Post by thehurtbox on Oct 13, 2013 19:13:29 GMT -6
"I'm not religious, I'm spiritual." This seems to sum up a lot of what our culture thinks about religion now. In some ways I see it as a misguided attempt to make things like feeling, tolerance, finding ones true happiness, and meditating more important than anything else in a persons life.
While all those things are good it makes spirituality less important than I think it should be. By stripping people of structure in the form of doctrine, holy texts, and so on you kind of make spirituality merely an opinion rather than a conviction. The problem here is that I can change my opinion on something without changing who I am as a person. I'm not suddenly a different person if I choose to like chocolate icecream more than vanilla. But changing a conviction cannot be changed unless I change who I am as a person. So by trying to make spirituality higher than religion they sort of rob every belief system of its value. Islam, Christianity, Judaism, New Age... you pick any you like. They're all basically the same and if you don't like it just try a different one . It's all about what makes you happy.
So while I do feel like I get a sort of spiritual value from Christianity I hesitate to call myself spiritual because of what that word means to us now. However I feel an equal resentment to being called religious too.
I don't know how to explain this but I think there the people who are into spiritual things but not religious things are onto something, even if if they're taking it too far imo. I don't think it's very hard to see that religion without a sort of spiritual value is kinda pointless too. And come to think of it, who wakes up on the day of mass and thinks "all right time to go practice my religion." To quote CS Lewis, "Religion is a term most used by people who are least concerned with it." I go to church to worship God or at least I feel like I should be wanting to worship God. When I'm there religion is kind of far from my mind.
To me I sort of sort of resent being called either, even if only a little bit. I don't mind saying that I'm a Christian but the term religious implies an absence of spirituality (however irrational this might be) and vice versa. There is a place for both and they have to work in conjunction or else the whole thing is less important than it ought to be.
What about you all? Are you more spiritual or religious?
While all those things are good it makes spirituality less important than I think it should be. By stripping people of structure in the form of doctrine, holy texts, and so on you kind of make spirituality merely an opinion rather than a conviction. The problem here is that I can change my opinion on something without changing who I am as a person. I'm not suddenly a different person if I choose to like chocolate icecream more than vanilla. But changing a conviction cannot be changed unless I change who I am as a person. So by trying to make spirituality higher than religion they sort of rob every belief system of its value. Islam, Christianity, Judaism, New Age... you pick any you like. They're all basically the same and if you don't like it just try a different one . It's all about what makes you happy.
So while I do feel like I get a sort of spiritual value from Christianity I hesitate to call myself spiritual because of what that word means to us now. However I feel an equal resentment to being called religious too.
I don't know how to explain this but I think there the people who are into spiritual things but not religious things are onto something, even if if they're taking it too far imo. I don't think it's very hard to see that religion without a sort of spiritual value is kinda pointless too. And come to think of it, who wakes up on the day of mass and thinks "all right time to go practice my religion." To quote CS Lewis, "Religion is a term most used by people who are least concerned with it." I go to church to worship God or at least I feel like I should be wanting to worship God. When I'm there religion is kind of far from my mind.
To me I sort of sort of resent being called either, even if only a little bit. I don't mind saying that I'm a Christian but the term religious implies an absence of spirituality (however irrational this might be) and vice versa. There is a place for both and they have to work in conjunction or else the whole thing is less important than it ought to be.
What about you all? Are you more spiritual or religious?
