Religion and spirituality

[Quintessence]

Interesting. Do you think that perceived/projected "snobbery" on both sides might be responsible for the separation of the terms?

I don't see snobbery on either side, to be honest. What I see is that your typical American has a very restricted understanding of religion that is a byproduct of widespread lack of education or exposure on the subject. People's understanding of religion in this country tends to be informed only by what they were raised with. This means your typical American believes religion has to have certain characteristics that don't represent the full breadth of the world's religions today or throughout history. What it really boils down to is the "spiritual" crowd reject the mainstream norms of the traditional Western understanding of religion without recognizing that what they're doing can be (and is) called religion too. What they're doing is rejecting institutional/organized/dogmatic forms of religion for something more personal and relevant in their lives. That's still religion.

There are better voices than I to remark up on the causes behind the recent division of meaning between these two terms. It's been many years now since I've read this work, but this book (amazon link) is worth a gander.

 

[Windwalker]

What it really boils down to is the "spiritual" crowd reject the mainstream norms of the traditional Western understanding of religion without recognizing that what they're doing can be (and is) called religion too. What they're doing is rejecting institutional/organized/dogmatic forms of religion for something more personal and relevant in their lives. That's still religion.

I understand where someone can say the spiritual can be understood as religious feelings, but can we equate the spiritual as religion? If religion and spirituality were the same, then why do you have highly religious people who are completely out of touch with their own spiritual natures? They totally externalize religion and God, and are completely out of touch with their own interior landscapes. And then you have those who are very much in touch with the interior, as well as exterior nature of themselves in the world, but have nothing to do with the structures of a faith system.

Of course, this comes back to something that I brought up elsewhere and that is the many uses of the word religion. You really have to define what you mean by religion, that it just being this one thing or that. I'll repeat that list I posted elsewhere here to spark some discussion surrounding this and how it relates to the "spiritual but not religious" phrase:

This is a paraphrased list from the philosopher Ken Wilber that I feel quite accurately touches on these in a general way. The way I am using religion in this context, is definition number 2, or "R2" as Wilber later refers back to this list, and R6 as well as R8 when it is tied to science as Scientism. This is from his book A Sociable God:

1. Religion as non-rational engagement:

- Deals with the non-rational aspects of existence such as faith, grace, etc.

2. Religion as meaningful or integrative engagement:

- A functional activity of seeking meaning, truth, integration, stability, etc.

3. Religion as an immortality project:

- A wishful, defensive, compensatory belief in order to assuage anxiety and fear

4. Religion as evolutionary growth:

- A more sophisticated concept that views history and evolution as a process towards self-realization, finding not so much an integration of current levels, but higher structures of truth towards a God-Realized Adaptation.

5. Religion as fixation and regression:

- A standard primitivization theory: religion is childish, illusion, myth.

6. Exoteric religion

- The outward aspects, belief systems to support faith. A non-esoteric religion. A potential predecessor to esoteric religion.

7. Esoteric religion

- The inward aspects of religious practices, either culminating in, or having a goal of mystical experience.

8. Legitimate religion:

- A system which provides meaningful integration of any given worldview or level. A legitimate supporting structure which allows productive functionality on that level, horizontally. The myth systems of the past can be called "legitimate" for their abilities to integrate. A crisis of legitimacy occurs when the symbols fail to integrate. This describes the failure of a myth's legitimacy we saw occur with the emergence of a new level of our conscious minds in the Enlightenment. Civil religion is one example of an attempt to provide legitimacy to this level, following the failure of the old legitimate system.

9. Authentic religion

- The relative degree of actual transformation delivered by a religion or worldview. This is on a vertical scale providing a means of reaching a higher level, as opposed to integrating the present level on a horizontal scale. It provides a means to transformation to higher levels, as opposed to integration of a present one.​

So religion is self is hardly one thing, and the same can be said for spiritual as well. But to me when I use the term spiritual it can be boiled down to this, that which deals with matters of ultimate concern.

 

[Quintessence]

You make some fair points, Windwalker. I think that if I spend some time reflecting, I might find a home for the use of that word "spiritual" in my lexicon. What bothers me is when people substitute the word "spiritual" when what they describe is still religion. It is also interesting that your root definition of spiritual isn't a far cry from my root definition of religion: asking and answering the "big questions" of life and living (i.e., what you call "matters of ultimate concern").

 

[YmirGF]

Religion is for those who like to put their eggs into small baskets.

Spirituality is for those who don't like baskets.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

I see religion as codified dogmas and spirituality as something more individual and unorganized.

I'm still not sure where I fit in there since Satanism is a broad umbrella term that covers many different viewpoints, some of which conflict with each other. It's very DIY.

 

[crossfire]

Religion is for those who like to put their eggs into small baskets.

Spirituality is for those who don't like baskets.

Hmm. Is there a reference (perhaps subconscious) to nesting and makyo in there?

 

[YmirGF]

Hmm. Is there a reference (perhaps subconscious) to nesting and makyo in there?

If you want there to be, for sure.

 

[Quintessence]

Religion is for those who like to put their eggs into small baskets.

I must have several hundred baskets, then, made out of a menagerie of different materials, and a myriad of different designs. Some are closed baskets, some are open baskets, some are flat baskets that probably can't even be called baskets, some have holes in them, some are shiny, some are furry, some are made of air or transparent, some are concrete blocks, some are hollowed-out tree stumps, and so on.

And the eggs? I don't particularly like eggs. I don't think my hundreds and hundreds of baskets have eggs in them. I think they have seeds instead. Seeds, and tubers. And some books. Perhaps some circuit boards and cogs and gears. Lots of tea. Incense, resins and powders. Oils. Soup. Pho soup, tomato soup, chicken noodle soup, miso soup, matzo ball soup. Some of which may, I confess, have egg in it.

 

[crossfire]

Religion is for those who like to put their eggs into small baskets.

Spirituality is for those who don't like baskets.

I must have several hundred baskets, then, made out of a menagerie of different materials, and a myriad of different designs. Some are closed baskets, some are open baskets, some are flat baskets that probably can't even be called baskets, some have holes in them, some are shiny, some are furry, some are made of air or transparent, some are concrete blocks, some are hollowed-out tree stumps, and so on.

And the eggs? I don't particularly like eggs. I don't think my hundreds and hundreds of baskets have eggs in them. I think they have seeds instead. Seeds, and tubers. And some books. Perhaps some circuit boards and cogs and gears. Lots of tea. Incense, resins and powders. Oils. Soup. Pho soup, tomato soup, chicken noodle soup, miso soup, matzo ball soup. Some of which may, I confess, have egg in it.

OK, you both make some fair points. I would certainly agree that it is much more satisfying to drink coffee out of a coffee cup, rather than straight from the coffee maker!
Also, before drinking your coffee or tea, it is also a good idea to empty your cup and clean it out before adding the coffee or tea.

Obviously, the coffee/tea and the cup are two different things, and the cup is quite useful when it comes to enjoying your coffee/tea. We are toolmakers by nature. The cup is a tool we craft to better our coffee/tea experience. Why scorn the cup, then, unless it's defective in some manner, (like being a dribble cup?)

 

[Quintessence]

Some of us make our own cups, too. Where we don't, our repeated use of it makes it a unique thing. Have you seen those old coffee cups that have interesting scraping patterns on the inside from repeated stirrings of spoons on their interiors? There's legacy there, of many a good brew. Maybe it's the favorite cup. Maybe it's the only cup the person has. Each to their own.

And... we might be taking the metaphors a touch to far here. *chuckles*

 

[Twilight Hue]

Religion is what you practice. Spirituality is what you make of it.

 

[mystic64]

Interesting comments, this topic has some very awake folks in it that create food for thought. The word spirit is the foundation for the word spirituality and a spirit can be a disimbodied spirit (no physical body) or a spirit with a body. Crossfire would be an example of a spirit with a body. Now generally speaking a spiritualist is considered a person that can communicate with disimbodied spirits. And Briton has a lot of gifted folks that can do this, thus they have a tendency to look at spirituality as non religion in the traditional sense but also as religion in a pagan sense because they can visit with or appeal to anybody that they wish to. In traditional religion (generally considered organized religion) there are extreme limits on who you can visit with. So one's concept of spirituality would depend on who one is allowed to communicate with and to what extent one can truely communicate with one or more conscious entities without bodies. Religion on the other hand, if you follow certain rituals or ways of doing things the better your chance is that the whoever or whatever you are appealing to will listen and respond favorably with the understanding that the whoever or whatever you are appealing to or attempting to communicating with is a disimbodied spirit (or spirits.)

That adds up to I am religious and spiritual when I am attempting to appeal to or communicate with the Creator as the Father of Christ Jesus, and that I am not religious or spiritual in any way when i am visiting with all other disimbodied spirits. With them I am just hanging out with the "guys".

 

[mystic64]

Some of us make our own cups, too. Where we don't, our repeated use of it makes it a unique thing. Have you seen those old coffee cups that have interesting scraping patterns on the inside from repeated stirrings of spoons on their interiors? There's legacy there, of many a good brew. Maybe it's the favorite cup. Maybe it's the only cup the person has. Each to their own.

And... we might be taking the metaphors a touch to far here. *chuckles*

Every once in a while I accidently break my old cup and i have a heck of a time getting use to a new cup.

 

[mystic64]

Where does mindfulness fit into all of this?

Mindfulness is an interesting question ! One's mindfulness can open up Pandora's box because with mindfulness one can create new realities that are real to them and also real to others. And telling mindfulness created realities from non mindfulness created realities can be very difficult to impossible . Our minds are very powerful things.

 

[crossfire]

Mindfulness is an interesting question ! One's mindfulness can open up Pandora's box because with mindfulness one can create new realities that are real to them and also real to others. And telling mindfulness created realities from non mindfulness created realities can be very difficult to impossible . Our minds are very powerful things.

Oh, do you mean like reading the tea leaves in the bottom of your cup after you drink your tea?

{Yep. I'm pushing the envelop of this metaphor! It must be time for a nap!}

 

[lunamoth]

I think if spirituality as the raw material we all have to work with and religion as what we do with that raw material. It's like intelligence and what we do with our intelligence.

Some people are more in tune with their spirituality and they are more likely to develop it in a formal or non-formal, or even a highly individual, religion. Even if you are not part of an organized religion, if you do things to develop your spirit, which I feel as my connection to God and all living things (and now that I think about it to everything, not just living things), you are practicing a religion. You might be the only person in your religion, or it might be syncretic or at the other end of the spectrum, part of a highly organized or even controlling religion. If you are an atheist, you might do it through a humanistic religion, or many other 'religious' activities.

Any way you do it, you are striving to enrich your spiritual life.

 

[Amechania]

Spirituality is the unbound imagination. Religion is imagination in chains.

 

[mystic64]

Oh, do you mean like reading the tea leaves in the bottom of your cup after you drink your tea?

{Yep. I'm pushing the envelop of this metaphor! It must be time for a nap!}

The mindfulness that I was referring would be reading the tea leaves and not liking what you see and changing it. And the future that was suppose to happen changes to the future that you would like to happen. But opps! I was thinking that mindfulness ment willfulness and according to my dictionary Mindfulness is an adj. that means heedful; attentive. Example; being heedful of one's family responsibilities. Willfulness is an adj. that means said or done on purpose: deliberate. It can also mean obstinately bent on having one's own way (which is what I thought that mindfulness ment but obviously does not). I hope that management allows me a posting credit even though I messed up .

So that brings us back to what about "mindfulness" relative to "religion" and "spirituality"? Attentive and heedful relative to religion and spirituality? Crossfire I think that your question about "mindfulness" is a mine field. Probably if a person was mindful (attentive; heedful) they would stay as far away from religion and spirituality as they possibly could .

I guess my answer would be that those folks that have the ability to be "mindful" are what keeps religion and spirituality from getting totally out of hand.

 

[mystic64]

I think if spirituality as the raw material we all have to work with and religion as what we do with that raw material. It's like intelligence and what we do with our intelligence.

Some people are more in tune with their spirituality and they are more likely to develop it in a formal or non-formal, or even a highly individual, religion. Even if you are not part of an organized religion, if you do things to develop your spirit, which I feel as my connection to God and all living things (and now that I think about it to everything, not just living things), you are practicing a religion. You might be the only person in your religion, or it might be syncretic or at the other end of the spectrum, part of a highly organized or even controlling religion. If you are an atheist, you might do it through a humanistic religion, or many other 'religious' activities.

Any way you do it, you are striving to enrich your spiritual life.

I have to agree with you, well said!

 

[psychoslice]

Religion is an organisation, spirituality is breaking away from the institution and being free, its your true nature.