{
  "schema": "tga.work.v1",
  "identifier": "dresden:vol-11:spirituality",
  "slug": "spirituality",
  "title": "Spirituality",
  "subtitle": "What the word really means.",
  "excerpt": "A definition of 'spirituality' that is free of the supernatural and grounded in the finest qualities of the human being.",
  "year": 1889,
  "volume": 11,
  "category": "Essay",
  "author": {
    "name": "Robert G. Ingersoll",
    "wikidata": "Q360326",
    "viaf": "44331023"
  },
  "isPartOf": {
    "title": "The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll",
    "edition": "Dresden Edition",
    "publisher": "C. P. Farrell",
    "year": 1900
  },
  "license": "https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/",
  "url": "https://thegreatagnostic.com/works/spirituality/",
  "wordCount": 1466,
  "body": "IF there is an abused word in our language, it is \"spirituality.\"\n\nIt has been repeated over and over for several hundred years by pious\npretenders and snivelers as though it belonged exclusively to them.\n\nIn the early days of Christianity, the \"spiritual\" renounced the world\nwith all its duties and obligations. They deserted their wives and\nchildren. They became hermits and dwelt in caves. They spent their\nuseless years in praying for their shriveled and worthless souls. They\nwere too \"spiritual\" to love women, to build homes and to labor for\nchildren. They were too \"spiritual\" to earn their bread, so they became\nbeggars and stood by the highways of Life and held out their hands and\nasked alms of Industry and Courage. They were too \"spiritual\" to be\nmerciful. They preached the dogma of eternal pain and gloried in \"the\nwrath to come.\" They were too \"spiritual\" to be civilized, so they\npersecuted their fellow-men for expressing their honest thoughts. They\nwere so \"spiritual\" that they invented instruments of torture, founded\nthe Inquisition, appealed to the whip, the rack, the sword and the\nfagot. They tore the flesh of their fellow-men with hooks of iron,\nburied their neighbors alive, cut off their eyelids, dashed out the\nbrains of babes and cut off the breasts of mothers. These \"spiritual\"\nwretches spent day and night on their knees, praying for their own\nsalvation and asking God to curse the best and noblest of the world.\n\nJohn Calvin was intensely \"spiritual\" when he warmed his fleshless hands\nat the flames that consumed Servetus.\n\nJohn Knox was constrained by his \"spirituality\" to utter low and\nloathsome calumnies against all women. All the witch-burners and\nQuaker-maimers and mutilators were so \"spiritual\" that they constantly\nlooked heavenward and longed for the skies.\n\nThese lovers of God—these haters of men—looked upon the Greek marbles\nas unclean, and denounced the glories of Art as the snares and pitfalls\nof perdition.\n\nThese \"spiritual\" mendicants hated laughter and smiles and dimples, and\nexhausted their diseased and polluted imaginations in the effort to make\nlove loathsome.\n\nFrom almost every pulpit was heard the denunciation of all that adds\nto the wealth, the joy and glory of life. It became the fashion for the\n\"spiritual\" to malign every hope and passion that tends to humanize\nand refine the heart. Man was denounced as totally depraved. Woman was\ndeclared to be a perpetual temptation—her beauty a snare and her touch\npollution.\n\nEven in our own time and country some of the ministers, no matter how\nradical they claim to be, retain the aroma, the odor, or the smell of\nthe \"spiritual.\"\n\nThey denounce some of the best and greatest—some of the benefactors\nof the race—for having lived on the low plane of usefulness—and for\nhaving had the pitiful ambition to make their fellows happy in this\nworld.\n\nThomas Paine was a groveling wretch because he devoted his life to the\npreservation of the rights of man, and Voltaire lacked the \"spiritual\"\nbecause he abolished torture in France and attacked, with the enthusiasm\nof a divine madness, the monster that was endeavoring to drive the hope\nof liberty from the heart of man.\n\nHumboldt was not \"spiritual\" enough to repeat with closed eyes\nthe absurdities of superstition, but was so lost to all the \"skyey\ninfluences\" that he was satisfied to add to the intellectual wealth of\nthe world.\n\nDarwin lacked \"spirituality,\" and in its place had nothing but\nsincerity, patience, intelligence, the spirit of investigation and\nthe courage to give his honest conclusions to the world. He contented\nhimself with giving to his fellow-men the greatest and the sublimest\ntruths that man has spoken since lips have uttered speech.\n\nBut we are now told that these soldiers of science, these heroes of\nliberty, these sculptors and painters, these singers of songs, these\ncomposers of music, lack \"spirituality\" and after all were only common\nclay.\n\nThis word \"spirituality\" is the fortress, the breastwork, the rifle-pit\nof the Pharisee. It sustains the same relation to sincerity that Dutch\nmetal does to pure gold.\n\nThere seems to be something about a pulpit that poisons the\noccupant—that changes his nature—that causes him to denounce what he\nreally loves and to laud with the fervor of insanity a joy that he\nnever felt—a rapture that never thrilled his soul. Hypnotized by his\nsurroundings, he unconsciously brings to market that which he supposes\nthe purchasers desire.\n\nIn every church, whether orthodox or radical, there are two parties—one\nconservative, looking backward, one radical, looking forward, and\ngenerally a minister \"spiritual\" enough to look both ways.\n\nA minister who seems to be a philosopher on the street, or in the home\nof a sensible man, cannot withstand the atmosphere of the pulpit.\nThe moment he stands behind the Bible cushion, like Bottom, he is\n\"translated\" and the Titania of superstition \"kisses his large, fair\nears.\"\n\nNothing is more amusing than to hear a clergyman denounce\nworldliness—ask his hearers what it will profit them to build railways\nand palaces and lose their own souls—inquire of the common folks\nbefore him why they waste their precious years in following trades and\nprofessions, in gathering treasures that moths corrupt and rust devours,\ngiving their days to the vulgar business of making money,—and then see\nhim take up a collection, knowing perfectly well that only the worldly,\nthe very people he has denounced, can by any possibility give a dollar.\n\n\"Spirituality\" for the most part is a mask worn by idleness, arrogance\nand greed.\n\nSome people imagine that they are \"spiritual\" when they are sickly.\n\nIt may be well enough to ask: What is it to be really spiritual?\n\nThe spiritual man lives to his ideal. He endeavors to make others happy.\nHe does not despise the passions that have filled the world with art and\nglory. He loves his wife and children—home and fireside. He cultivates\nthe amenities and refinements of life. He is the friend and champion of\nthe oppressed. His sympathies are with the poor and the suffering. He\nattacks what he believes to be wrong, though defended by the many, and\nhe is willing to stand for the right against the world. He enjoys the\nbeautiful. In the presence of the highest creations of Art his eyes are\nsuffused with tears. When he listens to the great melodies, the divine\nharmonies, he feels the sorrows and the raptures of death and love. He\nis intensely human. He carries in his heart the burdens of the world.\nHe searches for the deeper meanings. He appreciates the harmonies of\nconduct, the melody of a perfect life.\n\nHe loves his wife and children better than any god. He cares more for\nthe world he lives in than for any other. He tries to discharge the\nduties of this life, to help those that he can reach. He believes in\nbeing useful—in making money to feed and clothe and educate the ones he\nloves—to assist the deserving and to support himself. He does not wish\nto be a burden on others. He is just, generous and sincere.\n\nSpirituality is all of this world. It is a child of this earth, born and\ncradled here. It comes from no heaven, but it makes a heaven where it\nis.\n\nThere is no possible connection between superstition and the spiritual,\nor between theology and the spiritual.\n\nThe spiritually-minded man is a poet. If he does not write poetry,\nhe lives it. He is an artist. If he does not paint pictures or chisel\nstatues, he feels them, and their beauty softens his heart. He fills the\ntemple of his soul with all that is beautiful, and he worships at the\nshrine of the Ideal.\n\nIn all the relations of life he is faithful and true. He asks for\nnothing that he does not earn. He does not wish to be happy in heaven\nif he must receive happiness as alms He does not rely on the goodness of\nanother. He is not ambitious to become a winged pauper.\n\nSpirituality is the perfect health of the soul. It is noble, manly,\ngenerous, brave, free-spoken, natural, superb.\n\nNothing is more sickening than the \"spiritual\" whine—the pretence\nthat crawls at first and talks about humility and then suddenly becomes\narrogant and says: \"I am 'spiritual.' I hold in contempt the vulgar joys\nof this life. You work and toil and build homes and sing songs and weave\nyour delicate robes. You love women and children and adorn yourselves.\nYou subdue the earth and dig for gold. You have your theatres, your\noperas and all the luxuries of life; but I, beggar that I am, Pharisee\nthat I am, am your superior because I am 'spiritual.'\"\n\nAbove all things, let us be sincere.—The Conservator, Philadelphia,\n1891.\n"
}