For some, the term "rational spirituality, is a contradiction in terms.  Many people who pride themselves in being rational or scientific find the idea of spirituality to be nothing more than a child's fantasy that ought to be discarded.  On the other hand, many religious believers suggest that spiritual truths transcend the mind, and that without God, the world is without value or meaning.

This web site suggests that true spirituality is not only compatible with rationality but requires our highest rational capacities to tap into its profound depths.  It proposes that the more rational you become your approach to life, the more you discover the spiritual dimension at the heart of what it means to be human.  In sum, the deeper you investigate reality, the more you discover Divinity.  For an enjoyable exploration of this idea, see The Key Is In The Darkness: Unlocking The Door To A Spiritual Life (to the right ------>)

On this site, we will explore questions of spirituality from a perspective that both honors the gifts of rationality and recognizes the limitations of an overly simplistic rationality. In the same way, it recognizes both the profundity of a deep spirituality and the irrational, dangerous, and destructive elements of an overly simplistic religious perspective. By honoring the truths and insights at the heart of both religion and spirituality, while recognizing their limitations, we can penetrate more deeply into the heart of existence, the heart of experience, and the heart of human being.

In the "foundation" section of this site, there are a number of essays that lay the groundwork for the various articles that can be found in the "encounters" section of the site. The foundation essays set the context and the perspective from which the encounter articles are written. Although much of the encounter section can be understood on its own, and can be judged on its own merit, some of it is built on understandings and definitions laid down in the foundation. Without an understanding of the foundation, some of the conclusions made in the encounter section may be rightly called in the question. However, when the foundation is clearly understood, it lends powerful support to the structures built on top of them.

Further, as the dictum goes, "if you teach a man to fish you feed him for a day, but if you teach him to fish you feed him for the rest of his life (or, you can get rid of him for an entire weekend...  :-)."  When you understand the foundation of the rational spirituality perspective, it can open your eyes to a new way of approaching the various aspects of human experience that empower you to find beauty where you used to find ugliness, possibility where you used to find impossibility, excitement where you used to find frustration, aliveness where you used to find stagnation.