Has anyone chimed in who actually claims they are S but not R? Or are we all just engaged in discussing what we think those people believe?
Hardly a very fruitful exercise, that.
Now, I do know people who are religious, but who do not believe in following any mainstream demomination. But they would not describe themselves as “spiritual”.
kanicbird would qualify.
Fair enough.
As such, it accords with my observations - that there exists lots of people who are very genuinely religious but who dislike being associated with organized religion.
Still dunno if that group is totally congruent with the S but not R category. Maybe its a matter of semantics.
It seems to me that people are doing a lot of projecting here and painting with a very broad brush.
The only thing you can tell about someone who says they are spiritual but not religious is that they are a person who says that they are spiritual but not religious. You could also hazard a likely guess that they feel there is something divine in the universe, but don’t believe the tenets of any specific religion.
Beyond that there is nothing you can say without asking them. Jim may feel that Christ was divine, but that his essence has been ignored by most or all organized Christian churches. Jane may worship nature. Steve may believe in a sort of Aristotelian prime mover. Carla may feel that the divine is unknowable save for the fact it exists. Bob may simply never have thought about the matter much. Tia might really be an atheist, but be uncomfortable publicly admitting it–or even admitting it to herself.
If you’re curious as to what someone believes, the only thing to do is to ask that particular person. Stating “everyone who says X is like Y” is never right, and thought patterns like that are a source of much of what is wrong with the world.
With regard to individuals, that’s probably true. You can make informed generalizations about the group provided you have data and I would be interested to see that. This survey is interesting, although it doesn’t get into which beliefs individuals are adopting.
We have access to more information than ever. Why would you expect an educated public accept the same mythology as before a few hundred years of progress?
This is bugging me. What do you mean by this statement?
I think this hits at the heart of the matter. Religious people don’t think their beliefs are mythology. If they are not, and are divinely inspired, additional information should only enforce the correctness of the beliefs, not threaten them. That it hasn’t is an indicator of the rot inside traditional religions. The two responses seem to be rejecting the information, which is what the fundamentalists and creationists do, or modifying the dogma to fit it as best as possible. Spirituality can be viewed as the ultimate point in this latter strategy, where your beliefs are so fuzzy that no amount of new information can ever disprove them.
But we now know what causes natural disasters, astronomical events, weather, etc. We can’t be scared by the same boogeymen anymore. If regions don’t relax the dogma and water down the intrigue, the incongruity between science and mysticism will be too great to swallow. Evolution of religion is the only way to give it legs (heh)
The popularity of astrology and other forms of superstition make me think that many people still can be scared by the same bogeymen. But even more telling than explanations of how things happen, lots of historical claims of religions have been disproven. They can say that God works through physics in the case of disasters, but they can’t say God’s mysterious ways explain why the Exodus never happened.
It is not clear to me what evolution can evolve into except a spiritual relativistic feel good kind of belief that makes no claims of knowing anything but spiritual truths. Kind of like New Age without the crystals.
Good point, superstition never goes out of style. And we do have that warm-fuzzy spot in our brain just waiting to be poked. Still don’t see how the pious can complain about any degree of adherence, even if lukewarm.
You rang?
I’ve never thought of myself as “spiritual but not religious,” but I suppose that’s what I am. I consider myself a deist in that I believe in god (and a god that “caused” the big bang), but I don’t put much stock in any other religious stuff. I don’t go to church. I don’t say grace. None of it.
:dubious:
Fear of “bogeymen” of any kind doesn’t seem, to me, to be a driving force behind a belief in astrology. As for “other forms of superstition”, sure, yeah, maybe some of 'em – but astrology…?
Well, the Old Ones are supposed to come back when The Stars Are Right…
He probably means that mandatory eternal hellfire for a long laundry list of sins has been very much soft-pedaled for the past 30 years or so in Catholic and mainstream Protestant churches. Homilies are a lot more about compassion, service to others, knowing yourself, being open to being moved by the spirit of Christ and stuff like that now. We don’t discuss hell much.
There is a sizable minority which longs for the return of the raging accusatory guiltfest, feeling that modern Christianity lacks substance, but most people don’t miss it at all.
I don’t know much about the inner workings of fundamentalist churches, maybe they are more hellfirish.
Most people I know consider themselves to be SBNR. Some believe in Jesus, some believe in a diety, some like myself just believe there is something bigger but have no concept of its purpose or intent. Vague? yes, how can it not be. I choose to live by principles that are very common amoung most religions. I like to think there is something after death but have no idea what that might be like. Nothing wishy washy about something we just don’t understand and have no hope to ever understand. I also like the concept of prayer and meditation. I feel prayer has a cleansing and renewing affect on me.
Huston Smith said something like that organized religion is disappointing because organizations are always uglier than the things they represent. Truth is noble and health is precious, but the NEA and the AMA? Not so much. So even if God is perfect, the institutions people build around Him can be kind of lame.
That wasn’t my word. But, I think astrology and many other kinds of superstitions exist to give people a feeling of control over their destinies. Bogeymen can represent not just monsters and zombies but a disease, an unexpected death, an unexpected loss of a job.
The other type of superstition involves trying to do harm to others, but we seem to have mostly outgrown that.
I could see calling myself spiritual but not religious in terms of “I have faith but I am not Church People” or “I have faith but that doesn’t mean you should lump me with folks who submit to institutions.”
It seems to me, though, that astrology often explicitly states that people are in fact not in “control over their destinies” – because, hey, the stars and the planets have a pretty big say, too, which is kinda the point of it all.