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Religion and Spirituality.

Lavie Enrose

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Apr 5, 2003
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Can you not be a religious person, but instead be a spiritual person? I hear someone describe herself this way on the radio, after she had one of those "I died, but came back" type experiences.

I thought being religious and being spiritual were the same thing. I now stand to be corrected.
 
Apparently religious means to be re connected.

As for spiritual if you apply it as being re connected, I guess the question is to what or whom are you to be re connected to.

So I guess they really are not separatable. But these days religion has become a dirty word so people dont want to use it.

So it depends on how one sees the word religion. If how it was meant or how its been slanged for lack of a better term.



:)
 
Lavie Enrose said:

Can you not be a religious person, but instead be a spiritual person? I hear someone describe herself this way on the radio, after she had one of those "I died, but came back" type experiences.

I thought being religious and being spiritual were the same thing. I now stand to be corrected.
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Well, you don't necessarily have to go to church in order to believe in God. This is where I make the distinction. Where church is more of social matter and involves telling people how to think, and believing in God is more of a private matter and requires little if any reinforcement from the church.
 
yes church is not a requirement of belief

In christian circles one is to get together with others for support, but its where 2 or more are gathered.

Its nice to get together with people who agree with you whether its church, baseball, darts, scrap booking ( I know alot of you guys have scrapbook clubs :D
 
Kitty Chan said:

yes church is not a requirement of belief

In christian circles one is to get together with others for support, but its where 2 or more are gathered.

Its nice to get together with people who agree with you whether its church, baseball, darts, scrap booking ( I know alot of you guys have scrapbook clubs :D
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Well, I'm not one to follow the crowd, this is why I know what I know, and no doubt why people think I'm so stubborn in my views. I just don't accept things because somebody else says so or, jump right in like everyone else. The whole thing that people need to realize is that it originates from within.
 
Although the spirit within me is dead until re connected (thus the defination earlier) to God.

It is un connected until then.

The crowd at church or anywhere else is just a support group.

:)
 
A tad less conjecture...

http://www.beliefnet.com/story/109/story_10958_1.html

"A group of social scientists studied 346 people representing a wide range of religious backgrounds in an attempt to clarify what is implied when individuals describe themselves as "spiritual, but not religious." Religiousness, they found, was associated with higher levels of interest in church attendance and commitment to orthodox beliefs. Spirituality, in contrast, was associated with higher levels of interest in mysticism, experimentation with unorthodox beliefs and practices, and negative feelings toward both clergy and churches."
 
Belle said:
A tad less conjecture...

http://www.beliefnet.com/story/109/story_10958_1.html

"A group of social scientists studied 346 people representing a wide range of religious backgrounds in an attempt to clarify what is implied when individuals describe themselves as "spiritual, but not religious." Religiousness, they found, was associated with higher levels of interest in church attendance and commitment to orthodox beliefs. Spirituality, in contrast, was associated with higher levels of interest in mysticism, experimentation with unorthodox beliefs and practices, and negative feelings toward both clergy and churches."
Click to expand...

And just to skew away from the mainstream, you have groups such as the RSOF (Quakers) who don't particularly require specific doctrine, but just the gathering mentioned earlier.

They attract a lot of 'spiritual' types, but the core teachings of Goerge Fox were pretty much straight Scriptural observance of religion...which of course doesn't include churches.
 
TheERK said:
Not to de-rail, but where are you getting this from?
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re-li-gion (ri lij' en) L. religio, religare, to bind back < re-,
back + ligare, to bind, < bind together, to connect the
lesser to the greater, the part to the whole

the site I found this is

http://www.billyjack.com/jung/05_god/articles/990523_new.html

But thats not the first place I heard it, I heard it on the radio but I cant remember who was speaking. But they did not mention Jung only the defination. Looks like I will have to read up on Jung. :)
 
I've always taken 'religious' to include a deep belief in deity, and a general adherence to orthodoxy and custom; whereas 'spiritual' has had less adherence to deity and more observation of mysticism, animism, and various fantasy concepts, and a tendancy to eschew custom and orthodoxy. "Civilized" vs. "Uncivilized", I think, to some degree.
 
So is the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) not a religious group?

Their usual form of worship eschews both orthodoxy and creed, but they do follow the 'ligare' concept...which leads to the 'All are Welcome' belief that allows so many people to move from a spiritual tradition, into Quakerism.
 
Bump....

Again, if a group refrains from religious dogma, credal authority, churches and priests, are they still a religion, or merely 'spiritual'?
 
In my experience, one who says "I'm spiritual, but not religious" usually means "I believe in God, but like to sleep in Sundays."
 
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