What is "spirit"?

[bernee51]

When asked to define spirit (and spirituality) many belief systems leave this vague and ill-defined.

But spirit, if it exists, has to be something. Take the difference between a walking, talking human being, and a pile of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen. Spirit could be defined as the difference between a living human being, and a moment later a dead human being.

What includes those two criteria? One is structure. The structure of any human being. The structure of each molecule in the human body. The location of each molecule. But there is more than that, otherwise what accounts for the difference between a living human being one moment, and a dead human being a moment later.

The processes are also important. In addition to the structure, the processes of a working human metabolism which is called life. So spirit is the structure and processes.

This structure and process extends to more that just humans - it is present in all the living and non living. It is also inherent in the way we live in society. Inter-personal relationships have structure and process. A local community has structure and process. As does a country.

We all contribute to spirit...how we do that is 'spirituality'.

What then is 'spirit'?

Is it more than described above?

[professor_subzero]

Are you not putting that idea forth as one to be believed?

Nope. It is just my opinion. My point is that everybody should check for himself/herself what the spirit is.

Or perhaps wild guesses

Nope. Wild guesses are one thing and intuition another.