Meaning and Purpose Among the Nones

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41

I am talking about you.

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image (Mass shootings in the United States - Wikipedia)

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There are 330 million people in America. How many of those 330 million people were the perpetrators of a mass shooting in the last 10 years?

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Nice. Because I posited a hypothetical in response to yours?

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Well, if you started to protect your borders with “thoughts and prayers” and put that money you’re saving for the bloody wall for school protection, and if you had gun control, you might not have that many shootings.

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46

The per capita figure has gone up, would be a reasonable guess.

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Most people I know don’t think they would become mass murderers because someone at school bullies them. If your religious beliefs are the only thing that are preventing you from committing murder, then I am glad you have those religious beliefs.

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The per capita figure is still well below “happens regularly”.

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49

Is an exact number. :roll_eyes: It is on the news more regularly that it used to be.

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You can take a horse to water . . .

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And you want exact numbers from me. :roll_eyes:

52

But what does that mean?

I looked at the Wikipedia entry on spirituality, and Wikipedia doesn’t know what it means either.

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53

Way to be. Make it personal with innuendos and take it from a hypothetical for instance to a ‘would become’ a mass murderer and an attack on my faith. And you think of yourself as a normal nice person. Got it.

54

Isn’t it pretty implicit that it means a belief that there is more to reality than the material?

55

That’s rather vague.

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Material vs. immaterial isn’t vague, unless maybe you don’t believe in the immaterial.

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‘Most people I know’, to use @T_aquaticus’ precision methodology, don’t think of their emotions, their purpose in life (if they have one :slightly_smiling_face:), their ability to choose, their choices in friends, music, cars, art, etc., as material. Nones who are reflective admit to an immaterial, spiritual aspect to their lives.

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If it isn’t vague, how come I am having difficulty working out what it means?

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I think you hit the nail in the head: spirituality is very diverse. The Pew research that I mentioned only asked: “Are you spiritual?” in their questionnaire, and from this obtained a 75% positive rate that is time-steady. The label “Nones” is not very constraining, and the people who are “Nones” can be much closer to theists than atheists.

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60

I never asked for exact numbers. That is something you have made up from whole cloth.

What I pointed out is the relatively few who participate in mass shootings compared to the overall population. We are talking millions to one. How do you explain this?