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Religion Vs. Spirituality
Here’s a simple yet possibly good discussion question. Take the words “religion” and “spirituality”. Which one do you have a better or worse association with and why? For me, I tend to feel a certain non-committal flakiness in using the word spirituality. What is spirituality? I don’t know if I can even really define it. Maybe spirituality is simply the individualized form of religion, or maybe it’s something else entirely. I like the word religion because it implies something with more tradition and structure. It’s not quite so willy-nilly. It’s also interesting that the word religion supposedly comes from the Latin for “to bind together” or something like that. A lot of people probably see that as negative though. What’s your take on it?
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August 18th, 2005 at 12:21 am
religion seems a strict, rules and structure type thing that if you don’t fit a certain mold, you won’t get X whether it’s heaven or bliss or whatever religions give.
spirituality is kind of finding the divine on a personal level, instead of having a priest feed it to you, which usually leaves you starving. I’ve been to a couple different churches and found nothing of interest in either of them, though I do like the architecture of the Catholic church, they sing songs and talk about whatever and I didn’t feel anything.
Last night i was listening to a trance song, and it helped me meditate and stimulate my pineal and I was feeling quite blissful for a long while. If religion doesn’t put out, then I’m not in for it.
Gnosticism in general is a religion, there are different sects and ideologies, but Gnosis is a more spiritual personal experience of the divine unhindered by rules of a religion unless you put them there.
What people mean when they say they’re not a religious person but a spiritual one, I’m not sure.
August 18th, 2005 at 12:50 am
Yeah people say that all the time, don’t they? An even weirder one is when people say they are religious, but that they aren’t really spiritual… What the hell does that mean?
It’s funny, for me, religion doesn’t really have that “strict” connotation that it seems to for most people. I do like what you’re saying about rules and structure though. I guess, in my old age, I’m seeing those as more and more positive, oddly enough.
August 18th, 2005 at 10:33 am
I’m the other way around - religion, to me, implies dogma & confinding rules, a set mindset that is not to be budged - this is because of my unwillingness against most of christianity, however, so it’s a prejudice I try to get rid of.
Spirituality, while somewhat fluffy and non-committal, strikes me as personal devotion & beliefs, a pure yearning of one’s personal soul towards finding answers to life’s questions.
August 18th, 2005 at 11:53 am
yeah i much prefer spiritual too, it just means “of spirit”. because i believe i am of spirit, i guess i would say i’m spiritual. sounds etheric and individualistic, but also kinda condescending and lame, so i guess i would never actually say it after all.
interesting that the word religion has something to do with bondage. what is it with these archons?
is there a 3rd option?
August 18th, 2005 at 12:19 pm
yeah if some people don’t like the word religion, and some don’t like the word spirituality, what words can we use to describe it that’s mutually agreeable or totally neutral?
my whole thing with “story-systems” was an attempt at moving toward that, but there must be something that isn’t a neologism. in a nutshell, the story-systems thing goes like: we each have constellations of stories which guide and inform our lives. it may be politics, religion, sports, movies, music, etc. from there we also have various rituals that we use to act out or participate in these stories.
August 18th, 2005 at 12:45 pm
i don’t think either is ‘good’ or ‘bad;’ to me they’re two different things. i use ’spiritual’ to refer to the sort of over-arching desire for communion with “spirit” in whatever form it takes, and “religion” as a methodology with which to do so. so someone can be spiritual without being religious, but rarely religious without being spiritual.
i guess religion could be called the physical experience of the metaphysical within a context, but i prefer spiritual to metaphysical because metaphysical has WAY too many connotations (damn you, newage spewers!).
heh, there are none. can’t be any neutral word, unless you make one up. even then we could call it “galaganarp” and somebody wouldn’t like the way “galaganarp” looked/sounded/rolled off the tongue.
August 18th, 2005 at 12:48 pm
Yeah I think in a sense, a neutral word would also be a neutered word. Part of what makes words great is that they HAVE connotations and we can play with them…
I also love the definition of religion as a structured methodology
August 18th, 2005 at 10:41 pm
My thoughts on the subject are similar to what others have already said. To me, religion is short for organized religion. Organized religion is what happens to a specific spiritual path/story when it becomes a political & economic structure instead of (or in addition to) a means to peace and enlightenment. Some of the reasons that the term religion has negative connotations (for me): organized religion seems to establish protocols that are divorced from meaning, and original striving towards equality (gender, racial, &/or economic) disappear or become transmuted. Islam, for instance, started out with a great deal of desire on Mohammed’s part to give women greater equality. However, it’s current incarnation often appears to be quite the opposite of this.
As for a mutually agreeable or totally neutral description, I prefer Conscientious Truth Seeker.
August 22nd, 2005 at 12:44 pm
Once again, our world gets so caught up in words and labels. I don’t believe that it is necessary to be right about a word at the expense of our souls. There are people who make the word “religion” negative. As one person commented, the word in and of itself is neither negative or positive. I think we should focus of God and our relationships with him and we should those things which promote intimacy … if that means following certain standards, rules (or being religious), then so be it. I am not afraid of the names that people may call me for following Jesus Christ. I am more afraid of not having my name called on that Great Day when He returns.