The other day, me and some friends were drunkenly discussing religion and other topics, and we got to asking each other "what do you believe in?' When I asked my friend Robert, and he said "evolution." Now, I'm not a religious person, but the fact that one scientific theory out of thousands was what he "believed in" struck me as very sad. You see, although I despise religion, I consider myself a very spiritual person. I believe there is something else to my existence than a brain and a set of organs and muscles. I believe that experiences are to be valued, whether negative or positive. I believe beauty and love are very real and very valuable things.

My point is, it seems that in our quest to rid ourselves of religion, we have ridded ourselves of a sense of spirituality as well. This distresses me a great deal, as one is not necessary for the other. It seems that many people today (especially the youth of America) have nothing driving their life, nothing to believe in, and this causes them a multitude of problems.

Does this make sense to anyone?

Ya know, I watched contact the other day for the first time in years. And I was like...wow...

It just makes you think about a lot on some levels.

I don't think you need spirituality or religion in order to make your existence a good and meaningful one. You should have a sense of greater purpose whether you're religious, spiritual or none of the above.

A lack of spirituality is not by necessity a lack of drive or concern, nor is it a precursor to "problems."

I agree with your perception, that as we grow farther and farther away from a "Religious society" we also seem to grow farther and farther away from being in touch with our spiritual side, but I'm not SURE it's true. Part of me thinks that the lack of religion just makes our spiritual side less evident, not less present.

I too believe in evolution (among other things) but I also believe in god. I don't believe in god the way some people do, as a paternal figure with long white beard and such, or even necessarily as a "being", but I have my own definition of "god" that my scientific mind can identify with and that I believe in.

That said, I'm not an overtly spiritual person. I keep my feelings and thoughts on the subject to myself. I don't think it is necessary to share it with others--I kind of think that talking about it ruins it.

I mean, I can give examples of when I feel the most "spiritual", but if you were to catch me in the moment, it would be ruined. My spirituality is just that, MINE. It's not to be exploited or explained. It doesn't need to be obvious or justified or believable to anyone but myself.

So, I'm not a religious person, and if you knew me you might say I'm not a spiritual person either, but you'd be wrong. How can we judge or quantify another person's spirituality? Is it based on their morality? or profession? or income? or how many crystals and decks of tarot cards they own?

I guess your argument is based on looking at the world around you, it seems more malevolent now than ever before, part of that true, part of that is media showcasing the evil in the world and not the good.

hmmmmm. where am I going with this? I don't think I've said anything worthwhile in this whole post.

oh well. I"ll post it anyway. maybe a response will get me back on track.

-casey

You make sense to me, Orpheus, because I am wired the same way.

However, we're not all wired the same way. What's important to one of us is trivial to another. I can look at an abstract painting and see truth and meaning while my neighbor sees brushstroke techniques and his neighbor sees a garbled mess that his two year-old could've made. The frustrating thing is, everyone is right.

It's fascinating to me how some people are more "spiritual" than others. How they naturally grasp for meaning and "something beyond" while others naturally don't.

Most statistics suggest that we're becoming a slightly more religious society, in terms of the number of operating religious organizations, the percentage of population that worships frequently and rank themselves as "highly religious," and the number of laws and political debates that involve or are invoked by spiritual beliefs.

Now, that obviously doesn't show us to be a more religious state somuch as a state that identifies itself as religious. The two are not going to necessarily correlate. But I stand by my statement that a lack of spirituality is not an influencer for the kinds of things the original post seems to be trying to sinc it with.

Does this account for the "live for the present" mentality a lot of people have now? If we believe that we are nothing more than a bunch atoms that would just dissipate after we die, what's there to keep our morality? what's there to govern our "karma" so to speak?

I'm not at all religious, so i'm struggling with those questions myself. in the end, i almost have to believe that there is some sort of higher realm of being that exists. just for my own sake.

I've always found that my atheistic views lead me to a constant, active pursuit of what it means to be moral and how to find a balance between loving life and fighting to improve it. I find that, rather than a "live for the moment" perspective, modern life seems packed with "God has a plan" thinking.

I think that's a pretty arrogant thing to say, btw. As much as you may despise religion, a very religious and close minded person would be the same type that would find you to be "sad" for not belonging to what they consider to be a structured belief system.

What I am trying to figure out is what does it mean when a person says, "I am not religious, just spiritual." Now, I am a religious person but regardless it seems a like a copout. To me, saying that you are spiritual without religion is like asking for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich without bread; pointless. The lack of religion in the equation points out almost a lazyness within the person. This person wants the benefits without the cost, which being believing in something and committing to a certain way of life. It does seem that this country is moving away from religion, which kind of worries me seeing how it was founded on religious beliefs. Also, it strikes me as odd at the bad reputation religion, especially in America, more specifically Christianity, gets from the general populace. For the spiritually motivated, it is not a bad deal all together. Accept Jesus, live a just life, kindness, forgiveness and the like and basically get an invite to the best thing happening after we shuck this mortal coil. Extreme interpretations of anything screw up anything, i.e., do not look to those tauting hellfire and brimstone as the prime pergoers of faith. A large majority of us are nice when appropriate and maybe could be a little more nice other times. The end result is that we are human, just like you. This is not a recruitment game, just one of faith. Also, just for the record, beieving in your own God generally does not seal the deal. Religion, again Christianity in particular, is on God's (insert omnipotent being of your choice) terms, not yours. Piecemealling Christianity will not help you at the curtain call.

Wow, that was really long, just a different perspective. Enjoy.

For the record, what does everyone consider to be the difference between "religion" and "spirituality"?

This seems to be causing a lot of problems in this thread. My original post was not intended to be derogatory towards science or religion; I just feel that neither is the key to a happy life. I see religion as the actual machinations that most people feel they must go through in order to attain a sense of spirituality: going to a place of worship, reading a religious text, fellowship with others, etc. My point is that as people leave religion (i.e., stop going going to church), they leave a sense of faith in something bigger, or in something at all, and this is the real shame.

To adress some points made in this thread:

1)I was not trying to be arrogant towards my friend; indeed, if he had said that he believed in the scientific method and the importance of scientific inquiry, I would have applauded him. I felt sad because it would have been the same as me saying "I believe in Bernoulli's Principle," or "I believe in Newton's Laws." I believe in evolution, but it is not what I believe in, that is, it's not a driving force in my life towards goodness or fulfillment.

2)I fully believe that spirituality should be deeply personal and unique to each person. I was raised as a Christian, and I think many Christian ideals have real value, in particular the adage "love they neighbor as thyself." However, the reason I broke with the church was that it never made me feel anything. It was so much singing, sermon, and so on. I feel my most spiritual when enjoying great works of art, and I believe art to be the defining method of distilling the soul and sharing spirituality with others. If it takes reading the Bible or going to church for others, so be it. I will not judge others for their methods, but can not help but be bothered when one feels there is nothing to derived from anything, that there is nothing to believe in, so to speak. This was my friend's stance.

3) I have always had a hard time believing that one can simply follow one rule (accept Jesus as your lord and savior) and make it to heaven, simply because I've never been able to accept Jesus. By this I mean that I never felt any sort of spiritual revelation simply from "accepting" Jesus, and believe me, I've tried. I clearly remember an uber-Christian friend of mine saying "well why can't you just do it?" My point is that such an awe inspiring thing as accepting the son of God into my heart should leave me changed in some way, and it never did. By the same token, I can explore an art gallery, or listen to a symphony, and be absolutely awed, absolutely overcome with a sense of timeless beauty and oneness, the likes of which no Bible passage or sermon has ever given me. Christianity has worked for many people, but it never worked for me.

To conclude, I feel that spirituality is the feeling of "this is beyond me," the feeling that what one is experiencing is not a collection of atoms or words or anything else. Spirituality is what makes people want to live, and I lament its decline in our society.

I've actually become more spiritual about things since I stepped away from the ridiculous soul-choke that is organized Christianity. I've always reacted to things on a completely honest and primal level, based on what makes sense to me in my heart of hearts. Nothing's changed, I just don't have the baggage of constantly worrying that I am sinning and one step away from eternal damnation.

If something speaks to my "soul" then I can't (and won't) deny that.

This trend will continue in the forseeable future because atheists and secular individuals tend not to have children, so there wil be a resurgence of religiousity based on demographics if nothing else. Godless infidels need to make more babies if they expect to survive as a group.

We have sex for pleasure, but thanks for the tip

Oh, I count myself as one of the "Godless infidels", in case you hadn't gathered that from my other posts. Maybe its because I feel snubbed by Jesus because he never friended me on Myspace.

I think religion is not a necessary component of spirituality at all. Spirituality is communion with God. No other person needs to be involved. A religion may help to guide you towards personal communion with God, or it may do just the opposite. Only the individual can know when their spirit is doing what is right.

Religion is a construct of man. It was designed to shape us socially, to teach us to be good people, to make rules for our behavior that will best benefit society as a whole. This is all ideally, of course. Sometimes it fails in those goals. For the most part, I believe that religions is an impediment to actual personal communion with God, and the cynical would say that is by design as well.

Spiritual people, both religious and not, can have the feeling of God, that feeling of knowing that there is something larger and feeling that you are a part of it. One's religious background serves only as a frame of reference for that basic feeling of spirit. A Christian will associate the feeling with God and Jesus as he understands them to be from his religious teachings. Another person may associate the feelings with nature and the earth. Another with the greater and smaller spirits that are the sky and the animals. It's all just context, because our human minds are too limited to be able to truly understand God or the feeling of spirit within. So we create languages by which to express it (religions). But like so many other deep concepts, words fail, and you can fall into traps when you concentrate on teh words instead of the meaning behind the words.

To me, spirituality is a belief in a faint metaphysical world, mysticism if you will. And I think religion attempts to give this other world that exists outside our own (if it does indeed exist) a firm construction with an absolute direction and purpose. A possible metaphor I think would be spirituality is the highway and religion is the road map. As for myself, I'm all about traveling the highway without a road map as you never know were your mind will end up if you never know where you're heading.

Read the book End of Faith by Sam Harris... you will not be disappointed