People need a "common ground" of "spirituality". Even if you say "but not for me", I'm sure that (unless you're either an aspie or a psychopath :) ) you also get some sort of "mystical/spiritual understanding", probably from science and technology itself (like I do, and it took me years to understand that part of the "hard drug" that drives me to technology was actually a very "mystical" thing)... you can replace "mystical/spiritual" with "imagination/intuition of something more than self" if it's more atuned to the vocabulary of your mind. But this sort of thing satisfies a psychological need in a way that doesn't bring people together, while classical social religions, in their retarded and distorting way, actually bring people together. That's why I think there's an "untapped religious market" in the middle of these things :)

Since scientific understanding (including the understanding of understanding) changes relatively frequently (at least compared to religion) I strongly suspect that any "science based philosophy" will eventually devolve into a cult.

Relevant, although it takes a while to get there: http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2013/03/05/honesty-and-the-human-b...

I like the more general definitions like: social scientists have defined spirituality as the search for "the sacred," where "the sacred" is broadly defined as that which is set apart from the ordinary and worthy of veneration. For myself,I like to think in terms of the known (intuitive known vs theoretical rational known vs empirical rational known) vs. the unknown (known unknown vs unknown unknown) and so on, rather than natural vs supernatural, since everything can be natural if you have a less contrived definition of nature.

I consider a tough scientific or technical or technical problem enlightening because it shows you the limits of your mind and how much you don't know or don't understand - this makes you more humble and teaches you to accept that you will always be surrounded by deep "mysteries" that you will never have the resources to comprehend. And otoh, when you finally solve a hard and deep problem that brought you to the limits of your mind, you realized that even the limits were an illusion and that your mind could maybe even comprehend the entire universe. For me it's easy and natural to find spirituality in science and technology, but I understand that people like me are basically "anomalies" and I understand other people's need for the more "magical" type of spirituality and for having it as a social thing (and I know there are other types of "anomalies" as well, not in bad sense - the one who can just take science and understanding "as is" with no need for spirituality). This is why I think there is huge unsatisfied market for all sorts of very different "spiritual products"!