The difference between religion and spirituality

[naomi24]

Leading on from Theland's question below, it seems to me that believers confuse man's innate spirituality with religion. Even the most ardent atheist is capable of experiencing spirituality, but he doesn't acquaint it with the God of the Arbrahamic faiths, so why do believers feel it necessary to do so? Is it simply that they have to justify it by putting a name to something they can't explain - regardless of the culprit's appalling demands, threats, and disgraceful track record?

[beso]

Religuion is man's way of protecting himself from spiritual experience.

[modeller]

Religion is a crutch that millions of people need to cope with life and the Devil is someone to blame. The emotion experienced when seeing or hearing something out of the ordinary has nothing to do with religion itself but is used by believers to justify their beliefs.

[bibblebub]

Quite a few religious people also equate morals with religion. They believe that their religion gives them a moral superiority (without realising that the two are essentially unconnected), and yet they are the ones who usually turn out to be the most hypocritical.

[WaldoMcFroog]

I find the concept of spirituality semantically difficult - the word is clearly related to dualist concepts and since I am a materialist, 'spirituality' doesn't sit comfortably. I don't know that even the most ardent atheist would subscribe to your view though; many would say the concept is inherantly riduculous.

If one wished to define 'spirituality' in the sense of an awe for the natural world, then I certainly experience that on a regular basis. That's getting into Spinoza's God territory, I guess.

[jno]

seems to me proving the existing of spirit is about as likely as proving the existence of God. No reason why that should stop anyone believing in either of them, though.

[Ankou]

i agree. it depends what you mean by spirituality.

if you mean contacft with an imgainary world or a being/spectre of the 'unexplained' ilk then no, its superstitios nonsense. if like waldo says you mean awe and wonderment at the concept of 'self' and 'nature' then thats different because in my view they are apparent and tangible, not imaginary or unreal.

[Old_Geezer]

Religion is an organised set of beliefs of a spiritual nature. The religion will have debated these beliefs and come up with what it thinks is the "right" view.

Spirituality is more general, and is usually referred to outside of the organised religious sphere. It is a belief in the spiritual world/plane but one tends to come to one's own conclusions rather than accept the ready offered set of beliefs from any particular religion.

[naomi24]

Waldo, A sense of awe for the natural world is precisely what I mean. That's the point. A sense of spirituality doesn't denote the existence of a 'spirit' floating somewhere in the great beyond...... the religious merely like to think it does........

.....and hence, jno, there is nothing to prove.

[naomi24]

Precisely Ankou.

Old Geezer, no, spirituality is not a belief in a higher plane. That's where is becomes confused with religion.

[naomi24]

Sorry 'it', not 'is'.

[Old_Geezer]

Then we disagree.
But you already know the answer you are looking for ?

[naomi24]

Old Geezer, I'm not looking for an answer. I've simply thrown this question open to debate. A belief in a 'higher plane' comes as a result of the influence of religion. Where else would the idea have come from?

[Ankou]

yes but you would include ghosts in your 'natural world', whereas i wouldnt and religionists would include 'god'.

[jake-the-peg]

Hmmm

Not sure I've experienced spirituality

I've stood in a cathedral and appreciated it's beauty and sense of space

I've looked at the derivation of physical laws and marvelled at the elegance and symmetry of it

I'm astounded by the scale of the universe

Perhaps that's what some people call spirituality but I don't because there's nothing paranormal or inexplicable about it

[naomi24]

OK, as people claim experience of ghosts, so others claim experience of the God of Abraham, but how do they know their experiences actually emanate from him? If they do indeed have these experiences, why do they not attiribute them to something unknown rather than labelling them with a convenient, unsubstantiated tag?

[jno]

I don't think my awe for the natural world is any different from my awe for the man-made world. Not just the 'natural world' in the sense of sublime scenery, either; I think it was Bertrand Russell who spoke of the beauty of mathematics. But how is that spirituality? Are you saying it's something in us rather than in the things we perceive?

[Theland1]

There is a huge difference in religion and spirituality. Chalk and cheese. How does an evolutionist explain our capacity for wonderment and awe? Religion has more in common with the tribal fanatic football supporter than it does with personal experience of a knowledge of a higher power - God.

[naomi24]

Jake, I don't believe anything is paranormal.

jno, Yes, I am. The ability to appreciate the natural world, which includes mathematics, emanates from our innate spirituality, as does love and compassion.

[Old_Geezer]

It comes from wondering if this, that one exeriences, is all there is. From looking for a point to being, and of having a moral viewpoint aside from hedonism. From not accepting that the life force (for want of a better phrase) of those we have known is no more, simply because their body is no longer animated/living. It comes from trying to explain "puzzles" that seem to have no material/rational explanation.

I suggest that religion is born out of spirituality, not vice versa.

[Theland1]

24 - I think you are clearing the site of tumbleweed.