Religion and Spirituality

I do not consider myself to be a religious person. Indeed, I find most religions morally repugnant, especially the monotheistic religions which condemn the disbeliever to eternal damnation. This seems unfair. It seems to me that for belief to be truly given then it must be freely given and not done as part of some supernatural transaction in exchange for your immortal soul - whatever that might mean. I do not believe that the world can become a better place as a result of more people buying a place in an eternal hereafter. I do believe that the world can become a better place simply by people trying to be nice to each other.

I do think that religion has its place. I also think that religion can give good guidance, especially in situations where we are just unable to see a path clearly for ourselves. The teachings of a religion and the assistance of a priest or imam or equivalent are invaluable in helping us to find our way through a world which can become bewildering emotionaly. I do not really have that option and, I must confess, I have frequently found the need for that and have just had to try to work things out for myself.

Not being religious, I find spirituality something different and distinct. I do consider myself to be spiritual. I do not consider that spirituality requires the boundaries or constraints of a religion and, indeed, I think it benefits greatly from being freed from them. Without the clumsy superstructure of a religious faith obscuring the natural world about us, it becomes possible to experience the naked wonder of life, the universe and, well, everything.

So what is spirituality? Well, perhaps I had better go back and define religion first, because I kind of side-stepped that. Did anyone notice?

Religion, to me, is a defining framework or structure within which our life can be defined, be given form and purpose. It is possible for a religion to be a personal one, but this is not generally the sense in which the word is generally used or intended to be used (not by me here, anyway). Religion is, generally, used in the context of an established religion held by a number of people with agreement of the principles of that religion.

It is important, for a viable religion, that it has authority. Since religion is a defining framework for the lives of its adherents, the authority becomes essentially godlike. Exactly who that authority is, tends to be defined by the religion itself, so the whole thing becomes self-supporting. That's kind of clever really.

It is also essential, for a religion that belief is its cornerstone. Belief, not proof: not proof in the scientific sense, anyway. Any proof which takes belief as a valid argument is permissable. Any scientific proof though, is inherently flawed since, by a simple extrapolation, it should become possible to prove the religion entirely and dispose of those elements which are unproven and therefore suspect. This is called commonly as 'looking a gift horse in the mouth' and is a bad idea unless you are a Trojan.

So that's religion. What about spirituality?

Spirituality, for me, is about empathy and awareness of the course of our life. A lot of this is expressed internally, in the form of emotions or intellectual exercises, but much of this is a reaction to what we experience from the world about us. Probably to oversimplify, I could say that it is about us observing the scenery. Spirituality is, really, our reaction to observing the world about us and processing it, emotionally and intellectually. As a result of this we may produce something which we can share with others: this is commonly called art, but since it can take many different forms, art is merely an example. Art is also one of the more positive examples of this expression, since it can have other, more destructive, negative forms.

What spirituality does, is to detach us from the fundamental reality of the world about us, and to lift us a level or two above that. Detachment from reality is dangerous, although it can be exciting and fulfilling. It can be doubly dangerous outside the framework of a religion, but even within the framework of a religion it can be used to devastating affect if manipulated.

It is most dangerous in situations in which the input from the natural world is limited or restricted. This is because emotions and intellectual thought need experiance to work on. Where elements are missing, the brain automatically tries to fill the void to make the experience complete and, to do this, it manufactures additional experience to process and match other inputs from outside. This is how people get sucked into virtual worlds, sometimes with no more than simple descriptive words which they need to build on with the mighty engine of the imagination.

Video games also, obviously, achieve this. A religious person might describe these, or rather this affect, as the work of the devil. In symbological terms, I would be inclined to agree.