Please bear with me, the question I would like to ask might need a little explanation....
Some years ago, I came across an interesting statistic. It appears that about 15% of high school students are "natural learners". These students will do well even in poor schools. That is, schools in which the teachers are largely incompetent or ineffective. By coincidence, another 15% percent of students appear to be largely incapable of much learning, and will do poorly even in schools in which the teachers are quite competent and usually effective. The remaining 70% of high school students constitute a group of people who will not learn much on their own, but who will learn well if taught by competent teachers.
Now having said that, let's quickly jump to another subject: If you think of a person's spirituality as the manner and degree to which they cope, deal with, or perhaps transcend their psychological self*, then one of the first things you might notice is that such a view implies everyone has a spirituality of one sort or another. There is no such thing as a non-spiritual person, in that view. Instead, there are just people with varying ways and degrees to which they deal, etc with their psychological selves.
What you might also notice is that some people seem to be rather naturally gifted at dealing with their psychologically selves. They are perhaps analogous to our "natural learners". Carrying the analogy even further, let's suppose the folks among us who are naturally adept at dealing with their psychological selves make up about 15% of the population, and that the remaining population is divided between people (70%) who can learn to deal well with their psychological selves if given competent instruction, and people (15%) who are like me, more or less hopeless when it comes to dealing well with their psychological selves.
The question might then be put, "How effective are the various major and minor religions at teaching people to deal well with their psychological selves?"
I myself believe there are most likely significant differences between the world's religions when it comes to such things.
Of course, that's speculation on my part. It would seem obvious that there are far too many factors involved for one to give a firm and reliable answer to the question. But perhaps one can make an at least somewhat informed guess. If so, then these are my guesses:
The Great Eastern traditions -- Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism -- seem to me to probably be somewhat more effective teachers than the Great Western traditions -- Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. That doesn't mean I think the latter are grossly ineffective, but only that they might be relatively ineffective in comparison to the Great Eastern religions.
*The psychological self --- also known as the "ego", the "I", "normal waking consciousness", or just plain, "the self". I use the qualifier "psychological" to distinguish it from the physical self, or body. The psychological self plays a huge role in human behavior, of course, and that role is often enough problematic. For instance, it seems common enough for people to defend their psychological selves just as -- or even more so -- they would defend their body. Hence if I see myself as a stupid person, and you come along to contradict that, I might end up arguing with you in order to defend my view of myself as a stupid person -- or even perhaps get upset, angry, or possibly violent in opposing your attempt to change my view of myself. That is, my psychological self. Spirituality, as I define it, is the manner and degree to which someone copes with or perhaps even transcends their psychological self.
Some years ago, I came across an interesting statistic. It appears that about 15% of high school students are "natural learners". These students will do well even in poor schools. That is, schools in which the teachers are largely incompetent or ineffective. By coincidence, another 15% percent of students appear to be largely incapable of much learning, and will do poorly even in schools in which the teachers are quite competent and usually effective. The remaining 70% of high school students constitute a group of people who will not learn much on their own, but who will learn well if taught by competent teachers.
Now having said that, let's quickly jump to another subject: If you think of a person's spirituality as the manner and degree to which they cope, deal with, or perhaps transcend their psychological self*, then one of the first things you might notice is that such a view implies everyone has a spirituality of one sort or another. There is no such thing as a non-spiritual person, in that view. Instead, there are just people with varying ways and degrees to which they deal, etc with their psychological selves.
What you might also notice is that some people seem to be rather naturally gifted at dealing with their psychologically selves. They are perhaps analogous to our "natural learners". Carrying the analogy even further, let's suppose the folks among us who are naturally adept at dealing with their psychological selves make up about 15% of the population, and that the remaining population is divided between people (70%) who can learn to deal well with their psychological selves if given competent instruction, and people (15%) who are like me, more or less hopeless when it comes to dealing well with their psychological selves.
The question might then be put, "How effective are the various major and minor religions at teaching people to deal well with their psychological selves?"
I myself believe there are most likely significant differences between the world's religions when it comes to such things.
Of course, that's speculation on my part. It would seem obvious that there are far too many factors involved for one to give a firm and reliable answer to the question. But perhaps one can make an at least somewhat informed guess. If so, then these are my guesses:
The Great Eastern traditions -- Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism -- seem to me to probably be somewhat more effective teachers than the Great Western traditions -- Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. That doesn't mean I think the latter are grossly ineffective, but only that they might be relatively ineffective in comparison to the Great Eastern religions.
*The psychological self --- also known as the "ego", the "I", "normal waking consciousness", or just plain, "the self". I use the qualifier "psychological" to distinguish it from the physical self, or body. The psychological self plays a huge role in human behavior, of course, and that role is often enough problematic. For instance, it seems common enough for people to defend their psychological selves just as -- or even more so -- they would defend their body. Hence if I see myself as a stupid person, and you come along to contradict that, I might end up arguing with you in order to defend my view of myself as a stupid person -- or even perhaps get upset, angry, or possibly violent in opposing your attempt to change my view of myself. That is, my psychological self. Spirituality, as I define it, is the manner and degree to which someone copes with or perhaps even transcends their psychological self.
