Religion vrs Spirituality - Whats The Difference?

Dear friends of ATS,

Having been both a Religious and Spiritual person throughout my life, I have often been able to correlate the two in many ways as both hold some merit with each other however, there are also some very different meanings within them both, indeed.

I was very religious until the age of 14, with my family being heavly involved with the church, an uncle being a Dean and another being a Priest, my mother being head of the church choir and my father being a script reader. Thankfully I " woke up " at such an early age and found spiritualism.

In Religion, I can find Spiritualism, but in Spiritualism I cant find Religion.

There is indeed a seperation of the two, with that being >

Religion is everything negative,
Spiritualism is everything positive,

The quote above may seem quite harsh, though I believe I'm in a very good position to make such harsh claims because of my experience with both.

This is not by any means an attack on Religion, its simply my personal experience that I have percieved from experiencing both

Consider these definitions:

* Religion is an institution established by man for various reasons. Exert control, instill morality, stroke egos, or whatever it does. Organized, structured religions all but remove god from the equation. You confess your sins to a clergy member, go to elaborate churches to worship, told what to pray and when to pray it. All those factors remove you from god.

* Spirituality is born in a person and develops in the person. It may be kick started by a religion, or it may be kick started by a revelation. Spirituality extends to all facets of a person’s life. Spirituality is chosen while religion is often times forced. Being spiritual to me is more important and better than being religious.

* True spirituality is something that is found deep within oneself. It is your way of loving, accepting and relating to the world and people around you. It cannot be found in a church or by believing in a certain way.

These definitions hit home with me or a very personal level and explain exactly how I feel about Religion and Spiritualism.

When I was Religious I was presented with the word GOD. This word GOD is used by everysingle person on this planet to help identify the ulimate creator, whether religious or spiritual. I use this word GOD because its the most commonly used word, and thats all it is....a WORD.

If I was to use this word GOD to explain my spiritualism then GOD is EVERYTHING THE UNIVERSE PROVIDES!!!

Consider the following in favor of the spiritual path:

* There is not one religion, but hundreds
There is only one type of spirituality

Religion is for those who want to continue rituals and the formality
Spirituality is for those who want to reach the Spiritual Ascent without dogmas

Religion is for those who are asleep
Spirituality is for those who are awake

Religion is for those that require guidance from others
Spirituality is for those that lend ears to their inner voice

Religion has a dogmatic and unquestionable assembly of rules that need to be followed without question
Spirituality invites you to reason it all, to question it all and to decide your actions and assume the consequences

Religion threatens and terrifies
Spirituality gives you inner peace

Religion speaks of sin and of fault
Spirituality encourages "living in the present" and not to feel remorse for which has already passed - Lift your spirit and learn from errors

Religion represses humanity, and returns us to a false paradigm
Spirituality transcends it all and makes you true to yourself

Religion is instilled from childhood, like the soup you do not you want to take
Spirituality is the food that you you seek, that satisfies you and is pleasant to the senses

Religion is not God
Spirituality is infinite consciousness and all that is - It is God

Religion invents
Spirituality discovers

Religion does not investigate and does not question
Spirituality questions everything

Religion is based on humanity, an organization with rules
Spirituality is DIVINE, WITHOUT rules

Religion is cause for division
Spirituality is cause for union

Religion seeks you so that you create
Spirituality causes you to seek

Religion continues the teachings of a sacred book
Spirituality seeks the sacredness in all the books

Religion is fed fear
Spirituality is fed confidence

Religion lives you in your thoughts
Spirituality lives in your conscience

Religion is in charge of the "to do"
Spirituality is in charge of the "to BE"

Religion is a dialectic
Spirituality is logic

Religion feeds the ego
Spirituality makes you transcend

Religion makes you renounce yourself to the world
Spirituality makes you live with God, not to renounce him

Religion is adoration
Spirituality is meditation

Religion is to continue adapting to the psychology of a template
Spirituality is individuality.

Religion dreams of glory and paradise
Spirituality makes you live it here and now

Religion lives in the past and in the future
Spirituality lives in the present, in the here and now

Religion lives in the confinement of your memory
Spirituality is LIBERTY in AWARENESS.

Religion believes in the eternal life
Spirituality makes you conscious of all that is

Religion gives you promises for the after-life
Spirituality gives you the light to find God in your inner self, in this life, in the present, in the here and the now…

Scource

Religion vrs Spirituality? Which do YOU choose?

Be safe be well,

Spiro

Hmmmmm,

I'm Spiritual and Religious

Spiritual because I desire for myself and others to be free from suffering and try to take the steps to achieve this, I am religious in the way that I apply myself in achieving my goal.

I think spiritually inclined people try to distance themselves from 'mainstream' religion and visa versa.

IMHO you need to balance both to actually activate change in oneself.

The differance that I see is that mainstream religion is a spiritual path trodden by many many people who follow a specific (if not dogmatic) approach to achieving thier goals. Where as a spiritual person walks a path guided by their own understanding.

The irony is that there are billions of christians, muslims etc and they all percieve what they are taught slightly differently because the also subconciously base thier belief on thier own experiences.

Sorry if I confuse

Namasté

I could go off on this topic for days, but I think Stephen Jones said it best...

Religion is for people who have not hit rock bottom;

Spirituality is for people who have.

You never hear a person state that thier spirituality is being tested or shaken, because it can't be. It cannot be found in a book or given by a parent: it is the ability to remain true to your morals and ethics in spite of life's inequities.

I once was a religious person, went to church every time to doors opened, prayed to God, got baptised, all of that ritual. Never felt a thing. Then thee came a time when my Mother became convinced that I had a demon inside me because I saw dead people and told he about it. The preacher, deacon, and two church ladies prayed over me for three days. No result, I had no "demon," that word I discovered much later means "inner self."

After years of not even thinking about religion, I got hurt and was on my back for two years. I began to read, a lot. I needed something bigger than I at that time, I think we all come to that sometimes. I studied all of the religions of the world, back as far as I could. As my search continued, I began to see for for thousand of years people worshipped and saw God as a Goddess, a Feminine Deity, the earliest statues of a deity are of a fat, large breasted women.

And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. (Genesis 1:27)

Did this originally say, "In his and her image?"

Trying to discover the origins of Goddess worship is very difficult for many reasons. For one thing Goddess figurines are found in so many places, covering such enormous time periods, that a “beginning” may never be found. Another problem is that Goddess worship is known by so many names that uncertainty is bound to follow. Here is a partial list of some of the names the Goddess was known by:

Al Lat, Al Uzza, Anahita, Anaitis, Anat, Anath, Aphrodite, Sun Goddess of Arinna, Artemis, Aruru, Asherah, Ashtart, Ashtoreth, Astarte, Ate, Athar, Athena, Attar, Attoret, Au Set, Baalat, Brigit, Cerridwen, Cybele, Danu, Demeter, Devi, Diana, Elat, Ereshkigal, Gaia, HannaHanna, Hat-Hor, Hathor, Hepat, Hera, Inanna, Inara, Ininni, Innin, Ishara, Ishtar, Isis, Istar, Kupapa, Lato, Lilwanis, Maat, Mami, Mawu, Nammu, Nashe of Lagash, Neith, Nekhebt, Nidaba, Nikkal, Nina, Ningal, Ninhursag, Ninlil, Ninmah, Ninsikil, Nut, Rhea, Sarasvati, Shala, Sybella, Tiamat, Ua Zit, Utu and Wurusemu.

It’s clear that many of these names are derivatives of each other. The Goddess was also worshipped by Her more generic names such as Queen of Heaven, The Divine Ancestress, The Mother of All Deities, The Great Goddess and so on. But by far the largest problem with identification has to do with the violent, determined, centuries-long demolition of statues (i.e. “pagan” idols) and sanctuaries belonging to the Goddess. Many of those destructions were recorded carefully (gleefully?) in the Bible: “Ye shall utterly destroy all the places, wherein the nations which ye shall possess served their gods, upon the high mountains, and upon the hills, and under every green tree: And ye shall overthrow their altars, and break their pillars, and burn their groves with fire; and ye shall hew down the graven images of their gods, and destroy the names of them out of that place.” (Deut 12:2-3—KJV) Judaism, Christianity and Islam were all violently opposed to the ancient Goddess-worship and did their best to destroy all they could. Yet so may remnants survived that there is no doubt about the widespread worship of the Goddess in those ancient centuries.

The practice of matrilineal descent would be a natural offshoot of Goddess worship. Of course you’d inherit land, property and titles from your only known parent—your mother. (This practice continued all the way to the reign of Cleopatra, a woman more well known to us.) Though it appears that the Goddess originally reigned alone, at some period (different in different places) She acquired a son or brother who was also Her lover and consort. Known in various languages as Damuzi, Tammuz, Attis, Adonis, Osiris or Baal, this consort died in his youth, causing an annual period of grief for those who worshipped the Goddess.

Just one example of this would be in Babylon of the eighteenth to the sixth centuries bc. The Goddess was known as Ishtar and Her dying son/lover was called Tammuz. As late as 620 (or so) bc, the Bible’s book of Ezekiel speaks of this practice of “weeping for Tammuz.” (Ezek 8:14) “Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the LORD’s house which was toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz.”

When God Was a Woman

It is in woman's nature (for we are created this way), to be a comforter. To me, my own wife is a human representation of the Great Divine Mother, and treat her as such. We are all Gods and goddess inside, really. All we need do is find them within. The divine within is not "out there." It is rather, "in here."

How the Status of Women Changed in the Bible

GODDESS AS CREATRIX OF THE UNIVERSE

GODDESS FORMS ARE MANY AND BEAUTIFUL

reply to post by Spiro
Spiro,

The problem is there are but two kinds of Spirits, the Heavenly angels who are ministering Spirits and the fallen angels and their head man Satan. And yes God declares Satan a man. Eze. 28:9 These are all ministering Spirits. Spiritualism that is not of God gets into the occult from what I've seen of those that get into it and practice it. We are now in a time when True Christianity is vehemently being challenged. God calls it Blasphemy. Satan is at the head of all blasphemy and leads men into it. Satan is an artful deciever. He will be stopped just before he destroys all the Elect. Read Mat. 24:22, the days are shortened for the elect's sake.

This little planet we live on is the only one that is in Rebellion against it's own creator and benefiter, the one who loved us so much that He came to us in the body of one of us and shed His blood that we might be redeemed and fellow traveller in time that is no joke. Yes we are travllers in time because of the rebellion a time was set for it to show just how ugly it would ultimately get. We are almost to that pinnacle in time. Evil men, evil angels and Satan weave all kinds of webs to decieve and destroy man. The bulwark and rock of defense is the Holy Word. That is where you will find the safe path for your feet to walk in.

Truthiron

I have always wondered exactly what people mean when they say "I am spiritual but not religious." I think perhaps I understand their intent after reading the "Is.." statements.

However, I find that if I were to apply those statements to myself, I am neither spiritual nor religious.

My definitions would be:

Religion: a system of beliefs which defines a relationship with a higher power, spiritual being, or supernatural being.

Spirituality: a personal search for a source of strength and guidance outside of one's self.

I would substitute the term 'humanism' for most of the 'spiritualisms' in your list.

Hmm....That´s a tough one. Religion vs Spirituality.

If you remove all the personal Political-Religious ideologies, that keep poisoning Religion and Spirituality, then we can define Religion and Spirituality as follows:

Religion is a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of life and the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a supernatural agency, or human beings’ relation to that which they regard as holy, sacred, spiritual, or divine

Spirituality can refer to an ultimate or immaterial reality. An inner path enabling a person to discover the essence of their being, or the deepest values and meanings by which people live. Such as spiritual practices, including meditation, prayer and contemplation, which are intended to develop an individual's inner life.

So according to those definitions, there is no difference at all, since Religion and Spirituality completing each other.