"Spiritual but not religious"

[PassionFruit53]

This morning I talked with a dear friend of mine. She is an American Christian girl who is learning Chinese in Beijing for 1 year already. She knew I had an interest in religion so we now talk often.

During our conversation, she said today, "I think you are spiritual but not religious."

I asked her what this phrase means. Stefanie(my friend) said it is can be a positive thing because spiritual people are often truth-seekers.

She explained that there are people who go to church all the time but do not feel anything from it. To those people church is just one more task in life.

However having a "spiritual life" is better than sitting in church, even if you have to understand God in your own way, is a very spiritual experience of the conditions to change a person's experience in this way.

What do you think of when you hear this phrase? What is your understanding of this type of practice?

(I hope my writing makes sense. It is not easy for non-native speakers, to discuss an extremely complex subject as you can probably tell)

 

[George-ananda]

This morning I talked with a dear friend of mine. She is an American Christian girl who is learning Chinese in Beijing for 1 year already. She knew I had an interest in religion so we now talk often.

During our conversation, she said today, "I think you are spiritual but not religious."

I asked her what this phrase means. Stefanie(my friend) said it is can be a positive thing because spiritual people are often truth-seekers.

She explained that there are people who go to church all the time but do not feel anything from it. To those people church is just one more task in life.

However having a "spiritual life" is better than sitting in church, even if you have to understand God in your own way, is a very spiritual experience of the conditions to change a person's experience in this way.

What do you think of when you hear this phrase? What is your understanding of this type of practice?

(I hope my writing makes sense. It is not easy for non-native speakers, to discuss an extremely complex subject as you can probably tell)

First of all, your English is very impressive. You're too modest. You would be surprised by the poor English and spelling we see on RF from native English speakers.

'Spiritual but not Religious' is a term that applies to many people in these modern times. In the past, people were not as educated and did not have access to the vast amount of information from all over the world. In the western countries what they knew about spirituality and God came from their priests/pastors and maybe Sunday school or other institutions created to teach a particular religion. They were not really challenged by or aware of other ways of thinking.

Nowadays people have more exposure to a wide world of ideas and want to feel they think for themselves (rather than being indoctrinated into the religion of their parents). Many of these people have spiritual beliefs but are not fully accepting of all the aspects of their ethnic groups traditional religion which may have some aspects that don't seem believable/acceptable to a modern thinking person. Hence they still have spiritual beliefs but don't identify or associate with their families traditional religion. These 'Spiritual but not Religious' people are the growing wave of the future.

 

[Jainarayan]

A couple of definitions and examples:
Spiritual but not religious - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Deism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Spiritual, But Not Religious - Beliefnet.com
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/rationally-speaking/201007/spiritual-not-religious

 

[Thief]

I believe in spirit...but not religion.

Religion is practice of hand and recital of words.

I don't believe practice of hand or recital to be true.

If your hand does anything at all it's because you thought you should...of felt like it.

Let your deeds be the show of your spirit.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

You've never needed anything else...or more.

 

[Quintessence]

It's kind of horrible for me to think this, but my honest reaction to phrases like "spiritual but not religious" is something between "doesn't understand religion" and "fashion victim." See, not so long ago, these two terms were pretty much synonymous. Then, folks in my culture started driving a wedge between them after getting up in arms about mainstream expressions of religion in this country. Never mind that these mainstream expressions hardly constitute the be-all and end-all of religion, people often speak of religion in my country as if Christianity is the only thing that exists. Sometimes that wedge is simply "religion = organized, public sphere" and "spirituality = disorganized, private sphere." Unfortunately, more often than not, people also add additional attributes: "religion = indoctrination, rigid, dogmatic, and closed-minded" and "spirituality = exploratory, free, seeking, and open-minded." Those kinds of attributions to me demonstrate a lack of understanding of religious diversity and what it means to be religious in favor of following a fad that oversimplifies the topic.

I know this'll come off as offensive to anyone who identifies with the "spiritual but not religious" crowd. It's difficult for me not to have this kind of reaction when the characterization of religion by these people is also quite offensive. "Oh, you're religious? That means you must never think for yourself, right?"

:slap:

 

[Sunstone]

Albert Einstein once said, "The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which he has attained to liberation from the self."

If you think of a person's spirituality as the measure and the sense in which he or she has attained to liberation from the self, then everyone is spiritual to some extent.

 

[Jainarayan]

something between "doesn't understand religion" and "fashion victim."

Oh, like California Tantra!?

 

[Nyingjé Tso]

Vanakkam,

Oh, like California Tantra!?

Ah thank you, I just looked that on google and now I feel a urge to cross the ocean to meet those guys and express my deep feelings of what is this thing by throwing my dinner at their feets

I was so happy to be in total ignorance of this.
Life was so sweet
You ruined it ! ! :help:

Aum Namah Shivaya

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

What do you think of when you hear this phrase? What is your understanding of this type of practice?

I think it can be just about anything. In my experience, depending on the person, when they say "I'm spiritual but not religious", it can mean:

- "I have my own spiritual practice (that may mean quite a bit to me) that doesn't fit with any organized religion."

- "I've drifted away from the religion I was raised in, and even though I don't attend services regularly and don't have a real practice of my own, I still feel a connection to my old faith to a certain extent."

- "I'm really a non-believer but don't want to admit it."

- "I'm very religious, but my religion/denomination teaches me that the word 'religion' is bad."

... or probably other things that I'm forgetting.

 

[Jainarayan]

You ruined it ! ! :help:

Aum Namah Shivaya

Glad to help.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

It's often a sign that somebody likes to sleep in on Sundays.

 

[crossfire]

I see nothing wrong with acknowledging a church built of living stones that were rejected by the builders.

Just my 2 cents worth.

 

[Penumbra]

This morning I talked with a dear friend of mine. She is an American Christian girl who is learning Chinese in Beijing for 1 year already. She knew I had an interest in religion so we now talk often.

During our conversation, she said today, "I think you are spiritual but not religious."

I asked her what this phrase means. Stefanie(my friend) said it is can be a positive thing because spiritual people are often truth-seekers.

She explained that there are people who go to church all the time but do not feel anything from it. To those people church is just one more task in life.

However having a "spiritual life" is better than sitting in church, even if you have to understand God in your own way, is a very spiritual experience of the conditions to change a person's experience in this way.

What do you think of when you hear this phrase? What is your understanding of this type of practice?

It can mean a lot of things to different people.

Most commonly it seems to mean that a person believes in some 'higher power' or has some supernatural beliefs, but doesn't really have much of a structure or dogma to their beliefs.

Some other people don't seem to believe in supernatural things but still identify as spiritual due to having a sense of 'awe' at the universe or life.

My mother is an example of someone who would consider herself spiritual but not religious. She believes in a 'higher power', supernatural healing, an afterlife, and draws from religions around the world, but doesn't believe in anthropomorphized deities, or rituals, or structured religions.

When I was a kid and went to Catholic Mass on Sundays with my father, sometimes it felt like we were all robots, and I didn't like it. It was almost an identical service every week with very minor changes each time, and people would all collectively speak in a detached monotone voice at certain parts in the service to state their belief or to repeat what the priest said back to him at certain exact parts.

(I hope my writing makes sense. It is not easy for non-native speakers, to discuss an extremely complex subject as you can probably tell)

Your English is fine.

I'm continually surprised on this forum to see people speak English as a second or third language better than I speak it as my first language.

 

[Gaura Priya]

I have no idea. I have always conflated spirituality and religion as two of the same thing. One can always have a personal religion, and one can also express their spirituality with a 'spiritual tradition' or read from a 'book of spiritual wisdom'!

I am both spiritual and religious, and definitely not of the orthodox type at all!

Gaur Hari Bol!

 

[Vinayaka]

' I think its a way of expressing 'religion is full of doctrine, and so many people are anti-religion' I'll come up with a new word. To me personally, it's some kind of hippy dippy lovey dovey new age copout. But hey, if you want to say it, go for it. It's in vogue, after all.

Ask a person who says it, what it means sometime. I have an acquaintance who has frequented our little Hindu temple for maybe 15 years now. One day I asked him if he felt like a Hindu yet. He said, "No, I'm not really religious, I'm just more spiritual."

Huh? I kind of went, Well, okay, and left it at that. You walk like a Hindu, you dress like a Hindu, you come to a Hindu temple, but nope you're not a Hindu. Reminds me too much of "if you act like a racist, talk like a racist, behave like a racist, but you claim to not be a racist, well? Huh?

 

[crossfire]

I don't attend any church, have no religious traditions, no religious garb, no altar, no religious symbolism or artwork, and don't do any rituals. I do have various scriptures about, though, like different bible translations, book of mormon, analects of confucious, I Ching, etc, as well as writings on my hard drive that I study. I'll practice mindfulness while doing manual labor, and will meditate when the need arises. I can't point to any one tradition and say it's a good fit for me right off the rack, so to speak, so I'm making my own.

Is this truly a cop out? Am I truly being lazy by tailoring my own "clothes" rather than buying them off the rack?

 

[ImmortalFlame]

This morning I talked with a dear friend of mine. She is an American Christian girl who is learning Chinese in Beijing for 1 year already. She knew I had an interest in religion so we now talk often.

During our conversation, she said today, "I think you are spiritual but not religious."

I asked her what this phrase means. Stefanie(my friend) said it is can be a positive thing because spiritual people are often truth-seekers.

She explained that there are people who go to church all the time but do not feel anything from it. To those people church is just one more task in life.

However having a "spiritual life" is better than sitting in church, even if you have to understand God in your own way, is a very spiritual experience of the conditions to change a person's experience in this way.

What do you think of when you hear this phrase? What is your understanding of this type of practice?

(I hope my writing makes sense. It is not easy for non-native speakers, to discuss an extremely complex subject as you can probably tell)

The phrase kind of irritates me. Not really because of what it means so much as what the people who use it sometimes imply when they do. It basically translates to "I have spiritual beliefs, but not beliefs that are in-line with established religions", but it often is stated more like "I have spiritual beliefs but I refuse to associate myself with a religion because doing so makes me look less individualistic and thoughtful about my beliefs". It kind of implies that believing spiritual things is made somewhat "better" as long as those beliefs are separated out from the common herd. In my opinion, there's no real difference between being "spiritual" and being "religious". One simply chooses to believe in baseless things that fit a particular religion, and the other simply chooses to believe in baseless things that don't fit a particular religion. They both have exactly the same problem.

 

[crossfire]

The phrase kind of irritates me. Not really because of what it means so much as what the people who use it sometimes imply when they do. It basically translates to "I have spiritual beliefs, but not beliefs that are in-line with established religions", but it often is stated more like "I have spiritual beliefs but I refuse to associate myself with a religion because doing so makes me look less individualistic and thoughtful about my beliefs". It kind of implies that believing spiritual things is made somewhat "better" as long as those beliefs are separated out from the common herd. In my opinion, there's no real difference between being "spiritual" and being "religious". One simply chooses to believe in baseless things that fit a particular religion, and the other simply chooses to believe in baseless things that don't fit a particular religion. They both have exactly the same problem.

Don't like heretics much, do you?

 

[savagewind]

One simply chooses to believe in baseless things that fit a particular religion, and the other simply chooses to believe in baseless things that don't fit a particular religion. They both have exactly the same problem.

Religious imo means training the brain to hear what the believer is told to believe by others who came before. Sometimes the others who came before were selfish.

Spiritual means to hear the inner voice that speaks for the advantage of the believer. Sometimes the advantage of the believer is selfish.

 

[Vinayaka]

have no religious traditions, .... I do have various scriptures about, though,

Isn't keeping a scripture about a tradition in many religions? Or is it just me?