Why Do People Embrace Religion Instead Of Only Spirituality?

Originally posted by John_Q_Llama
I used to go to church every Sunday, of my own free will, even after my parents no longer made me go with them. I stood up, sat down, stood up, sat down, sang the songs, gave my offerings, prayed, listened to the sermons, and so on.

Lol... got to hand it to the Church..... they keep you exercised.

Religion is the Business end of Spirituality, smart or not, Human conditioning has been going on for Centuries which has left us with difficult choices.

No one asked to be born, and life being hard enough, I think it's fair to say, there's no prerequisite to Worship anyone or anything.

reply to post by Faiol


You are correct they do not have access to timely and adequate professional mental health services.The pathetic state of mental health management is sad.

We tried to help these friends in every way we knew how.But we were not really equipped to provide this.
SO with the world being what it is if Krishna or Jesus or whoever could provide them with what they needed to survive from day to day that's okay with me.I was not about to self righteously lecture them on the inconsistencies of their chosen faith.

I don't always find ourselves in agreement with our views but in this I see we have found solidarity.

Peace Faiol

Originally posted by sticky
The day that religion is nonexistant on earth, will be a great day.
I couldn't say the same for spirituality.

Many of the organized religions, yes. As for spirituality, it`s the lack of it that has the world in the state that it`s in. How well I agree with you on that point.

I believe in a creator of humans, but I dont think Jesus was the son of god anymore than I am.

Very well put I must say.

What religion would I be?

The religion of the One.

Lets start a new belief system. Maybe that's exactly what's been going on post 2000 milenium.

In bigger ways than many may believe. It`s time for our spiritual awakening.

reply to post by John_Q_Llama

Why do people embrace religion instead of only spirituality?

Perhaps because the two are inexorably intertwined. In order to be spiritual one must have some level of supernatural belief and supernatural belief is a major aspect of religion. Also, most do not choose their religion, they are brought into it by parents or relatives.

A person can define their own spiritual journey, exploration, growth, and desires however they see fit.

Most people consider a spirit as part of their religious beliefs, in other words their belief in a spirit is defined by whatever religion they were taught. Once they have religion it can be hard to break free of its teachings. So the concepts of God, the spirit, and religion are all connected in their minds. In many ways they do not feel free to choose, so asking why they don't choose spirituality is like asking why a slave doesn't choose freedom. Their minds are already locked into a religion, they have allowed a pre-existing conclusion to become their own.

Personally I don't believe such a thing as a spirit exists, in the supernatural sense. In the emotional sense, the psychological sense, sure, there is a deep part of our consciousness that might be termed a spirit or soul... I am a former Christian, so I am always glad when I hear someone who has broken free and begun to think for themselves

saying your spiritual or into spirituality versus being commited to a religion is like:

-saying you like sports versus I love football or baseball

-saying I love people versus I love my wife

-saying I love to drive verus I love my 1957 Chevy

Spirituality, to me...right or wrong, seems rather generic...wishy washy...where as a commitment to a religion or faith is just that...commitment. I can respect that....may not believe it, but i respect it.

Somewhere a long the way, the unfortunate happened, and I believe many question stopped asking this type of question to themselves. Personally, my belief is like this - people typically who are allocated to going to church, to having an organized religion, they are typically raised, or influenced in this way somehow from a young age, not always, I'm just saying sometimes that's the case, and more often than not, it's just common nature to adopt what was laid out before you.

Now, the part that gets complicated, is that the Bible is actually -against- a mass organized religion, the problem falls under that 90% of organized religion's, and very well one of the many things that draws people to a set religion, is the fact that is IS all laid out for you, You go on sunday, the preacher preaches, and you listen, you believe his interpretation and that is that, you go home, and somehow feel a sense that you maintain a spiritual relationship with God.

That being said, The whole reason behind the bible not embracing the idea of 'mass organized religion' is simply because of the fact that it's so easy to misunderstand it, and the bible being created / written it is meant to deliver a different message, to every person, who can adopt and analyze their own findings of each scripture of passage. The problem comes that these days, typically religious church goers don't question their preachers, they don't question the information, and furthermore, they don't take the time to look at the message or passage themselves to get a grasp of what THEY feel it is meant to say.

That being said - I think the main reason for adopting religion over spirituality? Is easiness, social acceptance(by others in the church community), it's convenient and easy to explain, where as 'I'm spiritual' is not, and typically warrants a long explanation to people. And, as was mentioned, it takes a certain sense of bravery and adventure to dive into your own spirituality rather than just adopt and already established, prominent way of religion and is easy to just say 'well, if so many people do it consistently, something has to be right'.

I'm not saying I sway in either favor, My personal belief is that more of 'spiritual' over 'religious' though I don't discredit anyone for being a part in organized religion, I do however, ENCOURAGE everyone to think for themselves, as always and every moment, your own mind is your source of all things powerful, and is the only way to obtain the knowledge to truly make your own decisions.

Reply to post by John_Q_Llama

because religion is being part of a cohesive group and spirituality is a personal experience that can be talked about but isnt occuring in a shared group experienece.


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Reply to post by sticky

I disagree with you. 'spirituality' feeds the ego as it is a completely personalized thing. emotionalism isn't really the truth and the best part about religion is that you have to trust that the wisest people in history have been working so that you can continue their work. I am sick and tired of the sense that 'freedom' means individuality. just like everything else there are good and bad fruits found in any religion but the truth can be found in any religion if you look hard enough too. 'religion' comes from the latin 'religare' which means 'to rejoin'. you can not rejoin yourself you can only lose your self to rejoin reality.


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reply to post by John_Q_Llama


Hi...

I wanted to reply to this but it might seem a bit off topic...

I see spirituality, as believing in yourself and believing that you have a higher power that is within you. I also think that people underestimate themselves, and never reach their full potential because everything good and bad is attributed as 'God's will'... Therefore, people seldom take responsibility for their own thoughts and actions.

For example, the other day I was talking to my little brother in law, he wan't to do Martial Arts or Kung-fu, or maybe even Karate- something along those lines.

He is in a Christian school- and he said that his teacher told him that Kung Fu is 'evil'...(also the breaking of boards) He said that it causes you to 'channel energy from within yourself instead of from God'....
I found this appalling as this boy literally plays PlayStation and computer games all day long, not to mention he is border lining on obese.
I think that a sport like this would be great for him because it would teach him self respect and therefore, respect for others. It would also teach him spirituality, self discipline etc.

I could not believe that a teacher would tell a child such a lie!
I told him, that he must look at where it's coming from- and not just believe what anyone tells him. I told him to learn to think for himself, and do what he feels in his heart is right.

So, I think that people do not practice spirituality out of fear, because they are taught that it is 'evil'...

[edit on 13-8-2010 by Tripple_Helix]

After heading to bed last night, I realized that I neglected to make a point that I had originally intended to include in my original post.

I have seen people post here on ATS who state that they are still involved in religion. Those are the kinds of people who I am wondering about. People who understand what religion is, how it is separate from spirituality, and how it dictates spiritual practices, yet remain involved in it. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with that, but it seems strange to me.

reply to post by John_Q_Llama

I gave my answer to your question on the first page.

Religion as a conversation with another person.
People embrace religion because they believe the "other person" is there and that the conversation is happening.

If we believe someone is talking to us, are we supposed to ignore him? Would that not be bad manners?

Originally posted by John_Q_Llama


So, back to my question. Why do people feel the need to participate in religion when their own personal spiritual journey can be traveled without it?

And again, I am not out to start any debates or upset anyone.

Hello John_Q_Llama-

So I see you found the path and I congratulate you on this.

First, all religions tell some truth but not the whole truth and were put here by negative energy to decieve and keep our souls traped. They should not be read unless told so before read.

Your journey was possible by positive and negative forces at work. The reason your journey became positive was due to this simple math (I will also explain myself)

Positive and negative clashing is this

1 x 1 = 1
1 x -1 = -1
-1 x -1 = 1

What you had happen to you was 2 negatives that equaled your positive, I will explain.

First, you had to understand the negative of the church which you did

second, you had to give up another negative, and for you it was worshiping the bible.

So the church which was -1 and the other negative going to church was
-1, so if you do the math its -1 x -1 = 1

The positive was understanding that you don't need to go to church to have a positive soul and that religions are control and greed and are not a positive but a negative, only when we get rid of two negatives do we get a positive in return.

If you were to understand one and not the other it would stay negative.

This is something you also learned, see you tried to find other churches but it didn't work out because you saw the negative in it after awhile. So while you were looking at different churches it was, 1 X -1 = -1 until you understood that the church was negative, once you left the church you got
-1 x -1 = 1 and you finaly understood. It is a higher level of existence once you can free yourself from religion and see the positive and negative around us all.

Once you can understand this concept things will fall into place and you will see the world in a new light.

Everywhere you look you will then see the negative and positive of everyday life. The negative energy will always try and make you forget this simple math so that you will not stay positive and pour out negative energy to fill its needs. As the old saying goes misery loves company and it will try and do anything in its power to keep you in misery.

Once you understand positive and negative energy and how it works it becomes harder and harder for negative to hurt you.

Added- You must also understand that some negatives will never change which is another hurdle we must all go through.

Added- So my first edit was a minus sign I accidentally put in when I wrote it the first time. The second one was for the first "Added" section. The third was to explain the first edit because I didn't tell the whole truth when I made the second edit I put the first "Added" but that wasn't the whole truth because I said "Added" which I did add it the second time but I had made 2 edits and only told of the first and not the second which was -1 x 1 = -1 so to fix that I had to write this "Added" to explain myself so I could change it back to a positive 1 x 1 = 1. It also shows how easy it is to do a negative and not realize it.

Added- I just realized that in order for the -1 x -1 to work you must realize both of the negatives that are from the same thing, if that makes sense. What I mean by that is in order for the outcome to happen they must be from the same area. I will explain. Last night my friends mother hurt her leg pretty bad by their dog tripping her. That outcome was caused by 1 x -1 = -1, I will explain.

A couple of months ago my friends girlfriend gave him a puppy to keep, but his mom said that they would have to get rid of one of the other 2 dogs they had if they wanted to keep it so he had to give the puppy back to his girlfriend. I think it was last week sometime someone from his family brought a dog home and his mother let them keep it without getting rid of either of the other 2 dogs. Yesterday she was walking the dogs and one of the old dogs somehow tripped her and injured her leg real bad (I think it got broken or something like that, I didn't hear the whole story). The dog that triped her was only about 5 pounds or so, very small lap dog. Because she said no to one and yes to the other and they were both the same thing it became -1 x 1 = -1 and what followed was her injury.

Added- *Sigh* I forgot to put "Added" on the fourth added one again which is the paragraph above this one. I also forgot to put a part in the forth added that should have said "in order to change -1 x -1 = 1, or -1 x 1 = -1, or 1 x 1 = 1 the must come from the same area like the dog example or your church example you couldn't have one part dog and the other part church you can't make it work that way it must be from the same." This is all I'm going to say at this moment in time.

[edit on 13-8-2010 by Trudge]

[edit on 13-8-2010 by Trudge]

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[edit on 13-8-2010 by Trudge]

Originally posted by InfaRedMan
Spirituality requires self exploration and bravery. Religion does not. Everything is just laid out on a plate for you with a big glass of kool-aid to wash it down.

IRM

Absolutely right. It's called "spoon fed" and is for those who are not given the respect and opportunity to think for themselves.

reply to post by Trudge


Lol. You know you can edit out your edits. It will only leave one, so people are still able to see that you edited your post.

with religion it totaly time committed a week is less then 5 hours and many its 3 hours. with spiritual its a lifes commitment and most people cant even spell that word let along know what it means .
Heck 99% of the people claiming to be spiritual are no different then the religious people spend 3 hours a week .
They are no more spiritual then I am or you are . just like the word I am green just words people use to convince them selfs they are better then every one else .
The funny thing is if you truly are spiritual of green committed .
You dont feal a need to post and say LOOK AT ME I am so cool.
being spiritual meens you are at peace with your self and who you are and need No one to pat you on the back telling you how amazing you are.

This whole movement has me scratching my head. Now it is trendy to say "Oh no, I'm not religious, religion was created by man...I'm spiritual."

But this is really a senseless distinction because all that means is that you're the author of your own religion since spirituality is religious (and vice versa). A religion of you, created by man as well but it's okay since it's you, in order to satisfy you and your own curious whims. You might even pray, meditate, read and fast but you do it according to your own understanding and not of any "organized" religion of man.

How is that very different from me, a "spoon-fed" church goer? I think, to be brutally honest here, some of you guys just make it all up as you go, so fine be happy with yourselves but you're not doing anything that entitles you to spiritual snobbery.

' Why Do People Embrace Religion instead of Spirituality ? '


Imo, it's because evolution is incremental, i.e., the more evolved progress from organised religion in favour of spirituality - while the lesser evolved cling to religion because it caters to their tribal mentality and also because it provides them with enemies in the form of other religions and as we know, common enemies are often teh glue which hold tribal groups together

I do belong to a church - - even though I am a Spiritual Humanist.

It is a Power of Positive Thought church or Spiritual Living.

Even if you believe in a god (god is within you) - - your thoughts and actions are your own and your responsibility. God might give you an "attaboy" now and then - - but he is not responsible. You are.

People of many faiths come to this church as well as attend their own. They like the positive thought and being responsible for yourself - - but still enjoy the rituals of their faith.

The ministers can vary some in their delivery. The one in CA does too much Jesus and bible for my liking (of course any Jesus or bible is too much for me). But Hey! She's a former Irish nun. The one in AZ - the minister sticks to Energy. If she says god - she clarifies it as to whatever god means to you or your own universal energy.

So Yes! You can be Spiritual within organized religion. You'll just be more of independent thought and less of following doctrine blindly.

Church is a social gathering basically. I mean what does Congregation mean anyway? To Congregate: to gather in a group. Some people feel the need to belong.

Originally posted by Dock9
' Why Do People Embrace Religion instead of Spirituality ? '


Imo, it's because evolution is incremental, i.e., the more evolved progress from organised religion in favour of spirituality - while the lesser evolved cling to religion because it caters to their tribal mentality and also because it provides them with enemies in the form of other religions and as we know, common enemies are often teh glue which hold tribal groups together

That is a very interesting take. I like it.

One thing that bugs me - - you can meet and converse with a very intelligent - interesting person - - - but mention Jesus and they "lose their brain". All rational thought and logic - - just "flies out the window". That is just spooky.

It must be that tribal mentality as you say. Protect the Tribe above all else.

Originally posted by monkcaw
This whole movement has me scratching my head. Now it is trendy to say "Oh no, I'm not religious, religion was created by man...I'm spiritual."

I'm sure spirituality - defining you own belief - has been around as long as Organized Doctrine religions.

I'd hardly call it a trend.

People are just breaking away from organized control. I consider that a good thing.