Tolerance: Spiritual or Religious?

My order, in their Guide to Divinity, recognizes 27 "faith systems," including atheism.  27 belief systems that think they are right.  My goodness!  I think they only have symbols for the ones shown above because, to list them all on a bumper sticker, the entire group would be too small to see or would stretch across the entire bumper of the car.  But, there aren't 27 faith systems in the world.

According to Philip Wilkinson's book Religions, there are only 23 major world faiths.  But he lists 34 "new religious movements" to choose from.  Using my fingers and toes I make that to be 57 movements that think they have found the correct path we all should all be following.  My own library of reference material can't even agree on a number.  So, the obvious question folks like me keep asking is, who is right?

Maybe they all are.  Maybe none of them are.  Is it important?

The running controversy would indicate it is as important as whether you are spiritual or religious, spiritual but not religious, religious but not spiritual, or spiritual and religious.  As usual I hit the net, went fishing, and pulled up some info to share and comment on.  Please feel free to chew on it, develop your own thoughts, and comment back.  Don't be shy.  No one's comment is going to be any more wrong or right than the 57 other groups.

First let's look at definitions.  Random House Dictionary of the English Language, 1967, defines them thus:

Spirituality - "the expression of the sacred." 

Religion - "a set of beliefs and practices related to the issue of what exists beyond the visible world, generally including the idea of the existence of a group of beings, an external principle or a transcendent spiritual entity."

My goodness!  Right off the bat, religion takes a bit more explaining and is a bit more complicated.  Let's go a step deeper.

ReligiousScholar.com says, "Religion is form: tradition, doctrine, rites and rituals.  Spirituality is content: communion with the divine, seeing the holy in all creatures and objects." 

Gee, the choice would see pretty clear for me.

About spirituality, Georgetown University quoted Murray and Zetner (1989) as saying this, "a quality that goes beyond religious affiliation, that strives for inspiration, reverence, awe, meaning and purpose, even in those who do not believe in God."

On religion, Georgetown also quoted Davies, Brenner, Orloff, Sumner, and Worden (2002) as saying it is, "formed within the context of practices and rituals shared by a group to provide a framework for connectedness to God."

Georgetown goes on to state, "Some see religion as the manifestation of one's spirituality, yet a person can be spiritual without being religious.  A person can also be outwardly "religious" in performing certain actions, yet not focus on the underlying principles of spirituality."

This would explain why most people that go to church are just going through the motions.  They think that attending is enough to save them.  This is what happens when we allow others to do the work for us.

It seems that, whereas spirituality allows everyone to participate, even those who do not believe in God, religions require you be part of a group and share their particular framework in order to connect to God.  Spirituality requires you do the work for yourself, and religion does all the work for you.  Really?

As a Catholic I remember having to genuflect, make the sign of the cross, go to confession, do penance for that confession, dress up in my Sunday clothes, go to mass, etc..  A lot of work is involved in going through the motions, but little of it requires me to strive for anything other that to be relieved of the burden of having to endure a Sunday at church. 

I don't remember Jesus mentioning the need for all of that hoopla.  It seems like a lot of ritual thought up over the ages by men in search of control.  The control seems to work.

Consider another definition off the web at www.bibliotecapeyades.net, Religion vs. Spirituality:

"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.  Spirituality 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."

The one quote that is of particular interest for me was off of www.SpiritualityvsReligion.org:

"Universality (spiritualism) differs from One True Religion in that many followers of religion believe that their path is the only one to salvation.  Though their faith is strong for their religion, they feel that all other religions are wrong.  Converting others to their faith feels necessary.  In spirituality, the belief is that all fanaticism is false and that it is a contradiction of the nature and truth of God, which cannot be shut up in any book, or Koran or Veda or any religion."

So, there we have some definitions to work with.  Now, let's hear a few opinions.

Lillian Daniel wrote in the United Church of Christ online magazine:

"Being privately spiritual but not religious just doesn't interest me.  There is nothing challenging about having deep thoughts all by one's self.  What is interesting is doing this work in community, where other people might call you on stuff, or heaven forbid, disagree with you.  Where life with God gets rich and provocative is when you dig deeply into a tradition that you did not invent all by yourself."

Lillian is of the misguided notion that spiritual people are loners, that we don't do community service, and that we fear conflict.  Lillian, please disagree with me!  Please call me down on something!  This is called creative discussion, interpersonal communication.  We do not fear you, just don't damn us to hell for eternity because we don't see eye to eye with you.  I chose to think for myself and not be led around by a religious clergy I find difficult to even trust my children alone with.

The Jesuit priest, James Martin, says about being spiritual but not religious, "Religion is hard.  Sometimes it's just too much work.  People don't feel like it.  "I have better things to do with my time."  It's plain old laziness,"   He also states, "spirituality without religion can become a self-centered complacency divorced from the wisdom of community." 

Anything can be corrupted Br. Martin.  I would point out that religion without spirituality can result in multiple crusades to butcher thousands in the name of Christ, and thousands more weeding out the heretics during the Inquisition.  Religion is dangerous even today when following a religious leader can lead to drinking Kool-Aid laced with poison as the leader shortens your path to God without your consent.

Jennifer Walters, dean of religious life at Smith College, says, "Hymn-singing, forms of prayer and worship, teachings about social justice and forgiveness--all these things are valuable elements of religious wisdom.  Piecing it together by yourself can be done, but with great difficulty." 

So, which is it?  There is a contradiction here as Martin feels spirituality is "plain old laziness," yet Walters feels it is "great difficulty."

Well, Jennifer, nothing in life is easy and I would not expect finding a personal relationship with the Almighty to be so either.  God did not make it easy for Jesus, what makes you so special?  Again, I prefer to think for myself and develop my own close relationship with God.  I'm not one to take the easy route by letting others think for me.  I would rather have to face God and say that I was wrong than to say that I was wrong and stupid for following someone else off the cliff. 

The sad part of this whole discussion is that we now have 57 choices  of how we'd like to fail in the eyes of God (58 if you count your own personal relationship with the Almighty).

Isn't it about time religious leaders take responsibility for people leaving their churches in droves to seek a better path to a personal relationship with God?  It is always easier to blame something, or someone, for your own shortcomings as leaders.  Do something novel, don't be a leader, be a shepherd.

For me, I just find it difficult to get behind organized religions with leaders that have lower moral standards than I do.  Rape, homosexuality, sodomy, marital affairs, among religious clergy are common newsprint.  These are the same folks that edited our Bible?  Makes a person with any common sense go, "Hmmm..."

Or, is this just my opinion?