The difference between RELIGIOUS and TRULY SPIRITUAL.

[yoyossarian]

In a previous recent thread on the subject of religion, I posted the following pic:



Within that short discussion, I also made a rather coarse comment on those who purport to be "religious-minded":

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5761385

Maybe I was a little harsh though; maybe I should've taken it down a peg or two, from the realm of the
simplisticly reactionary and absurd to that of the absolutely FACTUAL, by saying something more reasonable
instead, such as "MANY religious people are retarded."

I mean, I don't really wanna go with that broad a brush, to paint ALL religious people as idiots...
I know some cool buddhists, f'rinstance...
Then again, Buddhism seems more an intelligent philosophy than a religion... it's open-ended, recognizing the
positive commonalities of ALL faiths; and it's not nearly as dumb-flock gullible as most Christian-based sects...
I know what some of the buttheads among us are thinking now: Haha, you said sects...
But seriously: To my mind, the difference between spiritual and religious is simple:
Religious people CHOOSE what miracles they acknowledge; whereas the truly SPIRITUAL among us recognize that
EVERYTHING and EVERYONE is an absolute miracle, mysterious and unexplainable...
And the best of these always attempt to act accordingly... thus the term "Namaste!", meaning roughly
"I see and honor the eternal god-like spirit within you."
I recently saw a really funny shirt that read, "Namaste, motherfucker!"...
I like that. A truly spiritual person gets it: as the humor it's intended to be, and thus in no way a threat to their
faith... because true spiritual faith is oh-so much less tenuous, brittle and easily-frightened than that of the average Catholic.
I'm speaking mainly about Catholics, and avoiding Muslim and Jewish faiths in this discussion, simply because I was
RAISED Catholic, and therefore, in my view, have every right to denigrate it to my heart's content.
I, after all, survived and escaped it, with my soul relatively intact and unscathed.
The secret to my escape? I found the perfect loophole: I gave it up for Lent, and never looked back.
Atheists may take me to task for my belief in the divine, but I believe I'm doing it right, the only way one can reasonably
"believe."
I believe there is a god, a creator. I have NO idea what it looks like, what sex it is, what it wants from me in this life...
except to live and flourish to the best of my ability.
I believe it is essentially UNKNOWABLE, UNGUESSABLE... MYSTERIOUS.
My FAITH leads me to believe that it is benign, ultimately... because no matter how harsh and cruel and ugly a face life sometimes
shows me, I also have experienced such beauty and unexplainable joy in existence... and this is coming from someone who
has been unemployed for most of the last 15 years, who has been homeless numerous times, whose very survival hangs by the
sheerest of threads, and has for more than a decade, despite my many marketable talents, gifts, skills and abilities...
The universe is good, ultimately. Life is good. The suffering is all worth it... and death is part of the game, so why should
I fear death? Why should I fear returning to the unknowable, unexplainable place I came from?
The problem with atheism, as I see it, is that it is devoid of hope; it is a dead philosophy; it is just as fear-based as its supposed
opposite, and it rarely produces anything but resigned acceptance of the world as it is.
TRUE spirituality embraces ALL the universe has to offer, even the end of this frantic and confused and oh-so lovely struggle
for brief survival in this MIRACLE world.
Such faith allows one to get above fear, and live with MIRACULOUS dignity: Tolerance for others, consideration for diversity,
real strength in adversity.
Which are the essential tools one needs to actually take part in nurturing and bringing forth the sort of world they can imagine
in their loftiest and noblest dreams.
Of course, there will always be those who are simply suckers for a really big hat.



All I can say is, Goddess bless 'em.

Great gift tee shirts, mugs, buttons and other cool stuff at


Laugh City!

President Evil Online has risen from the grave!

[abq e streeter]

1. Beautifully expressed....thank you ( just went back to give it its 1st rec)

[yoyossarian]

3. Thank YOU!

:toast:

[wuushew]

2. The Pope has no use for the Lament configuration

The Cenobites offer the gift of pleasure AND pain.

[yoyossarian]

4. For many Catholics, pain IS pleasure... and vice versa!

Besides, it's not for HIM, it's for his beloved Füehrer!

[omega minimo]

5. someone who says "many religious people are RETARDED" has damaged credibility on the topic

[yoyossarian]

8. How so?

I have offered a REASONED argument on this subject, have I not?
You sound likely Christian, and rather easily offended... sorry 'bout that.
I mean, I'm sorry you're Christian, and so easily offended.
But if you ARE Christian, well, why not take a page from Jaysus' book and,
y'know... forgive me?

(hats off to Bill Hicks)

[Quantess]

10. "retarded" is used as slang, and is offensive to

people with mental retardation, and to their families and loved ones.

[yoyossarian]

11. It's really a question of context, then...

But if you consider the literal meaning of the word, rather than simply reacting
in a knee-jerk way to its pc "offensiveness"...
Political correctness can be a real strait-jacket, and an unnecessary hurdle to
clear and concise communication.
I am quite sensitive to such issues. I would never dream of calling someone who
actually suffers from such a congenital defect a "retard." I think this is quite obvious,
in context.
But if you prefer to be righteously offended, so be it. I believe my intended use
of the word was clear.



Laugh City!

[havocmom]

6. Off to the Greatest Page with ya

and I gotta get me one of those tee shirts :rofl:

[yoyossarian]

18. Thanks for the boost!

:hi:

[Deep13]

7. marking for future reference nt

[Annces]

9. I think powerful people hijacked the religions

as soon as they had followings. So Catholicism is totally infiltrated and tied with power-hungry people and history. And a lot of their rules come from that too, like never using contraception. But their is a basic real religion there with a path for someone to grow spiritually, and not be owned by the power aspects of it. Then they are outsiders of the power structure, but can still be influential like Thomas Merton.

[yoyossarian]

12. I basically agree...

But also feel that when such religions can be so easily hijacked and turned
so completely against their initial intentions, then perhaps there is
something very wrong with them at a foundational level.

Or, as Max von Sydow said in Woody Allen's Hannah and Her Sisters,
"If Jesus Christ were to return to earth and see what has been done in his name,
he would NEVER stop throwing up."

[Raksha]

13. K & R - beautiful, beautiful post...

I have rarely seen anything that expressed what I truly believe so succinctly, although I come from a very different background (Judaism). I guess by your standards I must be a truly spiritual person because I literally laughed out loud when I read this part:

I recently saw a really funny shirt that read, "Namaste, motherfucker!"...
I like that. A truly spiritual person gets it: as the humor it's intended to be, and thus in no way a threat to their faith...

For anyone who knows what "Namaste" means, the incongruity is truly priceless! It packs a lot more punch than the watered-down equivalents like "Have a nice day" (when someone has just said something idiotic and/or offensive) or "Bless his/her heart..."

Re The problem with atheism, as I see it, is that it is devoid of hope; it is a dead philosophy; it is just as fear-based as its supposed
opposite, and it rarely produces anything but resigned acceptance of the world as it is.

That's basically why I have never considered myself an atheist, although my understanding of God/Goddess is pretty open-ended at this point. In recent years I have preferred the word "pantheist" as being the most accurate description of my beliefs, if I had to sum up my beliefs about God in one word.

[yoyossarian]

16. Thank you kindly!

It is always lovely to find agreement on these pages...

:toast:

:hug:

:loveya:

[Chovexani]

14. This is a silly game of semantics, and it irritates me.

People who bleat on about being religious and not spiritual (as well as douchebags like you who call religious people morons) sort of miss the point rather spectacularly. All that the root of the word religion means is to "re-bind", or "re-connect". IOW, to connect with the Divine. It does not say anything about how one chooses to do so. It does not specify what that Divine is, it does not define it as "Bearded White Man in the Sky" or anything else for that matter; it could be anything you want it to be, including the inherent sacredness of humanity or a tree. It does not inherently mean "Western Hierarchical Monotheistic Organized System of Belief and Practice". It does not inherently mean "system of belief and practice". It means "to reconnect with the Divine". Period.

I clung to the "spiritual not religious" thing when I was 15, and then I grew up and decided I wasn't ceding the word religion to dogma-worshipping fundie nutjobs in organized, hierarchical faiths. I also grew up and realized organized, hierarchical faiths are not inherently bad, just not for me. I'm personally of the opinion that "Spiritual not religious" is for people too timid or misinformed to reclaim their birthright as human beings from the fundamentalists who have stolen it and claim to have the monopoly on Spirit. Or for folks who want a safety net. Which is fine, but it is what it is, and people who claim it's more evolved sort of have their heads up their asses as much as self-proclaimed religious folk who have all the answers. No matter what path we walk, we're all seekers, and the minute we think we have everything figured out is the minute IMO where we know nothing at all. I am religious. Pope Sidious and Marion Robertson do not define my religious experience. If someone is confused by my self-definition as religious because my style of dress, demeanor and paraphernalia do not fit their conception of the word, and questions or challenges me, I explain. But, my relationship with my Gods is something I generally keep to myself, other than to say that I have an active one (or to point out that no, I'm not Wiccan, and my style of dress has nothing to do with my religion and everything to do with the fact that I really love Siouxsie Sioux and The Cure).

But then, I'm sort of wasting my time, given this entire post was you justifying calling people who hold religious beliefs that you don't think are cool, "retarded". Which pretty much says everything right there.

[yoyossarian]

15. For you, perhaps, it is all semantics...

After all, I stated UNEQUIVOCALLY that I DO NOT tar all "religious" people with that same broad brush, that
I spoke in error in my earlier posting and was hastening to retract that statement, substituting with a
more measured expression, to wit:
"MANY religious people are retarded."
I did not bother with the semantic nonsense of defining the word religious, as people today are, as should be
obvious to any thinking and aware human being, fully capable of defining this word for themselves--in point
of fact, it is so obnoxiously open to interpretation that many "religious" folks feel the BEST way to express
their "faith" or their "understanding" of their "deeply religious" attitudes is by MURDERING others whose views
about religion sharply contrast with their own, as in the case of Tiller's killer.
Perhaps you have a point, in that the terms could be used synonymously, so I suppose I should parse my language
further for the benefit of people like yourself, people who read perhaps a bit too quickly, and arrive at that
place of personal offendedness a bit too happily, to point out that historians speak of "religious wars" or
"religious persecution", rather than using the word spiritual in this context, precisely because such large-scale
insanities as pogroms and crusades and the like are exclusively the activities of organized RELIGIONS... history is
replete with examples of such horrors, and this madness continues to the present day, expressed by nearly ALL dogmatic,
organized belief systems, in both word and action.
As far as I know, Buddhists have never been on the suppressing, murderous, or even inordinately aggressive side of these
sorts of actions. Buddhism is a philosophy of tolerance for others' belief systems, no matter HOW crazy or aggressive
or intolerant or fixedly dogmatic.
You stated, "I also grew up and realized organized, hierarchical faiths are not inherently bad, just not for me."
Well, I'll let you in on a lil' secret, pumpkin: MILLIONS of people around the world, throughout recorded history,
have been beaten, tortured, suppressed and murdered outright because these dogmatic organizations have made it their
MAIN purpose in life to do just that--to torture, maim, mutilate and kill all others who will not accede to THEIR
particular form of belief and worship.
So maybe it's NOT just you; maybe there IS something inherently dull and ignorant and lazy and borderline crazy about
allowing dusty, ancient books interpreted by musty smelly ancient men in weird headdresses and other fantastical ornamentation
define one's own attitudes toward the divine, and lead large groups of like-minded "believers" into endless overtly
aggressive actions toward others who do not march in lock-step with the "common wisdom" of their beloved "beliefs"...
BTW, I am not ALWAYS above trading insults with others; but within the context of this discussion, I think I'll just continue
to use reason, rather than anger, to make my point.
Which is that spiritual approaches, rather than religious, to the big questions of cosmology and mystery and possible meaning
in this miracle existence we all share are a far more intelligent way to go.

[timtom]

17. Pretty good post.

[yoyossarian]

19. Pretty good sig line!

I must reads me some O'Casey...

:toast: