Attitudes Towards Spirituality and Other Worldly Experiences: An Online Survey of British Humanists

This study examined attitudes towards and understandings of the term “spirituality” among members of the British Humanist Association (N = 318). Thirty-five percent agreed strongly and twenty-one percent moderately agreed that it was possible to be spiritual without being religious. Some respondents...

Description complète

Enregistré dans:  
Détails bibliographiques
Auteur principal: Dein, Simon 1959- (Auteur)
Type de support: Électronique Article
Langue:Anglais
Vérifier la disponibilité: HBZ Gateway
Journals Online & Print:
En cours de chargement...
Fernleihe:Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste
Publié: [publisher not identified] [2016]
Dans: Secularism and Nonreligion
Année: 2016, Volume: 5, Pages: 1-8
Sujets / Chaînes de mots-clés standardisés:B Großbritannien / Humanisme athée / Spiritualité
RelBib Classification:AB Philosophie de la religion
KBF Îles britanniques
Sujets non-standardisés:B Spirituality
B Atheism
B Humanism
Accès en ligne: Volltext (doi)
Volltext (kostenfrei)
Description
Résumé:This study examined attitudes towards and understandings of the term “spirituality” among members of the British Humanist Association (N = 318). Thirty-five percent agreed strongly and twenty-one percent moderately agreed that it was possible to be spiritual without being religious. Some respondents asserted that the term spiritual was so vague as to be almost useless. They preferred terms such as emotional connectedness, awe, or beauty, which are commonly included in definitions of spirituality. For a few individuals, spirituality referred to the existence of spirits. A minority in the study (12%) had what might be defined as ‘other worldly experiences,’ although these were explained in purely naturalistic terms (e.g., lack of sleep, drugs/alcohol, and brain dysfunction). The primary conclusion from the survey is that many British Humanists see no contradiction between being a humanist and having experiences that are often defined as “spiritual.”
ISSN:2053-6712
Contient:Enthalten in: Secularism and Nonreligion
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.5334/snr.48