Spirituality vs. Religion - what's the difference? (page 3)

ESTEE

Religion divides------Spirituality unites.

That's the difference.

ESTEE

TATT:
Still spewing forth the conspiracy theorist propaganda, huh? Do you not realise that you are just an unwitting dupe, a cog in the wheels of the machine that grinds on desiring the turmoil of minds arguing for and against the possibility of elite overloads?

These people are not actually starving, but they are not having too good a time either.

You've never travelled, have you? You basically believe what someone else told you without verifying it first-hand, weave it into your own vain imaginings and propagate the rumour and gossip.

Satanus:

Narkissos

Still spewing forth the conspiracy theorist propaganda, huh?

Lol. Look at the thread date.

LittleToe

Oops

So has Nvrgnbk got a crush on Looking_Glass, to have stumbled across this old thread?

diamondblue1974

Its a great thread to resurrect and a valid point.

Can someone help me understand the difference between spirituality and the subconscious, or just thoughts in the brain? There are times I look in awe at the vastness of space or the intricate detail of a flower, and I know that I am connected to it all. It feels special, it moves me. We are all made of star dust, as Carl Sagan said.
But doesn't all that come from the way the human mind is, from the physical electrons/neurons/whatever firing off in our brains, our own thoughts and feelings about what we sense with our physical five senses? If I watch a powerful film or read a powerful book it may make me see the world differently or think in a way I've never thought before, but how is it anything more than physical reactions? Sam Harris wrote about how it's just out of view most of the time, like the blind spot in the eye. It's always there but unless we focus on it we're usually unaware of it. Is it more than just looking at life from a different angle and in an unconventional way?
Can someone help me out in a way that doesn't sound too vague like 'Well you will know when it happens to you, it is a spiritual freshness that washes over you and lifts you up higher than your highest point.'

I know I am approaching this from a strictly Druidic point of view but I think spirituality is personal and depends on the individual - your feelings of interconnectedness are not rare and due to the fact that we are connected to the universe and everything in it. Its the movement or inspiration you describe that is often the first manifestation of a physical expression of spirituality. That inspiration can then often drive you forward in various ways, it can drive an innate creative sense so that you express yourself outwardly. It can also give you strength in adversity, it can open up new solutions to problems that you had previously not thought possible, it can be any one of these things, it can all of them together or more.

I know you may say that I have been vague here but in truth spirituality is impossible to quantify and is wide in its very nature.

Our spirituality should move us to think, to search, to appreciate, to develop a sense of wonder, to relentlessly pursue goals, to worship or to revere what we personally hold as sacred and it should move us to question, and personally I think it should push us to live in the now rather than seek forms of escapism that many 'religions' adhere to or promote. If your spirituality does all this and more, then it is doing its job!

G /|\

nvrgnbk

So has Nvrgnbk got a crush on Looking_Glass, to have stumbled across this old thread?

Don't know anything of her, should I?

LOL!

I had saved this topic in my favorites some time ago.

I think it makes for an interesting discussion.

I always appreciate your take on things, LT.

Satanus

Hi, lt. How are you doing? Bet married life is keeping you ocupied. S

siegswife

I think there's a big difference between religion and spirituality.

From what I've seen, people who are super religious tend to be less spiritual because religion tries to build a container for something that by it's very nature cannot be contained in a man-made vessel.

I was having a discussion with a religious friend who was saying that kids have problems today because the atheists fought to take prayer out of school and won.

I told her that I'm glad there isn't prayer in school and that I tell my daughter that she can pray anytime she wants...before a test or challenge, when she's having difficulty dealing with a situation, or just because. I don't want her being religiously programmed by a government institution.

My friend said that prayers aren't programming. I laughed and told her that she should go to a meeting at a Kingdom Hall sometimes. I felt that their public prayers were just another way of spouting the WTS' propaganda. Because of that, I'm a bit more cynical when it comes to public prayer offerings.

I also pointed out to her that it isn't the atheists she has to fear. I told her that in the Bible it says that there will come a time that everyone who kills you will believe they're doing it for God. That pretty much discounts the atheists, huh? :p (I love pointing that out to religious Christians who are on an anti-atheist kick)

I admitted that when I first came into contact with hardcore atheists on this site I was a bit put off. I felt they were too angry or too much like fundamentalist Christians in "it's my way or you suck" mentality. Some are, but most atheists are more willing to consider both sides of an issue and it basically comes down to their belief that if it can't be logically digested it's probably bunk. I told her that I can't blame them for that. They think more logically than I do, so how can I judge it when I don't live it?

On the other hand, many of the atheist that I've read here or there are very spiritual, displaying many of the qualities that some religious zealots lack.

Anyway, I think there's a big difference.

Lea

the dreamer dreaming

religion is BSing others spriituality is BSing oneself from the latin spiritus, full of breath or hot air.

serotonin_wraith

Satanus:

In a meditation focused on something/someone, the connection can sometimes come more alive, for some people. This falls into the psychic ability classification.

I'm open to believing in psychic powers, but so far I'm unconvinced they actually exist. I think humans are more alike than not, and sometimes they can pick up feelings and thoughts from others due to subconscious triggers. We read body language, we detect subtle changes in the tone of the voice, we see emotion in peoples eyes, and so on. I wouldn't call it a force, I still think it's all physical.

It's true we are all stardust. But, in addition to that, we all came from a prestardust source. The connection to that source is still there, as are connections of everything to everything else that came from the same source. I see the connection as based on, for lack of a better word to describe it, spirit.

Could it be described as energy too? I can understand it if it can be called that. Energy cannot be destroyed, only transferred. The speed in which our universe spread out was energy, the way stars are born, then die, and pass on their matter in creating new stars is energy. The way humans give birth, die, pass their energy to the ground to continue on. We're all connected by energy. I certainly don't think this energy is conscious though (not that you think that, but some may).

Brahman is the unchanging, infinite, immanent, and transcendent reality which is the Divine Ground of all matter , energy , time , space , being , and everything beyond in this universe.

I can't go back further than the matter, energy, time and space, I don't think. Before the Big Bang, no one can know what was there. If people believe this 'spirit' is before all that, I can't agree. Not until I have reason to. For all I know, the energy and matter has always existed in some form or another before our universe started. It may go back for infinity, and if so there's no place for a spiritual realm.

diamondblue1974-

That inspiration can then often drive you forward in various ways, it can drive an innate creative sense so that you express yourself outwardly. It can also give you strength in adversity, it can open up new solutions to problems that you had previously not thought possible, it can be any one of these things, it can all of them together or more.

I can see how thinking about it can inspire people. I don't feel I need it to be inspired. I find my inspiration from many places. Even thinking about eternity, the universe, how everything is connected... But to call that spirituality is going too far for me. It can all be explained in scientific ways, and whatever is beyond our understanding should be a question left open until science does answer it, as it has with everything else we've thought was mystical in the past.

siegswife-

I told her that in the Bible it says that there will come a time that everyone who kills you will believe they're doing it for God.

Where's that scripture found?

Spirituality vs. Religion - what's the difference?

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