Religious Or Spiritual?

[JewelOfTheSouth]

Many years ago several things occured to me. 1. I didn't have to be religious to be a spiritual person. 2. No religion has the complete truth. 3. Religion is man made. 4. We create our own reality. 5. Spiritual people find their way with help not from a middle person, but by spirit and spiritual experiences. This was life changing for me. Many have told me over the years that I can't be both, that I must choose or fail a certain religion. (No Names Here) However, I chose to reach deep and connect as fully as I would allow with my inner self, and negate any religious beliefs for what I knew to be true in my reality. My reality is that we are all energy. Pure, beautiful energy, and that we create those things we feel we need at the time. So another journey began, where I would create my spiritual path with the knowledge that I am part of the light universe. I am connected to all that is, was and will be, and that I in part help to make up the fibers of the light universe with everyone else. We are all connected, all is relative. So, in my view, they are very, very different. What are your thoughts on the subject? Please be kind, everyone is peacefully entitled to their own opinions.

Gentle Hugs,

Julie

[spiritalk]

I like your thinking!

I have to go to children.  Would you send them to church?  Why or why not?  

We have a generation of children who have never entered a church and don't have any idea what religion even is.  Is this a good place from which to decide which religion or any religion for their own lives?  

We all have an inner spirituality.  Living up to the best of ourselves is a very good path of endeavour.  But there is no perfection in life.  So, when we fall short of the mark, what do we fall back on?  What lessons or lack thereof teach us our moral and spiritual centre?

[Corvuequis]

I used to be friends with a very religious Christian person, but when she found out that I was pagan she dropped me like a rock. On the other hand I used to clash with a very spiritual Christian woman, but after we got to know one another we became friends and respected one another's beliefs. The moral of the story is that spiritual people seek to understand and religious people seek domination.

[VirtualBabe]

I have a button which says "Spiritual people inspire me Religous people frighten me".  I know exactly what they mean.  I belong to a group that many religous people condemn simply for existing.  In fact, is some places I can be executed simply for being who I am, and those that do this justify this atrocity with carefully selected sound bytes from their religious writings.  Spiritual poeople on the other hand tend  accept that not everyone can follow the same path.  They accept my statements that God made me the way I am, and she is pleased that I am being the person she made.  Spiritual people can even accept that I choose to see God as a woman instead of a man.

[moon_stars_roses]

I believe in meeting together and worshiping the higher power we choose to, but  in the same breathe, I also believe being spiritual is what we all should strive for. It is each individuals responsibility to develope and enlighten themselves. And I believe we all need to help each other in this task since we all have differences and we all can learn from each other through the differences.

Lucia

[spiritalk]

We are body, mind, spirit vibrating at individual frequencies that are enhanced by our experiences.  As a body, we can exercise and eat the right foods to keep us healthy, wealthy, wise.  

As a spirit the nurture from our experiences comes when we realize we have learned a valuable lesson in life's challenges and allow it to color our soul and take us forward in love and light.  

The mind governs all our input and the subconscious mind stores all our experiences.  At death, when the body and spirit separate the mind from each comes together as total mind to carry all our experiences forward.

Spirituality is a natural part of our spirit.  It is the motivation in which we think and operate as we experiences life's challenges.  We can be a spiritual being or a material being, depending upon which frequency we attune to in any given experience.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin:  "We are not a human being having a spiritual experience.  We are a spiritual being having a human experience."

[Jahko]

So I say: The truly religious are truly spiritual and the truly spiritual are truly religious. There is nothing wrong with Religion, the problems are religions (i.e. fighting over simantics) and the buzz word use of the term spirituality as a way of distancing oneself from the baggage of the term religion. For I spirituality is not a practice it is a part of so-called reality (i.e. the other half of our material reality), and the prctice of spirituality is religion (i.e. the ceremony or ritual [if you will] which aids in giving expression to the spiritual inside the material). They are different yet one because they are inextriably linked.

[spiritalk]

One can and does exist without the other.  The point is that they are each options and how we apply the choices is whether we include religious ritual in our spirituality is an option.

[Jahko]

I suppose much of the differences or similarities one holds between religious and spiritual depends upon how you chose to define them. I choose the broadest definitions. For example, one of Webster's definitons of spiritual reads as following: "3. of or pertaining to sacred things or matters; religious." For the true subject matter of religion (in my opinion) is what has been called by Rudolf Otto "the numinous" which comes from the latin word "numen" which can simply be translated as "spirit". Therfore if one take a very broad definition of these two terms (religious and spiritual) they will appear as one and the same. For if one is faithful to ones spiritual beliefs, one is being religious. So I now ask how do you define religious and spiritual?

[spiritalk]

Spirituality is within the human being as an urge to see life from spirit.  Religion (bind back) is the community or meeting up of spiritual people to seek the God of their own understanding.  When the option to seek God is available in an individualized way, spirituality can live in religion.

[farafina]

Spirituality is this entire realm of knowledge, interaction, perception, transmission, and production of who we are truly, of our paths individually and as one body of creation, and as earth and heaven and all that stands and exists in between all of this. It is also, in my opinion, the process of attaining to this knowledge of the meaning of our Source , of our Origin and of our Destination, and of the Journey in between these.

Religion is only tools, regulations, laws, boundaries, principles, and roadmaps that humans may use in order to attain and comprehend and interact witht he spiritual realm.
there was once a time when I was very religious. As my understanding of the spiritual realm evolved, I started feeling gradually as if religion was restricting my field of vision and was creating barriers between me and a deeper understanding and a deeper work towards spirituality and LOVE.

My feeling today is that religion creates division, exclusion, just as nation-states and new concepts of territoriality do so. It is unfortunate that in the name of these three things, humans destroy nature and massacre each other and rape the Earth.

Religion, in my view, should return to what it was meant to be: a tool and a roadmap.... Just as we may choose a Pilates lesson to lose weight, we may choose a kickboxing lesson to lose that same weight. Why should the choice of our method, of our tool, of our roadmap make us inferior or superior or better than one another to the point where we exclude others from our hearts, and close our hearts to LOVE -- that is to GOD.

That was my grain of salt.

farafina

[Charlesman]

Here are my very basic definitions:

Spirituality - Conscious developement of the soul.
Religion - Politics masquerading as spirituality.

[spiritalk]

All things have a place.  To politicize religion is to show disrespect for its part to play in life.  While religions have been suffering a time of turning away by most, it is important to realize their part to play (historically) in the advancement of spirituality.  Without religion, most people would not have any idea whatsoever about spirituality and their own urges within.

[TheAlchemist]

oh this is a wonderful topic!...i believe you can be a spiritual person and not go to church....then there are those who go to church ...yet are not spiritual....i think that religions are a path to the same spirit....no one religion is the "right" one...all lead to the same God energy....I too have come across people who judge others because they believe in different religions....i think we are all equal regardless of our beliefs....no one religion is the right one....they are all one in the same.....no one is above or below us we are all equal...and we all return to the same spirit when we pass from this world....there is no separation....this topic touches me because i once told a christian pastor that i received a profound insight from Saint Germain. and he looked at me as if i was an alien from another world...and he dismissed my vision as imagination because Saint Germain was not listed in his text book...so if its not in his text book it doesn`t exist???.....I know what i believe and i am a spiritual person and i do respect others religions...I wish every one realized we are all one in the same regardless of our different beliefs...Peace my friends...and happy soul searching to all

[farafina]

AMEN to that, The Alchemist!!!!

(clap, clap)....

All religions are actually pathways to the same God.

Yes....

Actually they are all one in my opinion, but that's another subject matter altogether.