Hello everyone! I'm currently conducting research and I would love to know what YOUR definition of spirituality is. What constitutes spiritual as opposed to religious? What activities do you engage in to be in a spiritual state (e.g., meditate)? Any help you guys can offer would be awesome!
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What's the difference between spirituality and religion?
- Thread starter tiffanyt
- Start date
FunctionalAtheist
Hammer of Reason
Well there are a lot of definitions and I won't bother to look them up. When I think of religion, I associate it to a belief in the supernatural. Not all 'religions' would identify with this, but it is what makes a proposition unacceptable to me without further consideration.
I'm not sure I care to define the term spirituality. Too much baggage with the word and certainly a subjective meaning. I listen! I listen to nature, to the stars, to the hum of the AC. I listen to my heart beat, my breathing. I listen to the evening breeze, to the sunrise, to the scraping of the gate against the post. I listen to my peers, my students, my kids. And when I can't hear anything anymore I get a great sense of joy and then I shout my *** off as loud as I can and start dancing and singing at the top of my voice where ever I am.
I can't say I care for the notion that there is an opposition between the terms in the first place. Viewing these terms in opposition is a very modern phenomena, and it wasn't that long ago that the two were synonymous. Or rather, where the word "spiritual" is used today, "religious" would have been used not even a century ago. I still use the word "religion" in the old sense, though on occasion I might substitute the word "mystical," but never "spiritual." Folks have taken to putting a wedge between the two terms, with "religion" designating the organized/public practices or beliefs and "spirituality" designating personal practices or beliefs. All sorts of other assumptions and aspects get stuffed under those labels, many of which I find contentious for various reasons. In simple terms, I find it to be a terrible map of the territory that is a barrier to understanding, particularly the moment you step away from considering only a very narrow subset of religions.
Greetings Tiffany!
Okay, so the first thing you should know about my definitions is that I do not consider any of my definitions to represent a final vocabulary to end all vocabularies. After all, the meaning of words change all the time, don't they? Anyway, what constitutes "spiritual" as opposed to "religious"?
Spirit comes from the Latin word spiritus, which means "breath". You see, the first sign that ancient people knew someone had passed away was that they stopped breathing. In that time, the breath was synonymous with the "spirit". Building from there, I have defined "spirituality" as the art or practice of breathing well. This may be done through mindful breathing or a similar simple meditative exercise.
As for religion, well that's a more complicated endeavor. I don't have any personal definition other than it represents a social organization of specific doctrines and definitions. Of course, I will add that religions continue to change. They may hold onto traditions, and that does serve a purpose, but no religion tends to stick perfectly to a final vocabulary. The ones that do tend to become increasingly in conflict with the modern moral zeitgeist.
Totally agree with you on the historical notions on these issues! Before I started looking into this, I had no idea religious was viewed in the way we seem to see spirituality now. So far it seems that everyone has different ideas and it's getting harder and harder to really define spirituality.
Satyamavejayanti
Well-Known Member
To me the Spirituality and religion are somewhat summed up in a Mantra of the Rig Veda.
"There are many in this world that blindly follow the beaten path, but few are those wise ones who carve a new path from themselves".
religious life is followed, in a spiritual life you make your own headway.
Yeah, if this research is for a school project, then you might want to prep the teacher/ professor that things are changing faster now than they might be particularly conditioned for. Either way, they can't be expecting a specific response as it seems like a fairly open question. Perhaps if you expanded on the nature of the research, we may be better able to point you in the right direction.
Yeah, the only reason I'm aware of the historical issues is because I'm a nerd who happened to check out Fuller's "Spiritual, But Not Religious: Understanding Unchurched America" from a public library one day. I doubt it was intentional on the author's part, but I walked away from that book frustrated by my country's poor understanding of religion in general. IMHO, if you think religion has to follow only the models familiar to your culture (in our case, defining religion as organized, dogmatic, supernaturalistic, and centering around a holy book), you need to be educated. One's religion is a way of life that emerges from a personal quest to discern truth and meaning in life. Humans, being social animals, usually form communities in support of these quests to share truths and meanings with each other, but how exactly that manifests varies considerably across religions.
Pretty much as Quintessence said. Apparently "spiritual" emphasizes the idea that the person makes his or her own choices, while "religion" is (often) found pre-packaged. But it is a very subtle, arbitrary distinction of arguable legitimacy.
The Wizard
Active Member
Religion is a re-legion of memes or beliefs that are usually gained "externally". Spirituality is insights, beliefs and truthes gained from inquiring from within or "internally". One will "spear it" from within one's self. Of course both do overlap and mix, never-the-less it is how I think about it at current moment....
I would say that religion is a subset of spirituality. I define "religion" as something like "a community of shared belief". That community aspect is important: a person can practice spirituality in isolation, but needs a community to practice religion.
Is that so? I seem to remember stories of solitary practice.
I'm going by my own definition. I don't consider a solitary practice a religion.
Edit: an exclusively solitary practice, that is.
So... if someone chooses to not engage with a broader community in their personal journey they somehow no longer have a religion?
Well, that has some awkward implications. I've always considered religiosity an intrinsically personal journey. Sharing it with others is entirely optional, and in at least some cases, impossible.
Well, that has some awkward implications. I've always considered religiosity an intrinsically personal journey. Sharing it with others is entirely optional, and in at least some cases, impossible.
IMO, yes. They may have a spiritual practice or a belief system, but I consider religion to be necessary communal.
Why is it awkward? I think it's just an issue of terminology: I think you're just using the term "religiosity" where I'd use "spirituality".
While I don't think that etymology has to constrain modern definitions, I think it's apropos to point out that the term "religion" is derived from a term that means "to bind together".
Nadia Faiazova
Member
Hello Tiffany! I study Bible on the regular basis, and can define spirituality as person's relationship with God. Or in other words, if a person takes into consideration God's viewpoint on the matter, asks for his guidance then it shows that God's will is what the person cherishes. Thus person has close unique relationships with Almighty God.
Religion is basicallty the way person chooses to worship God. Not all religions are pleasing in God's eyes.- Ephesians 4:5, 6
Religion is basicallty the way person chooses to worship God. Not all religions are pleasing in God's eyes.- Ephesians 4:5, 6
Religion = prescribed rituals, rules and regulations of worship.
Spirituality = in tune with your god(desses), devotion to them without the prescribed rituals, rules and regulations of worship.
Spirituality = in tune with your god(desses), devotion to them without the prescribed rituals, rules and regulations of worship.
I kind of see it this way: Religion is rules (dogma), beliefs (doctrine) and an organized system, which is the reason I call what I follow "faith" instead (there is nothing wrong with having an organized system or having rules and dogma, but at times, they can get in the way of truly worshiping God). Spiritual is finding God or spirits or whatever without any set rules or doctrines. Many people believe in God and/or a "spirit world" (for lack of a better word) but have no religion.
Ideally, it should be just an issue of terminology, but it still has awkward implications. Such as, apparently in spite of the fact that my religion really hasn't changed, I no longer have one merely because I stopped engaging with any sort of local community. Further, all of the other solitaries in the Neopagan community supposedly don't have a religion. It makes no sense.
But the worser awkward implication has to do with legal rights or freedom of religion. "Spirituality" has no protections. "Religion" does. There are those who have denied Neopagans rights on the basis of stupid things like "you must prove you belong to a specific religious organization" as if that should be required for a religion. Then you get assertions that Neopaganism is not a "real" or "valid" religious category and therefore doesn't deserve any protections under freedom of religion clauses. Demanding religion be organized or community-based is insensitive to religious demographics that don't organize and operate like the typical Western (monotheistic) faiths. It also inherently discriminates against followers of minority religions that don't have the numbers to organize even if they wanted to. That's the scary danger behind the supposedly trivial distinction in terminology.