Mere Spirituality: Rediscovering Ancient Answers to Modern Questions

Hey, one more thing before you go.What if the crisis of our ages in political, economic or technological but spiritual, what are the answers we're searching for aren't new, but ancient?In a time when more people identify as spiritual but not religious and a materialism leaves us wanting today's conversation as what does it mean to embrace the supernatural rationally? And we're going to show you how you too can enjoy ancient wisdom that helps us navigate the modern chaos that we're going into today. So stay tuned.I'm your host, Michael Hurst. Welcome to One more thing before you go. Today I'm joined by Joshua Spatha.He's an anthropologist, ordained minister, and author of the upcoming book Mere Spirituality, A Rational Embrace of the Supernatural in the Crisis of Our Age.With a background in cultural research, Old Testament studies, and over a decade of missions work across the Middle east and Asia, Joshua brings a unique lens to the spiritual hunger rising in today's world.His work dives into the historical and cultural narratives that shape Western civilization's worldview and reintroduces an ancient spiritual practices through a biblical and Jewish cultural perspective. He's a father, a teacher, and a seeker of truth in a time of transformation. And I welcome you to the show, Joshua.

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

What a life journey that you've been through. It's kind of amazing. I like to start at the beginning, though. Where'd you grow up.

Originally from? Kansas.Spent most of my formative years there, went to college there and then did after my undergraduate studies, went on to do some training in Denver, Colorado. And then I think I fell in love with the mountains at that point.

I'm from Colorado, so I can relate to that.

So, yeah, I haven't lived in Kansas.

Since, but I don't blame you if I'm in Arizona by the Colorado native and grew up in Colorado. My kids were born in Colorado, my wife's in Colorado and we miss Colorado immensely. We missed the green, real trees. I say this out loud.See, down here they go. Look at these trees with these trees. These are desert trees. We saw real trees. So yes. That's cool. I'm glad that you found a home there.You have any brothers, sisters? What was your family like?

Two younger sisters and my father left right around when I was 12, so I was kind of the only man in the house. And so interesting dynamics. But yeah, overall a, a good family upbringing.My mom, you know, was a rock star and she definitely out of my two parents, she was definitely the spiritually oriented one. And my father Was more agnostic, I wouldn't say antagonistic towards faith, just not interested.And so I had an experience as a very young child which kind of set me on a certain trajectory, of course. And you hit your teenage years and you're questioning everything and exploring a lot of things.And, and through that, I really landed quite firmly on spirituality, but was very scientifically minded or thought I was going into engineering for a while. And so I was really interested in the nuts and bolts of things. And so while I was quite convinced that spirituality was.Was true, that there was more to our existence than physical realm, the inner workings of that and how I could come to that logically was important.And understanding how that worked and what the interaction and interplay between physical and spiritual, as well as just abstract concepts, was an interesting wrestle, I guess I could say, in my teenage years.And that kind of ultimately led me then to go to university studying anthropology, cosmology, historical geology, kind of getting a grand scheme of the secular perspective of our origin story to. To better understand that and be able to speak to that in terms of events.If our culture, if our society is interested in, on an individual basis in spirituality, how do we have those conversations and how do we reconcile kind of those conflicting narratives and perspectives?

That's a very unique intersection between anthropology and religion. I think that bringing those together from that perspective must have been, you know, quite an endeavor, number one.And I think it turned into a very unique passion for you.

Yeah, I can't say it was an enjoyable endeavor. There was a lot of frustration and conflict, and it was not.I went into that degree program, you know, eyes wide open, but it was still quite a challenge, which actually caused me to pick up a minor in Old Testament studies just to try to keep the a balance as I was doing that study.

So I, you know, you, you've. We've mentioned spirituality a couple of different times. First, on a foremost, kudos to your mother for being a single mother, raising you guys.I relate to that as well. My father died when I was 17. He was gone at the age of 15. So I understand you walking that path and, and especially single mothers.Single mothers are rock stars. Awesome. So kudos to you, mama. What's the difference between.Or help us understand, and this might be a multifaceted question, was it in between spirituality and religion, or do they overlap? And does one stand out more to you than the other?

You know, in, in English, I think those terms often are interchangeable, but not always interchangeable. So you do kind of have to define the terms A bit clearly in polling those, those terms are not interchangeable.So the distinction that probably needs to be made is religion would, would be more categorized or defined as structured or institutional spirituality, if you will. Whereas just the term spirituality itself can be highly individualistic.Now, that is not necessarily a holistic understanding of either of those terms because to, depending on what religion you're talking about, that could also be highly individualistic. Buddhism, for example, is, is not only individualistic, but highly relativistic. So it's, and syncretistic.So there's a lot of different practices and philosophies and behaviors and habits that one can incorporate into some religions that are not necessarily structured or institutional in the sense of kind of a codified set of beliefs or behaviors.But in general, when you're speaking of a religion, you're probably speaking of a set of beliefs, behaviors, morals or ethics which the group which adheres to that religion largely agree on and adhere to. There are exceptions again to that.But when we're then talking about spirituality, it's less about the constraints, it's less about the formal structure and more of just the understanding that there is something more than just the physical realm to the reality that we find ourselves in. And so I think spirituality is a stepping stone potentially to a religious worldview, but not necessarily.And so they are related, but not necessarily one and the same.

Yeah, that's a great way and a definition. I appreciate you making that distinction. I grew up Catholic, so I grew up, I'm not a practicing Catholic any longer.I am spiritualistic and I do believe in the universe and the idea of the Creator up top and how we all relate to that and how I believe in prayers, I believe in angels, I believe in so many different things, but the philosophies and the practices of the Catholic religion, I kind of grew out of that.As I grew older in my teen years, it became more spiritualistic from, from that perspective, you know, that I, I could go out and talk to, talk to God in my backyard next to the trees and the birds and the bees. I didn't need to go to church to do that kind of a thing.So in, from my perspective, I, I, I think I, I won't say I overlapped him, but I, I evolved from an organized religion to more of a spiritualistic perspective, I guess. Why?What do you think about like, recent cultural trends in, in, so for like today, especially in the spiritual state of Western society, when we're looking at, and, and obviously this is not a political question, but the world's Kind of in chaos. And a lot of it's based on different religions. I mean, we've got Hamas fighting Israel because of their religious beliefs.We've got all of the world that's taking place. And here we're starting to have an uprising in the evangelical aspect and integrating that within our society.Do you think that's having an effect worldwide?

Well, I think it's tempting, particularly in our secular culture and society, I think it's tempting to kind of cast aspersion or blame on organized religion for a lot of this tension, disagreement, and even violence. I don't think that's a very fair assessment. If you do any, even a cursory, you know, historical study.Religion is not the number one thing that mankind fights over.Um, you know, there, there's no end to the divisions that, that we can utilize to cause war and divisiveness in either within societies or pitting one against another. So, you know, food and resources, water, gold, you know, money, the. The end go.There is no end to the, the things which can cause one human to dislike or be jealous of. Of another, which could cause tension, division, and ultimately violence. Religion is, is certainly one of the things which can cause those divisions.But even if you look at kind of some of the most popular examples within our own culture to, to kind of make that case, the, for example, the Crusades are often brought up if you really study, you know, that period of time. Yes, religion was a factor in those wars, but it really was not the primary.If anything, religion was simply used as kind of a justification or a motivation even to get people to engage in that so that the other factors that cause that friction and tension and violence could be exploited and resolved. So, you know, if I were to, if someone were to put a gun to my head and say, what's the number one thing that causes war in the world?I would say government, quite obviously, I would agree to.

With you. And materialism, you mentioned a little bit ago, it, you know, everybody wants more of what they don't have.

Someone else. Yeah, someone else has.

Yeah, exactly. And, and it's like I. The only way to do it is to come and take it by force.You know, if you're not going to give it to me, you're not going to work with me, then I'm going to come take it by for. I mean, I spent a long career in law enforcement arresting people who were doing similar. You.I'm taking what you have because I don't have it kind of a situation.And I think it is A bigger thing when it becomes to governments doing the same thing or countries or leaders or whoever, or however that happens to work.And I appreciate your perspective on that, that, you know, the religion doesn't necessarily fire or, or it's not the catalyst for what they're doing, but it is an opportunity to exploit what they're doing.

Yeah. And you know, that that's not, you know, a hard and fast rule that has no exceptions.But a lot of times when you see those exceptions, there's one of two things typically that are coming into play.First and foremost is a, a kind of a combination or amalgamation of government with religion to where you have kind of both of those spheres of influence or centers of power combined into one office.And anytime you accumulate power, our entire constitution is built on this concept of the separation of powers because the founding fathers understood that the more power that is accumulated and centered in one office, the more temptation, the more danger, the more possibilities for everything to go terribly wrong. There are.And so when you do see societies that start to combine the power of church and state, you definitely are getting into some very dangerous territory. The other element that can come in, of course, is a, not all religions are created equal.They obviously have different claims, different philosophies, different theologies.And if you have a religion that is overtly political, which their, you know, stated goal within their holy writings or their philosophers is world domination or, you know, conquering or subjugating another people or all people, then then obviously there's going to be by necessity a combination of church and state in, in that belief system in the sense that we understand that is, it is the state which has the power to wage any war.And so for a religious group to be able to kind of usurp that authority, they're going to somehow have to infiltrate or assume the authority of, of the state.

Perspective. Do you think we as a society and culture, you think that.I mean, I think when our first conversation via writing you made comment that the, you know, do you think there's more atheists coming about in this world? Do you think that we are losing our spirituality?Do you think that there's a divide there that's starting to take people away from whether it be spiritualism itself and. Or religion itself?

Well, that's a really interesting question that has a couple different dynamics that we can see in, in surveys right now. And if you were to ask me that, if you had asked me that question just a few months ago, I actually would have given you a very different answer.But recent polls have have kind of brought further nuance to the answer there.And so I'll give you the, the overarching kind of trend that we've seen over the past several decades first, and that is that yes, absolutely, our society as a whole has drifted away or, or I would say on purpose, kind of rejected and shunned spirituality in, in terms of our cultural narrative from kind of. I think that trend really started at the tail end of the Enlightenment.There was then a kind of a conflict or a friction between science and religion.Then in the Victorian era and then in the modern era that has only been exacerbated and, and kind of blown even further out of proportion to where people at this point in our culture, in our society really have a kind of an either or understanding of that. You either have to align your beliefs with science or you have to align with faith.And their understanding, even of faith is kind of a blind leap that there's no actual evidence, it's just a priori or, or axiom, a statement that you have to assume is true without any evidence.And so there is this tension and due to that cultural narrative of the friction or the tension between faith and science, or even reason and rationality and faith is that the evidence lies on one side. And therefore, if we are enlightened individuals, if we're educated individuals, then we have have to go where the evidence lies.And that has taken people out of the category of religion or faith and kind of into this more progressive category. Now the problem with that cultural narrative is that it's factually incorrect. We would like to believe ourselves to be enlightened.We would like to believe ourselves to be more scientifically, you know, literate, more evidenced based. But the reality is, is there is an innate default in humankind that a purely materialistic framework or worldview is not at all satisfactory.It is, it is not a compelling framework for the vast, vast majority of humankind.And so what has happened, as we've seen over the decades, is people have become more and more disillusioned, disaffected, discouraged, frustrated, or just skeptical of institutions. And that's across the board. That's not just religious institutions, that's all institutions.

That's.

There is this distrust and skepticism that has been building in our culture and society, but that applies to the institutional forms of religion as well. And so we have seen, you could almost say a mass exodus out of institutional religion.And what people kind of expected then was from for all those disaffected individuals to then enter into atheism. That was not the case. There was a small uptick in atheism in our society.The New Atheism movement did have a bit of a surge of adherence for a time, but even some of the leaders and pioneers kind of of that movement have openly declared written articles about this of, of the implosion of their movement. The, the new Atheist movement is largely dead in the water right now.And so the expectation of everyone just moving from theism to atheism was not at all the reality. What we did see was a large move from people in organized or institutional religion into this very nebulous category the pollsters called the nuns.N O N E S the spiritual but not religious category.And so despite the fact that our culture has had this very strong narrative of science, has disproven everything that has ever been religious, it's all a bunch of nonsense. The material world is all that exists. You know, random chance, matter and energy is all that we have to cling on to.Despite that cultural narrative, particularly in our education system, that has not been the worldview which has actually provided a compelling framework which people accept.And so as they moved out of religion per se, they moved into just a less stronger structured and more individualistic form of spirituality that allowed them to experiment and kind of create their, their own sets of ideals, their own moral and ethical frameworks, their own philosophy.And, and this should be, you know, no surprise to anyone because if anything, our culture in Western society and in America particular, if we value anything, it's individualism. We want to be able to do whatever we want whenever we want, and we don't want anyone to be able to say anything about it.And so this was kind of a religion a la carte, or a very freeing idea that I can come up with my own truth. And then we entered this era of relativistic truth, where contrasting and conflicting truth claims could all be correct at the same time.Because your truth is your truth, my truth is my truth. There is no objective truth. There is no objective moral or ethical framework. And therefore I can make up whatever I want to be true.And there is some, you know, logic.And to that, to that mentality, if you accept the premise that the universe occurred by random chance, you know, the Big Bang happened, matter and energy blew up for no reason. In particular, everything happened as a product of chance. Therefore, there is no meaning, there is no purpose.There is no higher truth or reality to live by. Therefore it's every man for themselves.Whatever meaning you can create, concoct or insert into your ultimately meaningless and purposeless life to help you get along and go along a little better, you know, what could be the harm?And so with, with that presupposition in place, then, you know, that argument is as good as any other, you know, and therefore relative truth could, can be the guiding philosophy, just kind of under an umbrella of, of what we would call humanism, what the ancient Greeks would call hedonism.You know, that we're just living for our own happiness and pleasure and whatever makes us a little bit happier in our short, meaningless lives, all the better.But I think it's quite ironic that the fact that we've been programmed by our society to reject spiritual realities, to accept the fact that the material world is all that exists, and yet no one actually believes that. So there is this real conflict between stated beliefs versus lived beliefs.They are not in alignment right now people are living in, in various levels of cognitive dissonance of, of saying one thing, but living a completely different reality.And I think the, the best explanation for that is if, if there is an intuitive belief that, that we have, we have to ask the question, why do we intuitively believe that? Because if you go back to instinctual understandings of anything, there's a reason for that instinct, right?I have an instinct to drink water and eat food because there is a reality called water and sustenance, right? I need those things in order to actually survive.And so there's some part of our, our mind, our conscious reality, which intuitively instructs us to seek after those things because they're, they are real and they're necessary for survival. Same thing with sexual reproduction.Like we have a desire for, for those encounters, if you will, with the opposite sex because it is a reality which is necessary for the survival of our species. And so using that, that same reasoning, that same logic, we have to conclude the exact same about spirituality.Why does humanity have this instinctual or innate sense that there is a spiritual realm and that we can, should, and must even interact with it? The explanation would be, well, because it is a reality, and therefore we recognize that and we intuitively seek it out.I don't think it makes any sense at all to argue you intuitively get thirsty and seek after water because water exists. You intuitively get hungry and seek after food because food is a reality.You intuitively have a desire for a person of the opposite sex because there's such thing as sexual reproduction. But the exception to this rule is spirituality.You intuitively understand and seek out spiritual experiences, but it's just a delusion that doesn't actually exist. It's not reality. It's just a lie that we've all told ourselves because that makes us feel better. I don't think that that is an adequate explanation.

Do you think your background in anthropology has influenced your understanding of spirituality? I mean, obviously anthropology is kind of a science.I know that it goes beyond just a study of our history from where mankind has come from, and looking at bones and looking at. But you look at societies, you look at cultures, you look at how we as a society have grown.You, you look at communities within that historical perspective.And I think those stories, we have to understand some of those stories in order to understand everything that you just said and how they're intertwined together. The desires, the wants, the needs, the realities of things.Do you think that your, your background in anthropology has, has emphasized your understanding of spirituality or giving a better connection?

I think it has certainly maybe put some more distinctive parameters on the question in order for me to answer them more, you know, categorically.I don't know if I would say it's influenced the desire itself or, or even the understanding or answers of, of those questions, but it has certainly given me some tools to better analyze those, you know, those categories or to, to understand the question better and be able to give a, a more holistic answer.

Right.

Because. And in the book, I, I kind of describe this as humanity.We kind of tend to go back and forth on a spectrum of what I call kind of a warm and cool temperature spectrum of our understanding of reality. And all throughout human history, I think we've kind of recognized this.There's been different labels, different understandings of this, but we might call it right brain versus left brained individuals or head and heart, you know, that, that conflict or difference of perspective in the world and then even in personality, of course, depending on, you know, what personality test you prefer and, you know, how much weight you give those to begin with.But I think in general we understand even in masculine and feminine, you know, that there's just very different understandings, different emphasis on what part of reality is more important. You know, the more analytical fact based, you know, side of the spectrum, or the more feeling and subjective based, you know, side of the spectrum.And both of those are necessary. The human experience could not be complete without both of those.What happens is, depending on where you fall on that spectrum, you have a tendency to justify where you're at and then demonize everyone on the other side, unfortunately. Yeah.So this is why marriage is, you know, so fun and interesting because you have two very different people who are wired radically differently, who see the world radically differently, trying to come together. And, and if you do that well, then what you get is a more holistic perspective and you become a more round, well rounded individual.Unfortunately, that is a very challenging process. Especially more often.

So many. Yeah, yeah.

More often what happens is people just get frustrated with the other perspective and they kind of portion off their lives and avoid certain topics and, you know, or get a divorce, you know, and, and so there is this, this tension between these two sides.And what I would say is, I think studying anthropology helped me get a broader perspective on different societies and how they think historically and even currently, and be able to see the merits of each of those perspectives, even if I don't necessarily agree with them, and be able to compare and contrast those and see not only that they are valid, but they are beneficial for humanity and therefore we need to. This is where it would be. I'm not quite sure where I fall in this. I would be open to arguments, you know, from different psychologists or whoever.But I think there's a bit of attention with people, especially right now. You can go online and take a personality test. There.There is a temptation for people to kind of pigeonhole themselves and say, well, this is who I am. This is just how I'm wired. If you don't like, it sucks to be you, you know. Yeah, too bad.I don't think that that is really what the psychology teaches.I do think that there are probably some, some rather hard limits on how far from kind of that, that core center of, of our personality we, we can diverge or, or stray from. But I have not met a person yet who is utterly incapable of change.That, that's kind of part of our human nature, is that even, even though, you know, certainly as we get older, we get more entrenched in our beliefs, in our behaviors, in our habits.I have not met a psychologist yet who they may exist, I'm not saying they don't, but I've not met one who says, well, yeah, by the age of X, no further change can occur, you know, in a human's life. Their, their path is set, their trajectory is in stone, and therefore they must just carry on.Now, there are some people who do believe that, you know, free will is an illusion and therefore everything that happens is, is just how it is, and we have no control over that. But again, cognitive dissonance, people who even claim that don't actually live according to that belief.They, they tend to live as if they do have free will. So I would just say that. That. I wouldn't say that we can change our personality.If you're a highly analytical, logical person, you're probably not going to become a highly emotional, irrational person no matter how hard you try.But what I would say is that even though you might not be able to shift or flip your personality from one extreme to the other, one thing that we as humanity, I think, pretty universally do agree upon is that we can grow, that we can expand. Yeah, we can expand our current boundaries.And we can certainly, even though we don't necessarily see things that way, that we can appreciate those with a different perspective who are coming at the problem or the issue from a very different track and different angle where we can actually get a bigger and better picture by broadening our horizons rather than narrowing them and casting aspersions on everyone who doesn't see it our way.

I agree with that.And then, and you know, personally, I think that years of working, domestic violence, years of going to conflicts from that perspective, watching, I always told the individuals that were involved, you have a choice. You can have a choice to do this, you can have a choice to do that, but you have to make the choice.You know, even like you were just saying, you may have somebody that's very analytical, but you have a choice to decide whether or not you want to kind of lighten that up a little and go down that path. Excuse me, what patterns have you observed, like in societies and embrace the supernatural?I have a lot of conversations on this podcast over the last six years about the supernatural and how we fit into it, how we embrace it, or we are scared of it, or we don't want to come anywhere near it kind of a thing. Have you observed in societies, have you observed any special patterns in there that either embrace it or, or suppress it more than the other?

Well, I think by default, because again, we have an innate understanding and desire to, to interact with the spiritual realm.So if you look at, you know, a broad historical overview, the vast, vast, vast majority of societies which, and civilizations which have ever existed are going to come into that category.They, their cultural understandings and narratives are, Might vary or will vary, but in, in terms of their default understanding that there is something beyond the physical realm, that it must be acknowledged. And, and if it is there, then there must be some method in interacting with it.There must be some truths which we, you know, implicational truths that we must then grapple with as a society and that, you know, so there. Then you get into, you know, ethical frameworks you get into philosophical discussion of how we should live our lives in light of that truth.And so again, different societies are going to approach that and come up with different answers or frameworks to, to that kind of default or innate understanding.But it takes great effort for any society to kind of reject that innate understanding or that, that kind of hardwired nature of humankind and accept a framework that, that states none of that is true. And so it takes a lot of effort, it takes a lot of structure to provide a compelling enough narrative to push people in that direction.So if you were to look at, you know, the broad overview of human history and, you know, just put them in two columns, one acknowledging spiritual reality and one rejecting or claiming spiritual reality does not exist. The vast, vast, vast majority are going to fall into the accepting spiritual reality category.How they deal with, with that, and the implications of that, of course, are going to vary from culture to culture.But the very small number of societies which have come to the kind of cultural conclusion as a whole that those realities don't exist is going to be exceedingly small. Now, that doesn't mean like one society is always in one category and another society is always, always in another. The cultural anthropologist J.D.unwin, back in the 30s, actually came to a rather startling conclusion in that regard. He was a Freudian.He believed that Sigmund Freud was correct in his hypothesis that the more sexual restriction there was in a culture, the worse that culture would perform and the more sexual freedom that a culture would had available to them, then the, the more benefits, the, the more flourishing, the more beneficial it would be to that civilization. And so that was just a hypothesis of Freud's. He, he didn't really test it. JD Unwin then came along and said, well, you know, I'm an anthropologist.I have the tools to, to actually test this hypothesis. And, and he assumed that Freud was correct.But after his study, which was exhaustive, 84, 86 different societies, six different civilizations spanning about 5,000 years of human history, he came to the exact opposite conclusion. He said, no, actually, across the board, the more sexual restraint a society has, the better off that society is and performs.In fact, strict prenuptial chastity, he said, was the number one indicator of whether or not your society was, was going to thrive or implode.And he said as soon as a society moved away from strict prenuptial chastity, three things were the, the natural, not natural in terms of maybe the most apparent, but these were consistently the implications down the road, one of which makes Total sense. If you abandon strict prenuptial chastity, eventually you're also going to abandon monogamy.That, that is, you know, pretty logically consistent there. But the next two, that kind of implications or consequences that he identified were not at all expected.And that is, after you abandon strict prenuptial chastity, then you abandon monogamy, and then you abandon, as a, as a society, you abandon deism, and then finally you abandon rational thought.And so there, even Unwin, in studying different cultures and civilizations, saw kind of this shift back and forth actually, of societies kind of drifting from one category to the other, of accepting spiritual realities, to then kind of engaging in hedonism and sensuality and pleasure, which then actually led them to abandoning their ideas of spirituality and ultimately even rational thought. So, and, and at that point, he, he said that they were at their lowest point of flourishing and thriving as a culture or as a civilization.And interestingly, he also identified kind of a time frame that it took from when, you know, action to consequences. And that was three generations, a minimum of three generations.It took for all of the implications to kind of filter through and, and come to the forefront in a culture, which I think is an interesting observation when we apply, you know, to our own culture, like when, when was sexual restraint and kind of sexual morals and ethics kind of chucked out the window in our own culture universally. We agree that that movement really started with the hippie movement in the 60s and 70s.And interestingly, it's been three generations now since that in our own culture. And so we're starting to see the fruit of that. And it's, it's definitely been an interesting moment to be alive.

Interesting. Yeah. And a reminder that that three genera, I grew up in that era. So three generations seems like eons ago.And, and wow, it's been three generations since then. I have to stop and think about that. What are some.Coming from that perspective, what are some ancient spiritual practices like from biblical tradition that you think are relevant today?I mean, it's interesting how everything that you just said, it culminates in the changes in society and what is hers in society then the three generations to clear it. What do you think might be relevant today?

Well, I think they're all relevant today. But what, you know, there has been, I think, a confusion because we have accepted this large scale kind of evolutionary perspective.And I can understand that, but it's incredibly problematic when applied across the board because when you accept this evolutionary perspective, what, what it basically assumes is that everything that comes later is better than what came before. And, and that is not always true. It can be true, but it should not just be assumed to be true.We actually need to evaluate on a case by case basis, any cultural practice or a belief or framework or narrative, evaluate it and see if it is better than what we had before.And so I certainly don't want to turn this political, but when you just look at the labels even that we put on our kind of political movements, at least within the Western world, we call some things progressive and we call other things conservative.And that is, it's a really interesting framework because the, the progressive lens, again, just assumes that whatever is new is better than what is old. And that is a very dangerous assumption. It is a question that we need to actively engage in on a case by case basis.Likewise, conservatism is this kind of idea that we need to conserve everything that is old. And so it's kind of the, you know, the total opposite of that.It's like one says everything that is new that is better, and one has a tendency to say that everything that is old is better. And neither of those are universally true.However, what we need to understand is that there is a big difference between information, intelligence, knowledge and wisdom.And you can accumulate information very quickly, particularly in the modern age, particularly with artificial intelligence and all these tools at our disposal to get a relatively, you know, solid answer at the snap of our fingers. Information is cheap. Knowledge, however, is kind of the next step.That's kind of information integration and being able to make sense of the information that you have gathered. And that is not at all necessarily related to intelligence. You can have great intelligence and have a completely wrong answer.You can have very low intelligence and have a completely correct answer. So we have to be really careful in not lumping these categories together and assuming that one directly leads to another.But the final category is the hardest one, the one that takes the most effort, the, the most personal growth and development in order to foster and develop, and that is wisdom. Because even having knowledge and even having intelligence is not necessarily kind of the, you know, the peak of the mountain.Wisdom is really the most important thing and the hardest to accumulate and to integrate into our lives.And so due to that, it takes great time and effort, given that one individual is, I mean, even on an informational level, we would say it would be impossible for one person to accumulate all the information, be even more difficult for them to accumulate all the knowledge. It'd be impossible for them to accumulate all the intelligence.But it's even more ridiculous to think that they would accumulate all the wisdom, like we would love for that person to exist, you know, that we could just sit at their feet, you know, and. And hear the wisdom of one. One person who just has the.The perfect perspective of every issue and can see the nuance and complexity and interplay and be able to give the absolutely perfectly appropriate response to each situation. We would love for that person to exist, but they don't. And so for us to.To kind of think that we somehow individually will come to that, that peak experience at some point in our life is pretty ridiculous.And therefore, we need to be able to look upon the past and see the accumulation of human experience, the accumulation of human knowledge, the accumulation of human wisdom, and be able to stand firm on that foundation, rather than each generation popping up and trying to reinvent the wheel, start from scratch and, and think that they know better than everyone who's ever come before them.So in that sense, I think ancient practices are absolutely critical in us being able to engage with the reality around us, because each of us, even the elders among us, like yourself, who have been around for a while, to think that your personal experience has accumulated, you know, the, the wisdom, the knowledge necessary to accurately navigate life in its complexity and in its fullness is a bit arrogant.

I agree with you. You know, I think that we. We all need to understand that we are continuously learning. We are continuously.We should all continue to seek that knowledge, to seek those experiences and to understand that they come from many different perspectives and that we can take something from each one of them to get a nice balance, even in our own lives. You know, take a little bit here, a little bit here, a little bit here. What works and what, you know, kind of what doesn't. What.What does work and balance that a little bit. There is no one. I mean, I appreciate people like the Dalai Lama.I appreciate people, you know, that are in the position that they are revered in the Buddha, in. In even the, you know, even from those practices. But I agree with you. Not one person knows everything.I think we should all know that we are constantly seeking knowledge, constantly seeking wisdom, constantly seeking the opportunity. How does the original Jewish understanding of spirituality differ from modern Western interpretations?Does that, does that play into any of what we just spoke with?

For sure. You know, in its most obvious aspects, is. Is that modern Western society is in large part kind of an outgrowth of. Of Greek philosophy and thought.And so, interestingly, you know, a. A Bible is composed of Hebrew and Greek writings.But there was a big shift, you know, between The Old and New Testament, both in, in language but also in revelation or, or in thought.There were many times, for example, where Jesus kind of had to correct the record, if you will, with his Jewish followers because they had one perspective on, on truth that was not holistic and was not necessarily what God, you know, intended to communicate to them.So Jesus kind of had to give them a bigger picture or say, well, yes, but also this, you know, you know, one easy example would be, you know, the Beatitudes. His instructions on, you have heard it said, hate your enemy and you know, love your neighbor. I, but I say to you, even love your enemy, you know.And so there's, there was this paradigm shift that happened with Jesus in the Gospels that moved our understanding from anyone who, who is familiar with scripture from an Old Testament to a New Testament understanding.And part of that, not the totality by any stretch, but part of that even was kind of a shift from primarily Jewish or Hebrew way of thinking to Greek.And then as you get into church history, then where the church started in a Jewish context with Jewish converts in Jerusalem, very quickly it spread from Jerusalem and into the rest of both the Roman Empire and the rest of kind of the known world at that time. And so it very quickly shifted from primarily Jewish to, to primarily Gentile.And so then there was a shift in kind of the, the primary lens that was used to even read and interpret scripture from a primarily Jewish perspective to an amalgamation of other perspectives.But in the Western world, the Greek lens or the Greek perspective is certainly the one that has had the most, most impact and influence on our understanding of spirituality and spiritual practices. There's one in particular that I could go into. It would take way too much time to unpack, but it is super interesting.But just regards what is even the nature of the soul. Is it eternal or is it mortal inherently and by nature? That was a contrast between the Jewish understanding and the Greek understanding.But for a little bit, for brevity's sake and also for application's sake, that one's a little bit more of a philosophical theological question, but for application, one good example of a difference in these perspectives would just be on fasting, which is fairly universal as a spiritual discipline in, in other religions. That's not unique necessarily to geo Christian religion. But what's really interesting is the explanation why do we fast?What, what is the spiritual application or benefit of fasting?And kind of in the modern world, which is very Greek thinking, again in Western society, kind of our concept of fasting would kind of, you know, you're from a Catholic background, kind of goes along with the Catholic concept of Lent, which is kind of an abstention or a sacrificial giving up of something so that you can focus that time or that energy on. On something spiritual. And that. That is certainly a valid practice. I would definitely encourage that. There's.There is a benefit to us taking time, energy, and effort that would have been devoted towards something of little consequence and shifting it to an endeavor of great consequence. But the Jewish understanding of fasting was completely different in that Genesis clearly states that sin came into the world through the belly.It was something that mankind ate. And even if you look at the consequences of sin in the Genesis account, it also had to exclusively almost target the belly.And that is, the man was cursed to have to toil, to work the fields in order to feed his belly. The woman's womb was cursed to. To have pain during childbearing, and the serpent was cursed to literally crawl on his belly, crawl on his very soul.And so the Jewish understanding of fasting was that your soul and your spirit don't reside where the Greeks thought that it did, in the heart, in the cardia. And that is in language that we have adopted largely in Western society, even though we don't actually come to that same conclusion.If you were to ask your average American right now, you know, where does your soul reside? They might get a little flustered, actually, not really knowing how to answer that question.But if you were to kind of rephrase it and say, where do you think your mind resides? Well, then they would almost universally point to their head, oh, the mind is up here. Well, the Greeks thought it was here in the heart. And the Jews.Jews thought it resided further down in the belly because of their understanding of Genesis.And so fasting for in the Jewish perspective, was a spiritual discipline that not only took into account focus, where are we putting our time, effort, and energy, but also it incorporated a concept of physical space.If I want my spirit man to become stronger, the fact that it resides in the same, you know, physical location as my soul means that I. I need to make more space for the spirit. And therefore, fasting as a concept made sense in that if I shrink my stomach, that gives my spirit more room to expand.Jesus kind of played on this and, you know, expounded on this even with his disciples in the New Testament. You know, there was a tension between him and the religious leaders, obviously, at many points.But one of them was that the fact that his disciples, you know, were eating with unclean Hands ritualistically, you know, unclean. And, you know, Jesus kind of used that opportunity to explain this distinction.He said, no, no, no, no, guys, it's not what goes into you that makes you unclean. It's what comes out of you. And interestingly, this is written in Greek because it's New Testament.And what he says, it's not what come goes into the stomach. He used the Greek word coelia, which means abdomen or stomach. It's not what goes into the stomach that defiles a man.It's what comes out of his cardiac, what comes out of his heart. These are. He's referring to the same thing. It's not what goes in that's going to make you unclean, guys.It's actually what comes out of you that makes you unclean.And so even then, you know, he was kind of, again, shifting the perspective because the Jewish people understood the nuts and bolts of fasting, but they didn't necessarily understand the intent of fasting. And so there was a clarification that Jesus gave.So that's just one example that I go into in the book that it's not necessary that you have to adhere to that physiological understanding of where the soul and spirit reside, but it is certainly helpful in understanding what the Jewish people believed about the soul and spirit and why the discipline of fasting then occurred and then how we can apply that in our own lives.

Well, I think that's brilliant. I mean, that's something that I did not know. You educated me in regard to that.And I've done a lot of research in other religions and experiencing other religions and other spiritualities, and you gave me something in this conversation that I can walk away with because I never knew that. So thank you for doing that. That it gave me a new perspective, it gave me a new understanding. And nobody's been able to give it to me like that.So I appreciate that very much. So what, you know, we're talking about the book Mirror Spirituality. What do you.What do you hope readers would take away from mere spirituality other than. Other than the. The brilliant opening of eyes like you just did for me?

Well, you know, kind of to use JD Unwin, who, again, was not, you know, a Christian. He was not even really religious, but just kind of to use his. His understanding, his framework and his warning.Like, he was so convinced by the anthropological study that he did that he then wrote a second book which. Which basically advocated for a. And I don't agree with this, but it's just an interesting conclusion. He was so convinced by the historical study.He wrote a second book which basically said the government should force us to be monogamous and to raise families because that is the best indicator of a healthy society. Like that will produce the best outcomes.He said, if we don't do that, then we stray into hedonism and our own personal happiness and gratification, which then ultimately leads to a rejection of absolutes and particularly absolute, absolute morals. So a rejection of spirituality, a rejection of God or deism. And.And then without that solid absolute framework, then it, we, it just descends into chaos. An absolute relativism to where even rational thought can't, cannot exist in that space.And so just kind of using that warning of, okay, like spirituality has implications even if we were just utilitarian and pragmatic about it. Like we.Even if we didn't believe in moral absolutes, again, we should act as if they did exist, because that is clearly a better framework for humanity to exist than the alternative. But the greater question is why? Why does acting as if this truth is actually true?Why would it actually produce better outcomes unless that thing were actually true?And so there is an investigation that I would challenge people to undertake because this is the greatest question that humanity has ever wrestled with. It is the most important question question that we could possibly wrestle with because it has eternal implications.It has implications far beyond this life if it is true and therefore it warrants investigation.So I would hope that people are inspired to at least consider the possibility and then do take it seriously enough to do the legwork and do the investigation.Hopefully this book gives them, you know, a jump start on that investigation and provides compelling evidence, reason and logic that nudges them down that path. But ultimately one book is not going to do that for anyone.You know, I, I just said that for any one person to, you know, claim that they have all truth, all knowledge, or all wisdom, you know, would be absolutely ridiculous. In fact, my, my dedication page in the book kind of starts out on the right foot in that regard.It says to Jack, because the wisest thing we could ever do, you know, is just acknowledge that we know Jack. So we have to start off on a foundation of humility.I'm not claiming this book is going to be the end all, be all revelation for anyone, but hopefully it does start people on kind of a neutral place of saying this is a possibility. This is something that I actually need to take seriously. It's not something that has just been disproven by science.It is not something that I can just dismiss. It is something that I actually have to grapple with.

And how can we find that book as well as your. You have a series available that people could watch and some other resources?

Yeah, the book is available, you know, wherever you buy books. Although at the time of this podcast, Amazon is out of stock. Barnes and Noble still has it. Others still have it.If you can't find it anywhere else for whatever reason, my website has it available. That website is mperspective.org m as in missions or mother.Imperspective.org you can get the book autographed and some freebies thrown in with it if, if you would like.I do also have a video series on that website that kind of goes into the historical research kind of the the prelude to the book of just showing in in just how bad of a situation and season our our culture and society is in from largely secular research. But also there's tons of articles and other resources if, if they're interested on that site.

Yeah, I'll make sure that's in the show notes as well. So it's an easy way just to click it and go right to the website.For the those of you that are driving or listening from a different perspective, this is one more thing before you go. We could, we, we. We could keep talking for another hour. I'm sure that it would really go into that. There is one more thing before you go.So do you have any words of wisdom before we leave?

Ah, question everything, but be also be open to everything. Pride is the number one killer of not only curiosity, but of intellectual integrity.So just be open to possibilities and don't assume that you know the answer. Ask the question and actually go where the evidence takes you.

Brilliant words with them. I think we should all heed those words. Joshua, thank you very much for reaching out. Thank you for becoming part of the one more thing before you go.Continue community. I appreciate you very much what you bring to the world.

Thank you so much for having me, sir.

As a wrap for today's episode, Joshua Spader reminds us that spirituality isn't a trend. It's a timeless human need that the supernatural isn't irrational.It says essential in that ancient wisdom, when understood through the right lens, can illuminate the path forward in a world searching for meaning. So this conversation sparks something in you which sure to like subscribe share it with someone who's asking deeper questions.To learn more about Joshua's work in his upcoming book, Mere Spirituality, check out the links in the show notes and until next time, stay curious, stay grounded and Remember, the answers we seek may be older than we think. And thank you for tuning in to One More Thing before you Go. Thanks for listening to this episode of One More Thing before you Go.

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