Spiritual but not religious

[shunyadragon]

You could say everyone makes up their own religion. Some prefer to live on borrowed light, while others prefer to be self-reliant haha. The Baha'i Faith has some beautiful things in it - trying to combine multiple sets of scriptures, as do the Unitarians whom I strongly considered for some time. I think many SBNR's research different groups, and come out with some combination of all the above. For me, it is not about following any single person or group, it is about following the laws of nature and principles. As a teacher I tell my students not to believe me - to believe their own experimental results, believe their own proofs and logic. As new information becomes available, discard old beliefs for new. I do not see it as prideful, or "my own beliefs", it is following natural laws, following what makes sense.

True, as you state above concerning your belief, but it simply justifies it is a religion nonetheless, like everyone else, organized, disorganized, digitized, sanforised, individualized, belonged, unbelonged, or otherwise believed or not believed.

 

[MonkeyFire]

I do think the words spiritual and religious have slightly changed in meaning over the year. I see spiritual as anything which is personally sacred - for instance, a certain place for me could have memories of grandparents who are now passed away. For me, that place would be spiritual and sacred, while others with no personal memories there it is just an old house or another hiking trail. the values and meanings of things depend on each individual's life experiences. The meaning of family, or health, or tradition - all unique. Many religious traditions define God as a creator of nature - the diversity of nature, that each leaf on each tree is unique and different - to me the awe and infinite beauty comes within the diversity. Outside of any single group, I just think there is a little more to see and experience although I do agree that strongly knit communities are beautiful as well.

I agree with the notion that there can be many (or few) religions, and single superseding thing called spirituality.

 

[osgart]

How else does one differentiate themselves from all the religions out there and maintain a spiritual outlook? that is SBNR!

 

[icehorse]

I identify as SBNR

 

[Hellbound Serpiente]

My apologies, I didn't read all of it as I am extremely tired atm and about to take some nap, but I'll answer some inquiries brought up by Deeje:

For those who think of themselves as “spiritual”....what does that actually mean in real terms?

To me personally, spirituality is the studies of the spiritual laws of nature [like karma] and morality. And the ultimate purpose of spirituality to learn about these spiritual laws, restructure your life in such a way where you leverage these laws to your maximum advantage to live a spiritually healthy and morally upright life, and to develop and implementing justified, true morals through moral reasoning [another aspect of spirituality]. The end result of spirituality is achieving and maintaining peace within, in your soul despite of many internal pressures [the pressured exerted on your soul by your greed, your lust, your pride, your fears etc. etc. etc.] and peace with the outside world, despite the pressure exerted upon you by the world and the hardships in it, while living a spiritual healthy and morally upright life in this state of peace.

Being spiritual means you are a practitioner of spirituality, and your main objective is achieving all the tasks described above and whatever spirituality entails.

You don't let any specific school of thought you bound you. You study them critically, find out what is beneficial and [most likely] true, and embrace it, and whatever is useless and [most likely] false, is discarded. Most important, you do experiential learning, for our personal experience are only [relatively] most reliable source of information. Books and religions are other's opinion we take for grant. History is, more or less, bunk, for it is someone else's personal perspective of something that happened we can't even verify [in short, history is HIS-STORY]. Your personal experiences is the only most trust-worthy friend in the world of lies and deception.

Whatever we learn through our experience [after healthy assessment of our experience, of course] is incorporated in our school of thought. And spirituality, much like science, is a self-correcting field. We keep on learning, discarding the outdated beliefs [and such things], and it keep replacing it with more polished and relatively better one which have a better explanatory power, is practically beneficial, further solidifies the other [well-vetted] spiritual beliefs, and gives spiritual results.

Not what appeals to us, but rather what is pragmatic. I believe in the whole of Qur'an, also what I remember of Bible, Jewish scripture [which I didn't read most and forgot quickly] and also Hinduism. The only thing we discard is that which provides zero spiritual benefits. I discarded "Hajj" from my spiritual life as I believe it is vain, non-beneficial and useless, and it seems like it was only meant for those specific people [Beduoin arabs] of that specific era [7th century], just like the whole Qur'an. What is still applicable and beneficial in the Qur'an, I incorporated in my spiritual belief-system, like charity, taking care of orphans and those in need etc.

God is too Supreme is even care about insignificant advanced-bacterias like us. God has created an automatic system with spiritual [and physical] laws acting in us, and taught us about that. And He just warned us not to go against these laws that'll lead you to your destruction, just like any sensible parents teaches their children not to go against the law of gravity in your attempts to act like Superman or you'll hurt yourself. God has shown us a system of leading a life where there are practices that ensures that we leverage all the spiritual laws and have moral conditioning to lead a spiritual healthy and morally upright life, along with some spiritual truths.

True God doesn't require anything. God doesn't need anything from us, we need God. We require God, God is to supreme to demand anything to those immeasurably inferior to him. God is like a teacher, he teaches how to safely tread the line of righteous path, and not fall into evil.

We just don't our thinking to be bogged down with one specific dogma. It's like looking at things with only one perspective, there are many other perspectives. And to develop the most perfect philosophy, we have to keep all the differing views and perspective, and create in personal views in light of them. Religion is like "my perspective is the only right perspective, just keep looking at things my way or you're a infidel."

 

[shunyadragon]

How else does one differentiate themselves from all the religions out there and maintain a spiritual outlook? that is SBNR!

Start a new religion their own personal religion.

 

[osgart]

Start a new religion their own personal religion.

Which religion definition are you going by?

I suppose a person can be religious about their pursuit of science as well.

Placing supreme importance on the pursuit of something is a definition of religion.

 

[osgart]

My apologies, I didn't read all of it as I am extremely tired atm and about to take some nap, but I'll answer some inquiries brought up by Deeje:




To me personally, spirituality is the studies of the spiritual laws of nature [like karma] and morality. And the ultimate purpose of spirituality to learn about these spiritual laws, restructure your life in such a way where you leverage these laws to your maximum advantage to live a spiritually healthy and morally upright life, and to develop and implementing justified, true morals through moral reasoning [another aspect of spirituality]. The end result of spirituality is achieving and maintaining peace within, in your soul despite of many internal pressures [the pressured exerted on your soul by your greed, your lust, your pride, your fears etc. etc. etc.] and peace with the outside world, despite the pressure exerted upon you by the world and the hardships in it, while living a spiritual healthy and morally upright life in this state of peace.

Being spiritual means you are a practitioner of spirituality, and your main objective is achieving all the tasks described above and whatever spirituality entails.

You don't let any specific school of thought you bound you. You study them critically, find out what is beneficial and [most likely] true, and embrace it, and whatever is useless and [most likely] false, is discarded. Most important, you do experiential learning, for our personal experience are only [relatively] most reliable source of information. Books and religions are other's opinion we take for grant. History is, more or less, bunk, for it is someone else's personal perspective of something that happened we can't even verify [in short, history is HIS-STORY]. Your personal experiences is the only most trust-worthy friend in the world of lies and deception.

Whatever we learn through our experience [after healthy assessment of our experience, of course] is incorporated in our school of thought. And spirituality, much like science, is a self-correcting field. We keep on learning, discarding the outdated beliefs [and such things], and it keep replacing it with more polished and relatively better one which have a better explanatory power, is practically beneficial, further solidifies the other [well-vetted] spiritual beliefs, and gives spiritual results.

Not what appeals to us, but rather what is pragmatic. I believe in the whole of Qur'an, also what I remember of Bible, Jewish scripture [which I didn't read most and forgot quickly] and also Hinduism. The only thing we discard is that which provides zero spiritual benefits. I discarded "Hajj" from my spiritual life as I believe it is vain, non-beneficial and useless, and it seems like it was only meant for those specific people [Beduoin arabs] of that specific era [7th century], just like the whole Qur'an. What is still applicable and beneficial in the Qur'an, I incorporated in my spiritual belief-system, like charity, taking care of orphans and those in need etc.

God is too Supreme is even care about insignificant advanced-bacterias like us. God has created an automatic system with spiritual [and physical] laws acting in us, and taught us about that. And He just warned us not to go against these laws that'll lead you to your destruction, just like any sensible parents teaches their children not to go against the law of gravity in your attempts to act like Superman or you'll hurt yourself. God has shown us a system of leading a life where there are practices that ensures that we leverage all the spiritual laws and have moral conditioning to lead a spiritual healthy and morally upright life, along with some spiritual truths.

True God doesn't require anything. God doesn't need anything from us, we need God. We require God, God is to supreme to demand anything to those immeasurably inferior to him. God is like a teacher, he teaches how to safely tread the line of righteous path, and not fall into evil.

We just don't our thinking to be bogged down with one specific dogma. It's like looking at things with only one perspective, there are many other perspectives. And to develop the most perfect philosophy, we have to keep all the differing views and perspective, and create in personal views in light of them. Religion is like "my perspective is the only right perspective, just keep looking at things my way or you're a infidel."

SBNR brings out all these great distinctions you are making.

 

[shunyadragon]

Which religion definition are you going by?

All and none

I suppose a person can be religious about their pursuit of science as well.

Yes.

Placing supreme importance on the pursuit of something is a definition of religion.

Religion should not be stone word: not me, and throw at others, because they believe differently.

 

[osgart]

All and none



Yes.



Religion should not be stone word: not me, and throw at others, because they believe differently.

I'm not throwing it at others, just differentiating myself from all of that.

Perhaps Independently Spiritual ( IS) would accommodate the religious aspects of what it is.

 

[MNoBody]

there is an esoteric forum, but it seems to have flatlined.
might wait months for comments on any thread.

 

[osgart]

Esoteric would not be truthfully accurate about those on independent spiritual journeys.

The common aspects of many spiritualities is acceptance of soul, spirit, and perhaps virtues, faith, belief, conviction.

I, myself , am not claiming detailed information on what a soul, and spirit is. Only that I have arrived at the conclusion that these things have valid meanings. I can roughly define what they are and find it quite likely they exist. And those meanings are profound to me.

 

[shunyadragon]

I'm not throwing it at others, just differentiating myself from all of that.

That my friend is throwing the word at others, with the exclamation, "Not me!"

Perhaps Independently Spiritual ( IS) would accommodate the religious aspects of what it is.

Sounds like the name of a new religion. One thing that has not brought up is that a number of churches like Jehovah Witnesses assert that they are not a church nor a religion. In fact they are not allowed to enter a church nor a religious House of Worship, only Kingdom Halls. When I spent some time in Israel I found a number of Jews claiming what they believed is not a religion.

 

[stvdv]

Yes, we can post anywhere, but it might be nice to have our own little spot. I'm not sure that SBNR is a new movement, seems like it could also be classified as the oldest spiritual movement? I'm not sure where it would best fit.

Sanathana Dharma = The Eternal Dharma is all about spirituality.

Sanatana dharma. Sanātana dharma (Devanagari: सनातन धर्म meaning "eternal dharma" or "eternal order") is another name for Hinduism. Dharma is often translated as "duty", "religion" or "religious duty", but has a deeper meaning.

 

[shunyadragon]

Sanathana Dharma = The Eternal Dharma is all about spirituality.

. . . and of course another religion not claiming to be a religion.

Maybe religions do not really exist at all, just everybody finger pointing at others.

 

[osgart]

That my friend is throwing the word at others, with the exclamation, "Not me!"



Sounds like the name of a new religion. One thing that has not brought up is that a number of churches like Jehovah Witnesses assert that they are not a church nor a religion. When I spent some time in Israel I found a number of Jews claiming what they believed is not a religion.

I'm aware that those religions do not associate with the word religion. My father's independent baptist church was the same way.

One who has the conviction that soul, and spirit are real and otherwise follow their own path and take their own journey would be those who are Independently Spiritual.

I bet there are a lot of us out there.

And many still who also find experience as primary and fundamental to reality.

 

[JustGeorge]

Unitarian Universalists do not not have rites nor ceremonies of some sort.

That's not true. I was a member of a UU church for about 3 years, and they certainly did have some different rituals among them.

Some felt kinda 'empty', but that could have just been my own take on it. Many seemed to enjoy it. To each their own.

 

[shunyadragon]

I'm aware that those religions do not associate with the word religion. My father's independent baptist church was the same way.

One who has the conviction that soul, and spirit are real and otherwise follow their own path and take their own journey would be those who are Independently Spiritual.

I bet there are a lot of us out there.

And many still who also find experience as primary and fundamental to reality.

Actually many people who belong to a church or a religion make the same claim that 'follow their own path and take their own journey '

 

[stvdv]

. . . and of course another religion not claiming to be a religion.

And of course that is just "your" opinion

. . . and of course another religion not claiming to be a religion.
Maybe religions do not really exist at all, just everybody finger pointing at others.

I was not pointing fingers at others. So, you can speak for yourself.

 

[shunyadragon]

And of course that is just "your" opinion


I was not pointing fingers at others. So, you can speak for yourself.

. . . but apparently you do not consider what you believe a religion. I definitely do speak for myself.