience is by it nature experienced at least in part mentally, are subjective. As such we can never experience what another person has experienced, but people can usually try to put their experience in some sort of words and find that there are others who have experiences of their own who can relate to what the other person has expressed. Prove? No, and solipsism shows it could never be proven, but I think the simplest explanation is when two people describe an experience they consider spiritual, and relate to what the other describes, then both are describing something very similar that is part of human experience and has been called many who experience it spiritual or religious.
__________________
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
Linear Mode
