Every now and then I will hear somebody say “I’m not religious, but I am spiritual.”
Can somebody make the distinction more clear?
If I understand correctly, to be “religious” implies a certain set of beliefs, adherance to a particular dogma.
What does it mean to be “spiritual,” particularly in the absence of religion?
What would a person who is neither religious nor spiritual be like?
Being “spiritual” basically means that you realize that religion is ridiculous but you aren’t willing to let go of it. At least that’s what I get from those words.
Like me - an atheist, or at least an atheistic agnostic. Which is to say, somebody who’s no fun in church or at halloween parties.
Though I’m not sure I could tell you the definitive difference between “religious” and “spiritual” - the latter seems to apply more to non-theists beliefs (like ghosts), and/or a personal philosophy that rejects the formalized trappings of religion while maintaining a possibly vague belief that “something” paranormal is going on, possibly including a god.
Maybe we can find someone who identifies himself as “not religious but spiritual” and pin him down on exactly what it means. My opinion is that you won’t get a well thought-out answer, but some vague mumbo-jumbo.
I once had a co-worker, with whom I was friendly but not emotionally close, say to me in the course of some conversation:
“I can tell you’re religious”
“No, not really”
“Well, but, you’re spiritual, right”,
“???”
I think what she meant is that she perceived that I was more interested in the life of the mind and in being ethical than in pursuing every hedonist fancy that came my way (little did she know, but that’s another story).
However, I think most people use the term about themselves to mean that they are not materialists, that they believe that there is more to life than making money and dying rich. Or something like that, and in varying degrees of intensity.
Or, you know, it’s essentially meaningless.
Roddy
Religious often connotates a set of written rules and a earthly person to go to as a authority, usually it indicates a person is just aware of a physical reality with hope and faith of a spiritual reality, which one can take as extra dimensions that our 5 senses can’t detect. Spiritual indicates awareness of these extra dimensions and a living component of them. Being aware of things our 5 senses are not able to detect.
“Not religious but spiritual” tends to mean, “I believe in some kind of god(s), but don’t inend to let him/them tell me to stop doing anything I like doing, or to make me start doing anything I don’t like.”
Yoga, meditation, New Age crystals, tantric sex, watered-down Eastern mysticism? Yes.
Self-denial, ritual, worship, sacrifice, generosity? No.
Or in other words, some people use the word in their own way, that very likely has little to do with the way anybody else uses it. That is, for them it’s jargon.
Can I call 'em or what?
Oh, I dunno, kb didn’t seem all that vague to me. In their personal lexicon, “spiritual” means “having the ability to use your sixth sense to detect the seventh dimension”. As these things go that’s pretty clear - if a unique and non-standard use of the word.
To me it means they just want to believe whatever feel good woo woo baloney they want without being pinned down by any rules that might conflict with another person’s woo woo baloney.
That’s just what it means to me though.
Odesio
I said that to a bunch of New Agers and they ate it up!
It means “I believe in a syncretism of pagan-Buddhist-astrology which I made up myself.”
I interpret ‘spiritual’ to mean something like ‘moved emotionally in ways I don’t fully understand’. No supernatural intervention or woo-woo required.
My spirituality kicks in when I hold a child in my arms or watch the sun go down or while I sip Mai Tais or when the guitar kicks in at the start of Shine On You Crazy Diamond. Some people name that feeling ‘God’ but I don’t believe in gods.
Spirituality is somewhere between ‘metaphor’ and ‘emergent property’. I could analyze it down into its component emotions and brain functions but I don’t think I’d gain anything from the *reduction.
For me spirituality is that fuzzy area between agnosticism and the religious. I like some religious ideas and concepts, and think that they have merit, but I disagree oftentimes with taking the full “religion” aspect of things- ie: taking ALL the beliefs 100%. I think it is a term to let those who want to pick and choose what it means to them in terms of their beliefs and such without having to fully adhere to a set of religious doctrines. I consider myself spiritual because I have a set of beliefs and such that I feel apply to myself, but I certainly do not desire everyone to follow these set of beliefs. That and I tend to dislike the concept of priests, and preachers who will carry a message or set of ideas towards the masses. Religious to me is more community based with people gathering together to share in shared beliefs and ideas, while Spiritual is more personalized and a singular person’s beliefs and ideas that they believe in. That’s pretty much how I use the term when I apply it to myself.
It’s also an easy way to get people to stop bugging you about your religious beliefs or if you have them if you don’t call yourself an Agnostic or an Atheist, but you don’t really classify yourself fully as a follower of a major religious view. Or you just don’t want to be preached at- most people in my experience accept the “I’m not religious, I consider myself more spiritual” without then trying to convert you or get preachy about their own religious ideals. They have bigger fish to fry so to speak. So that always helps.
But, surely, that’s working off of your paticular definition. That is to say, if you were to say “i’m spiritual”, that’s what you’d mean, but for other people with different definitions, them saying that might well mean something entirely different.
And as far as I can tell, “spiritual” encompasses so many different meanings (and even within those different meanings, a considerable range) that I don’t really think this question can be answered for any significant percentage of the population. Interestingly enough, I think there’s probably about the same amount of people who wouldn’t describe themselves as spiritual who have a certain idea of what spirituality means.
Maybe, but I sort of doubt it - the people who would specifically reject the label are probably mostly atheists or atheistic agnositics (presumably the fully religious would accept it), and from the atheistic perspective you don’t have to know what it specifically means to reject it. I mean, it’s got something to do with spirits, right? Got the word “spirit” right in it. So I dunno what it is but it clearly got nuthin’ to do with me!
Similarly, I’m not a zygote. I couldn’t tell you at what point a zygote starts being a zygote, or at what point it stops being a zygote, but whatever it is I’m pretty sure I’m way past that point, so I don’t actually need to know what the precise dividing point is to be sure I’m not one of them.
Eh, i’m not so sure about that. I mean, i’ve heard spirituality expressed as a sort of catch-all term for generally highly effective or emotive things, with no spirits or the supernatural involved at all - kevlaw’s definition seems pretty similar, from this thread. It’s another testament to the wide possible range of the term that it doesn’t necessarily have to imply belief in spirits. Too, some of the people i’ve heard who are most anti-“spiritual” *are *religious and believe in spirits in some form themselves.
But really my point was that just as spirituality can mean many things to many different spiritual people, it seems like on the other end there’s a lot of non-spiritual (or even anti-spiritual) people who have an array of definitions between them. And spiritual people may consider their definition of spiritual to be as nonspecific and encompassing as non-spiritual people do.
Indeed.
In my experience, these “not religious but spiritual” people are simply those whose thinking processes are too random to stick to any particular dogma without committing blasphemy on a regular basis, but luckily they’re not smart enough to need the indoctrination or well thought out deceptions of longstanding religions to fool them. So they’re happy to just believe at any moment whatever makes them feel happy right then and ignore the fact that none of it makes any sense.
Warning: I didn’t read the whole thread.
To me, being more spiritual means working to live closer to my ideals: To be kinder, more patient, less angry, more honest, etc. All values that can’t be objectively measured.
Nothing to do with the supernatural or religious.
YMMV