If you look at what Jesus was quoted as saying, or how he acted, you will note that he was spiritual, not religious, and he chided the Pharisees for their Being religious and not spiritual!
Well, ahem, he actually used neither of those terms.
I don’t believe any true Atheist is uncomfortale about admitting they are spiritual, They seem to go on facts, not faith.
I know many, many, many, many atheists who would be very uncomfortable about “admitting” to be “spiritual” – or to be precise, who do not self-identify as “spiritual”.
IME, “spiritual but not religious” is often used in 12-step groups to soften what is otherwise a rather conservative Christian theology. By framing this theology as “spiritual”, it becomes palatable to a larger population, some of whom may not want to change their religious identification or adopt that theology in its entirety. Jews, for example, have issues with the reasoning of some of it, even though the steps themselves are acceptable under Jewish theology.
So “spiritual but not religious” is often code for “this is what I practice in this context, even though my stated beliefs and practices may be different in other contexts”.
That’s an interesting article about religion in America, and people feeling more free to choose their own faith system, but it doesn’t really go to the point raised by that blogger. The blogger was making a bold statements about what SBNR people believe, which he doesn’t justify.
Spiritual not religious is more or less saying … “I listen to alternative music, but make sure you put me down as listening to ALTERNATIVE, let me spell that for you… A… L… T… E… R… N… A… oh you got it? Ok, wasn’t sure you had heard of it…it’s kinda underground you know. …I don’t want to be associated with those other establishments like ROCK and JAZZ… no definitely not.”
Similarly (or maybe not so much so) “agnostic” and “atheistic” are clearly separate definitions, yet how often do people mis-define even themselves on such matters?
While Alan could have written it better, I totally agree with him.
And I best sum it up with this …a local bus (like city bus) organization added a new section to their bus pass registration form. It now asks your gender, AND …status quo… it says M, F and T (other).
M and F being obvious but anyone take a guess at what T stands for? I laughed all the way home.
In life if you need to TELL someone you are something, specifically to make sure they don’t confuse you for something else than either your audience is full of doubtful people or idiotic people. In either case you won’t win anyways so why bother?
Why? Because their self-righteous and pompous silly heads. Like I said up-thread, “I listen to alternative music, but make sure you put me down as listening to ALTERNATIVE, let me spell that for you… A… L… T… E… R… N… A… oh you got it? Ok, wasn’t sure you had heard of it…it’s kinda underground you know. …I don’t want to be associated with those other establishments like ROCK and JAZZ”
It shows. Your post makes all the same kind of presumptions and errors his blog post makes, and just like the blog post, it contains zero factual data to support any of those ideas. You’re making a lot of assumptions about this group of people, and what you are saying reflects your assumptions rather than their beliefs or behavior.
I guess it’s transgender, which is not exactly an unheard-of term. The fact that you found this listing hilarious doesn’t reflect well on you. Neither does your assumption that people would only identify as spiritual but not religious (or transgender, or as fans of alternative music) because they are showing off to you rather than as a reflection of their actual views.
Winning!
Translation : Your opinion isn’t valid because you can’t go around specifically defining each and every individual to make sure what you say is 100% correct and you’re not possibly making any assumptions.
Well that’s life..either deal with it or don’t complain.
Generalizations are all rooted in truths, just like stereotypes.
It’s when you go around being aggressive towards others under such presumptions that we have a problem.
The complaint by the author(whether he specifically says it or not..we get what he alludes to) is that THOSE people tend to go around being full of attitude because you don’t ‘get’ them. More or less like teenage brats. Like Kurt Cobain and the alternative crowd. Like any other group of people that need to stand out for the sake of standing out or simply because THEY are not comfortable in their own skin. They seek attention to cover their issues and being different rewards that adulation and adoration.
It’s almost classic text book psychology it’s nauseating.
See the connection? No? Apparently neither can they.
What you fail to see, is that I am supporting the stance that labels are a detriment and to define oneself so rigidly - especially under false necessities - is only hindering people and causing more harm than good.
You would rather we go around pinpointing people’s differences and then grouping everyone up and saying ‘hey, this person is A B and C, and if you don’t agree, you’re a meanie.’
Is this some deranged version of equality or?
I see what you did there.
Not even close. The problem is not that you are falling short of 100 percent accuracy. It’s that you are at 0 percent accuracy. The blogger posted no data and no facts to support his commentary. You’re doing the same.
He actually did not say anything about that at all. You’ve said it, but again, you haven’t backed it up.
This is pretty much meaningless.
I can barely understand this, but it has nothing to do with what I wrote.
I’m not talking about equality or anything else you say I am talking about. I am saying that assertions and generalizations should be backed up by facts. What you and the blogger are doing is just complaining about s-not-rs. You don’t have to like them and I really don’t care if you do. But if you make statements about what they think and what they do, you should be able to support them with facts.
Source : Everyday life. It is what it is.
And I’ll again refer to everyday life. This isn’t a court of law.. you won’t be getting facts to why people think they way they do. You know that very well. If that’s your position, there is no debate, because it’s a cop out and a trump to everything you’ll ever encounter on the matter.
As a society we think that we can tell exactly what people are, just as I have tried to demonstrate, and equally the rebuttal is similar to what you’ve said.
The point here seems to be that this guy dislikes how people misuse a label to set themselves apart whether intentional or not. My experiences have shown me most of them do it on purpose and it’s comical.
It’s a biproduct of the greater issue of entitlement and over achieving self expression. The idea that this generation and the last one MUST have an IDENTITY or they’ll all perish under the weight of anonymity is a driving force behind why we even have labels. Without them, they’d be doomed to a meaningless existence. Or in short, it’s a vanity check.
You don’t need facts, just some awareness to figure this out.
I’m not alternative..I’m HIPSTER.
I’m not goth.. I’m SHOCK ROCK.
I’m not…
Whether he meant to or not, Alan hits on something bigger..and that is people just need to BE… Not be something, just BE.
Actually, many people can explain their opinions and use facts to support them. Some can’t.
Because you don’t know what transgender means (or this it’s funny)?
Except without facts, you can’t be sure your opinions have a solid basis in reality. Of course, some people try to get around this by refusing to look at facts - that way their presumptions are never challenged and they don’t have to consider the possibility that they are wrong or revise their opinions.
That is how I see it too, just wasn’t clear in my statement.
As i read the Bible, I got the impression that Jesus was not religious, but Spiritual, he chided the Priests and Pharisees, for makeing a big deal out of their being religious!
I’m not seeing it.
Five minutes of googling shows that he chided the Pharisees for grabbing “the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets”, all the while “devour[ing] widows’ property”, and of making long prayers “as a show” (Mark 12:38-40). He accused them of being a corrupting force, for making converts “twice as much a child of hell as yourselves” (Matt 23:15).
He called them “serpents” and “generation of vipers” (Matt 23:33), he called them “sons of those who murdered the prophets” (Matt 23:31-33), he called them “blind leaders of the blind” (Matt 15:14), and railed against them for “transgress[ing] the commandment of God” (Matt 15:1-3), for not practicing what they preach (“they say, and do not do” - Matt 23:3) and for being “hypocrites” who “shut up the kingdom of heaven against men” (Matt 23:13).
He accused them as being “like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness”, in that “even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness” (Matt 23:27-29), and he turned the words of Isaiah against them: “This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. And in vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.” (Mark 7:6-7)
But did he ever accuse them of being “religious”, while considering himself “spiritual”? Nope. He didn’t use either term.
But I have a feelings you’ll come back and say “but that’s exactly what ‘religious’ means!” And then I’ll angrily mumble something about how this whole discussion would really benefit from more precisely well-defined terms, and then someone will crack open a dictionary and then it’ll be on, man, it’ll be on.
Steken: 
I believe the word “hypocrisy” sums up Jesus’ accusations against the Pharisees.
If “religious” is defined as merely and only the outward, public obedience to the rules of a specific religion, then there could be a case made here, but that’s a very narrow, and I think, easily contested definition.
Jesus was a Jewish reformer, it always seemed to me that what he wished to do was revitalize Judaism and remind its adherents to focus on the spirit behind its laws, not turn it into something else entirely. That his ideas didn’t get a lot of traction with Jews at the time doesn’t negate that.
He even used the Greek word “hypokritai” (ὑποκριταί).
Well, no…the Evangelists did. They wrote in Greek. Jesus probably did not speak Greek, but Aramaic. It’s my (possibly incorrect) understanding that neither Aramaic nor classical Hebrew had a single word for the concept of “hypocrite”.
You’re right, of course. The historical Jesus almost certainly spoke (primarily) Aramaic.
Now this is trickier (and even more fun)!
This homepage quotes the Wycliffe Bible Dictionary, which claims that the…
Additionally, it seems that the Greek word ὑποκριταί, the one actually used in the New Testament, might not quite fit “the concept of hypocrite” as we use it today, either.
The same page quoted above claims that the word, originally meaning someone engaged in playacting, was not, originally, always a negative term:
And then there’s this random person on the Internet, with his own take on the subject, poor spelling and all: