Welcome to the Street Prophets Coffee Hour cleverly hidden at the intersection of religion and politics. This is an open thread where we can share our thoughts and comments about the day. Is there a difference between religion and spirituality?
Many people today make a distinction between religion and spirituality. Thus, when they talk about religion they are talking about a kind of social organization that is communally organized—that is, a religion must involve more than one person—and has some kind of social structure. Religion, which is often mistakenly defined as being limited to Christianity, usually involves buildings, formal rituals, defined doctrines and belief systems, and a social hierarchy.
Spirituality, on the other hand, is personal and individual. While spirituality may involve other people, it doesn’t require them. The Dalai Lama writes in Ethics for the New Millennium of this distinction:
“Religion I take to be concerned with faith in the claims to salvation of one faith tradition or another, an aspect of which is acceptance of some form of metaphysical or supernatural reality, including perhaps an idea of heaven or nirvana. Connected with this are religious teachings or dogma, ritual, prayer, and so on. Spirituality I take to be concerned with those qualities of the human spirit—such as love and compassion, patience, tolerance, forgiveness, contentment, a sense of responsibility, a sense of harmony—which bring happiness to both self and others. While ritual and prayer along with the questions of nirvana and salvation, are directly connected to religious faith, these inner qualities need not be, however.”
For some people, the concept of spirituality involves a sense of mysticism or a feeling of awe. Albert Einstein, in an essay reprinted in The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever, writes:
“I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.”
In pluralistic societies (those with multiple religious traditions), people often try to make a distinction between religion (the traditional institutions of religions, such as churches, mosques, etc.) and spirituality (a concern for transcendent matters and the beliefs and behaviors associated with that concern). In Religion: The Basics, Malory Nye writes:
“Many people now say that they are ‘not religious’ (often taken to be associated with Christian practices), but they do have a ‘spirituality’ (which is unfocused, eclectic and personal).”
Writing from a humanistic perspective in Free Inquiry, William Mury writes:
“I suggest that ‘spirituality’ refers to the longing for deeper and more meaningful relationships with others, with the natural world, and to that dimension of our lives that deals with values, truth, meaning, love, integrity, joy, and happiness.”
Among American Indians, particularly the Plains Indians, contact with the spirit world or supernatural was individual. There was no standardized dogma except for the belief that each individual was to pursue their own spiritual path. From this perspective then, many writers and Native American elders speak of American Indian spirituality rather than American Indian religion.
Many of today’s informal, non-structured religious/spiritual movements that are considered as pagan, neo-pagan, or New Age emphasize personal spiritual experience. As an experience-based religious movement, paganism or neo-paganism does not have dogma, sacred scriptures, or a hierarchical social structure. Understanding comes from personal experience. While there are a great many books dealing with many aspects of neo-paganism, it still considers itself to be non-written. Elizabeth Barrette in PanGaia writes:
“The secrets of our faith are not written in pages but in plants and animals, oceans and mountains and stars.”
With regard to community and social organization, Leni Austine in PanGaia writes:
“Many Pagans simply prefer to practice their Craft as solitaires or as members of small groups, and not have much to do with the larger Pagan community.”
In sum, while the formal organizational and ceremonial structure of “organized” religion provides comfort to many people, there are others who seek a less formal, less dogmatic, and more personal interaction with what they consider to be the sacred. As a result, many people today make a distinction between what they consider to be religious and what they consider to be spiritual.
Open thread
This is an open thread: all topics are welcome.