I find the analogies of poison and soup to be flawed. There is neither contamination nor possible sterilization in the history of thought.
What would be the difference between starting from "scratch", creating a new 'rational' type of spirituality and responding to past spirituality? It's not as if the entire human race believes the same thing and is working on the same problem.
Science and Spirituality are not food to be consumed, but separate tools in the shed of experience. Just because you have scissors, you shouldn't throw away your glue.
This "War on Spirituality" is just as harmful as the "War on Science."
Once science explains what everything is, down the the smallest particle, that still doesn't explain what it IS. What if the smallest particle in the universe is irony? What if the universe is objectively non-objective? What if the laws of physics emerge in complexity only because somebody is trying to explain them? What if electricity did not exist before Ben Franklin thought of it? What if solipsistically you have always been here, and you will always be here, reading this message board. The "faith" that you hold that everything will eventually be "proved" might lead to an infinity. This is not an argument against science but FOR staring into the void (spirituality)
-TB
Spirituality is a word processor? This is just as ridiculous an analogy as Spirituality is a soup. You're talking about specific proponents of a word processor and using it to describe spirituality. Just like a word processor doesn't get flies if you leave it out, and a soup does not have a source code or programming language. Rationality and spirituality are both things that EMERGED, they were not constructed by a programmer or a cook, and you can't "start over from scratch"
As I understood this article, it was less a proposal for secular elevation, and more of a anti-religious kneejerk reaction to a Adam Frank's book before the reading was even finished. It was a call for spirituality to admit that it is wrong, a attempt for stigmatization of anything remotely spiritual. (This is just as likely as science admitting it is wrong. Not only is it 'not-applicable' it does not have a spokesman. Who speaks for existence?) This review is motivated by the crimes of religious faith-advocating anti-science, anti-intellectual, anti-rationality, knuckleheads, which are absolutely crimes. But I would argue that religion/faith doctrines are just harmful to spirituality, as they are to science.
(BTW The last post' paragraph was examples of physical states in which the scientific method would be asking the wrong question). The question "what do things mean" and "why" is embarking on a rational spiritual journey. The question of "how things work" is embarking on a rational scientific journey. From science, we obtain the results in the form of "proof." From spirituality, we obtain results in the form of "purpose." Both are private journeys, even though they might incorporate appreciating the value of sharing discoveries with a group. They are separate tools for understanding experience. (HOW and WHY) Again I will say, do not throw away your glue just because your scissors cut things apart so flawlessly. Glue is not even meant to cut things, but still serves a purpose. I support this form of secularity, but not the banishment of glue from the tool shed (because it cannot cut.)
Adam Frank's point was that this need for understanding, this purpose that drives our passion for science, has a common ancestor with spirituality. Makes perfect sense to me, and it needs to be said.