No matter your core beliefs, at what point in life does spirituality most commonly increase in importance?

Question

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Why do you believe your answer is so?

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Answer 1

Wow Sean is right, you do ask the best questions.

Now let me try and give you the best answer I can.

For me, and for many others, my connection to God, or spirituality, if you want to call it that, came when I realized my own fragile nature and mortality. (see my blog "why I believe" for the exact details).
My entire life up to the point at which I was saved was spent seeking for some kind of "cosmic" grand answer to the meaning of life. I wanted to know why I was here, and what it all meant. In short, the old allegory applies to me, I had a hole in my heart and was seeking to fill it.
It would not be correct nor fair to claim that the closer to death we get the more we seek for answers, because that has not been proven statistically. Old people do not flock to church in record numbers, nor do they become Atheists in record numbers. In fact, statistically speaking, the older you get the more "set in your ways" you become.

Now to be impersonal, I would say that the moment a person realizes there is more to life than the essentials is the moment we yearn for cosmic importance. For details here, see Maslow's pyramid on needs, Wikipedia has an excellent article on it. Why do I believe this? It's based entirely on personal study (I have a BA in Sociology and Political Science), experience, and observation.
Thank you for asking this question, blessings to you.

Answer 2

For me, I have memories of questions I had at a very young age - about 8 or so (when I was taking my "1st communion" and had to have lessons in "confession")
Unfortunately at the time, questions from children were not held in high esteem, so I languished for many years before finally getting some real answers.

I would say that many many people come to some kind of awareness of spirituality when a baby is born, or someone dies, or their own life is in jeopardy, but I really don't know the statistics.

Answer 3

I believe that your spirituality becomes important when you need it most. When you realize you can't make it on our own and when things become unbarable. When you realize that you need help and that we are far from perfect and far from pure and innocent. There are many moments. However, once you find your spirituality you just call on it during the rough times. You should support it in anything. When you accept it, you should be making a LIFE STYLE change. Not just "Oh, i need help - let me pray and everything will get better." It doesn't really work that way. (or in Christianity it doesn't. Following God should become a life style. .not moments or certain situations)

Answer 4

i'm no longer able to declare my spirituality has been affected, besides the fact that if this is truthfully a reason for subject and sense sorry approximately. The saddest factor is with the AIDS epidemic got here a virus of lack of understanding. i latterly heard a non secular radio prepare host declare AIDS replace right into a effect of sin, and condoms must be banned. merely this morning a co-worker voiced her opinion that homosexuality replace into the only reason AIDS exists. actually, this is terrifying that such distinctive deaths have happened and however the final public of folk able to helping refuse to do something yet throw around blame. that may no longer a time for accusations, it rather is a time for trustworthy attempt and compassion.

Answer 5

Um... it's hard to say that it increases at any point, if you are not a spiritual person.
Wisdom, critical thinking, tolerance, and peaceful rationality, now, those get more important with age - very important to develop when one starts functioning as an adult, if one wants to be taken seriously.

Answer 6

To me, spirituality means absolutely nothing, but I'm sure to most people it could be when they've been diagnosed with a terminal illness, they're on death row, they're fighting for their lives in war.....in all these case, death is near, so spirituality increases when the prospect of death is in the conscience or not too far from it.

Answer 7

For me, it's always when I'm having a crisis, and nothing in the "real world" seems to be helping.

I know now that this can be dangerous. Cults like to recruit people who have a lot of problems in their life because they are vulnerable. Luckily, the cult that tried to get me (conservative Christianity) ultimately lost me when my emotions settled down and my mind was back in charge of my life again.

If I'm having spiritual feelings now, I do something spiritual by myself, to avoid getting sucked into something that might hurt me later.

Answer 8

Too bad, but I would assume it would be especially relevant on the death bed. It's on the death bed that a person knows life is about to end. If there is a hereafter,(there is) what does it hold? Where will it be spent? Good or bad? I think it's then that a person, especially one that has little regard for God, will want to get right with God. He/she knows that eternity may be in the balance.

Answer 9

Since I've yet to hear a definition of spirituality (despite asking for it many times), I've concluded that it can't be important at all, ever.

Answer 10

When something important happens - specifically for me I would say seeing the beginning of a new life.
As a whole I would say "When one comes to the realization of the beginning or imminent end of life - be it themselves or a significant other."