When all meaning is thrown overboard

Editor’s note: If you would like to submit a letter for possible publication, please email it to editor@rationalist.com.au. See our Publishing Guidelines.
 
Dear Editor,
I want to raise two examples of the importance of semantics. In the first example, according to the RSA Weekly (19 July 2024) the Royal Australian Navy is requiring that applicants for its secular wellbeing roles have a “strong spiritual connection” and demonstrate how their spirituality informs their life.
If they're going to insist on this absurd (in my opinion) condition, they will first need to provide a precise definition of spirituality. It's not a word I'd ever use because I have no idea what it means. If I were to ask a large group of people, I feel sure the number of different definitions would approximate the number of people in the group.
The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary offers several definitions including: the clergy; the quality or condition of being spiritual (a definition remarkable for its circularity); the fact or condition of being immaterial. 
Other dictionaries refer to the quality of being concerned with the human spirit or soul as opposed to material or physical things. Defining in terms of spirit is also circular; defining in terms of soul is meaningful only to those who accept the existence of a soul.
The second example regards Islamophobia. Following the Prime Minister's recent appointment of Jillian Segal as the envoy to combat antisemitism, he also promised to make a simi...