What do people mean when they say they are spiritual, but not religious. I understand the not religious part.

WheatenLover

WheatenLover

Well-known Member
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Georgia
No one has been able to explain this to me in a way that does not leave me confused.

Heck, I could be spiritual and not realize it. If so, I would like to know.

This is a serious question. I am not jerking your chains.
 

I think it often refers to someone who thinks there is something that is greater than themselves at play in the world. It may be a traditional view of God, or a multi aspected view incorporating many theological ideas from such philosophies as pantheism, Native American, Buddhism, etc, but doesn't accept or engage in any particular practices, dogma, and communities of formalized religions.
 
Secular spirituality is the adherence to a spiritual philosophy without adherence to a religion. Secular spirituality emphasises the personal growth and inner peace of the individual, rather than a relationship with the divine. Secular spirituality is made up of the search for meaning outside of a religious institution; it considers one's relationship with the self, others, nature, and whatever else one considers to be the ultimate. Often, the goal of secular spirituality is living happily and/or helping others.
 

What @ horseless carriage said.

Religions are usually scripture (of some kind) based, highly codified and the clergy interprets both the scriptures and often parishioner's spiritual experiences. i made a personal study of various longstanding Religions as well as spiritual philosophies like Buddhism, Daoism (Taoism) when in my teens. There were Catholics on both sides of my family, my Mom had taken me to all sorts of Protestant churches when under 10. Much to her dismay as i got older i only went to churches for funerals, weddings, or other 'rituals' that were important to people i cared about.

Funny story but needs some background to get how amusing i found it.

My Hungarian Grandma was one of those hide bound Catholics--insisted on being present for the courthouse weddings of both my parents and my eldest Maternal Aunty who didn't marry till she was 40. (To be sure they weren't living in sin (or still in case of my parents--i came across their divorce papers when i was 13 and discovered i'd been 'illegitimate' till around my 5th Birthday--that the wedding was what our family trip to NJ was really about.) My Irish Gran, Nell was a more liberal minded Catholic. She had a rough exterior, likely in part from being twice widowed and longtime single Mom,(not to mention 'shanty Irish') but she had a huge heart. She and Mom stayed very close till Mom moved back to Florida in 70s. She treated my younger (half) brother, no blood relation her, like she treated all her grandchildren and is a fond memory for him still.

So, when i married my first husband in fall of 1971 and we were about to go to Guyana to visit my in-laws Mom and i went to visit Nell. Sitting in her kitchen chatting when she asks me "Will you have to give up your religion?" Mom snorted derisively and said "What Religion???" Grandma whirled around to look at her and said firmly: "Well, she's not a heathen, Betty!!" Not sure if i found it so funny because little did she know how far from my Christian heritage i'd explored or because if i'd had to convert to marry him it would have been to Hinduism which is much older than Christianity, holds some similar values (both good and 'bad', prejudicial ones).

During the same visit Mom bemoaned how much i'd been gone since graduating HS: VISTA in 65, a civil rights summer in 1966, living in NYC off and on from mid 1965 to to '71, except for a summer at my eldest sisters and a fall in Boston with friends. "She's always going off doing exciting, risky things for her principles." Nell replied "She is Fred's, what did you expect?"
 
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WheatenLover said:
No one has been able to explain this to me in a way that does not leave me confused.

Heck, I could be spiritual and not realize it. If so, I would like to know.

This is a serious question. I am not jerking your chains.
Click to expand...


You could believe that there is some intangible force in the universe without subscribing to an organized religion.

That's sort of where I come out, although I admit I have a hard time accounting for the Jesus question. Plus I go to church in non-Covid times to see people, sing in the choir and just to belong to something bigger than I.
 
JimBob1952 said:
You could believe that there is some intangible force in the universe without subscribing to an organized religion.

That's sort of where I come out, although I admit I have a hard time accounting for the Jesus question. Plus I go to church in non-Covid times to see people, sing in the choir and just to belong to something bigger than I.
Click to expand...
Many people crave the social aspects of 'belonging' to...something. i've read about some folks creating Atheist groups aimed at 'fellowship', community. Here's an article from 2016 in the Atlantic about it.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/09/oasis-secular-groups/499148/
 
Some believe that every time you think, say, or do a good thing you send out a force of goodness. And, every time you think, say, or do a bad thing you send out a force of evil. So, you can be good for 'goodness sake' and it will find it's way to help the world.
I've often wondered if this is how George Lucas came up with the phrase, "May the force be with you" in the Star Wars movies.
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/May_the_Force_be_with_you/Legends
 
Religious rituals and dogma succeed in holding the thought of God in the mind and give some a social interaction but I see no value other than that. The word "religion" means "to bind back" meaning to bind back to the source, or God, but it fails in this aspect.
It should bring the consciousness of man into God consciousness, into fulfillment, but it doesn't.

Spirituality TO ME means a direct connection with God! Just God and me! God dictates his messages through the Holy Angels and I communicate with Angels and have my entire life. Life should be lived in the fulfillment of all values. Religion fails in this.
Every soul on Earth should live an integrated life of completeness, in God consciousness, in freedom. Religion SHOULD be the core of this, but it fails.

The one on one, most sincere fullness and integration of your heart, mind and soul with the divine Being in your aloneness, without audience,
REALLY FEELING this Holiness, is what I would consider "spirituality".
If you held the hand of a Holy Angel for a split second and felt the ecstasy and LOVE which is beyond Earth's wordage to explain, you would know what I'm trying to convey.
Spirituality to me would be a KNOWLEDGE and awareness of higher beings and of God, without ritual and dogma.
Organized religion has morphed into a business. It is now a hollow shell without the Holy Spirit of God.

IMO
 
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I look at those who go to church on a regular basis as church goers if there only reason for going is the social end of it and contribute nothing outside of the church.

Then there are those who go to church but contribute in other ways by doing good deeds within the church, example would be volunteering at the church run food bank, fundraising.

I have been both but now consider myself in the Spirituality category. I believe in a God as the Creator, but do not believe it necessary that I show up for the head count in a building. I try to lead a decent life, do good deeds, volunteer as time permits and sometimes I fail.

That sums it up for me.
 
Lethe200 said:
I think the simplest terms to put it in, would be:
"If you feel you have to give money to be a "true" believer....that's religion."

I believe it was the apostle Paul who said, "For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil."
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Occasionally I send money to the online church to support it so they can continue. That's basically what you would do at church with the offering plate. That doesn't equate to being a believer. But they do speak of tithing in the bible. I give what I can when I can. I give to other things as well. I think the church itself relies on congregants to be their helpmate. No bills getting paid...no church.
 
My brother once told me he was "spiritual but not religious." I knew he had been against religion since he was a teenager because he thought our pastor had done a mean thing in telling one of our members he could not come to our church anymore. ( Turns out my brother hadn't understood the perfectly good reason for that.) But my brother was a sensitive person, deeply and easily moved by music, natural beauty and art, and he loved people and was always kind. So I think that's probably why he defined himself as "spiritual."

Conversely, I don't think I've ever heard anyone say they were religious but not spiritual. I consider myself religious because I try to follow the values Jesus taught. I enjoyed going to church when it was physically easier for me, but I never went to church to have the minister tell me what to do or to interpret the Bible for me. I read the Bible for myself. I like hearing a good minister with a good sermon. The best ones are usually based on their own mistakes and what they have learned from them. The judgmental, bully pastors telling teenagers that rock and roll is evil have only existed in movies for me.

fmdog44 said:
The Native American Indians are deeply spiritual for example. I believe along their lines as opposed to Christianity and other religions that kill those that dare oppose.
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Jesus never said we should kill people who don't agree with his teachings, just the opposite in fact.
I think most wars were started by power greedy rulers who used religion to motivate their armies and the religion got blamed.
I've belonged to a lot of Christian churches and I never heard anyone suggest we should kill people who don't agree with us.
 
Gaer said:
Religious rituals and dogma succeed in holding the thought of God in the mind and give some a social interaction but I see no value other than that. The word "religion" means "to bind back" meaning to bind back to the source, or God, but it fails in this aspect.
It should bring the consciousness of man into God consciousness, into fulfillment, but it doesn't.

Spirituality TO ME means a direct connection with God! Just God and me! God dictates his messages through the Holy Angels and I communicate with Angels and have my entire life. Life should be lived in the fulfillment of all values. Religion fails in this.
Every soul on Earth should live an integrated life of completeness, in God consciousness, in freedom. Religion SHOULD be the core of this, but it fails.

The one on one, most sincere fullness and integration of your heart, mind and soul with the divine Being in your aloneness, without audience,
REALLY FEELING this Holiness, is what I would consider "spirituality".
If you held the hand of a Holy Angel for a split second and felt the ecstasy and LOVE which is beyond Earth's wordage to explain, you would know what I'm trying to convey.
Spirituality to me would be a KNOWLEDGE and awareness of higher beings and of God, without ritual and dogma.
Organized religion has morphed into a business. It is now a hollow shell without the Holy Spirit of God.

IMO
Click to expand...
I used to have some pretty strange spiritual experiences when I was a Christian. I'd get visions of things I could not possibly know, but was able to verify. A simple one was when I saw the verses that were going to be used in Communion the next day. The pastor had always used the same verses. On this particular Sunday, he used the ones I had "seen" the night before.

If I needed them, I would ask the Angels to come and they would. I could feel them around me. One of my sons could see them. I knew they were there, but he saw the room filled with gold orbs or stars. I saw one once in more human form. So the week following my son's telling me he saw the angels, I asked my pastor if he had ever seen them. He said yes, and described exactly what my son had seen.

There are more elaborate visions I'd seen, and a couple of times I heard the voice of God in my head (not from outside me), telling me with brevity what I should do.

Once was when I'd ordered a lot of Christian tracts. This was the first time I'd been to this church. God told me to take the bundle of tracts to church. Once there, he told me to give them to a couple sitting in front. Man, this was a very well-dressed couple who would think I was a nut. I was afraid to approach them. But I did, and explained I didn't know why I was supposed to give them those tracts, which were on a bunch of different subjects. I handed them to the man and tears rolled down his face. He and his wife told me that he needed those tracts to give to some Brazilian workers he knew because they had a lot of questions, and he needed tracts that answered questions beyond heaven tracts (do you know where you are going to go when you die.) Just that morning he and his wife had prayed about getting the tracts he needed. These were the tracts!

Eventually I got scared that I was just mentally ill and stopped letting those things happen. Now I am an atheist/agnostic. And I just this minute realized why I want to meditate but cannot bring myself to do so. Because prayer is a form of meditation, at least for me, and is what was involved during the incidents described above, and many more. Essentially I am afraid to meditate in case this stuff happens again. There are many more incidents, some more detailed than others. Nothing that was going to save the world, just ordinary things. IOW, nothing grandiose.

One more weird thing that I cannot control is that sometimes, when out in public, my eyes will meet those of a total stranger, and we communicate to once another - I know you. But I don't know them. And we never exchange a word. It is a strong experience, and I always wonder what it means. It doesn't mean I know them IRL, or that I knew them in a past life (which I definitely do not believe in). It means something along the lines of our souls recognize each other. It doesn't scare me. It just makes me wonder.

Stupid me, I told my husband some of this, and the next time I went to the doc for a yearly checkup, I found out my husband had told him, and the doc was worried I was having delusions. That made me real mad, but eventually I started worrying that these actually were delusions.
 
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Hugs to you (((WheatenLover.))) I think your spiritual experiences sound beautiful. I wouldn't be afraid of them if I were you because they all sound lovely and positive. They don't sound at all like mental illness to me.
 
@WheatenLover said in part
"I used to have some pretty strange spiritual experiences when I was a Christian."
Me, too, throughout my life regardless of religious or spiritual orientation at the time.

"Because prayer is a form of meditation, at least for me, ..."
i've written at length in a couple of threads about the commonalities of prayer and meditation. either done properly is almost indistinguishable from the other. Many meditators, have several things happen--while not all unpleasantness disappears from their lives (we do live in an interactive reality in which the actions/words of others can impact us)--we will find ourselves more able to stay calm regardless of situation, to trust we'll find solutions to problems--for ourselves and others. And the synchronicity goes thru the roof, big and little things alike--and i count things that may have been inconvenient for me but were of benefit to others--because i was in right place to help them.

"...but eventually I started worrying that these actually were delusions."
Directly opposite of my experience, when they really got going strong (early teens) i worried they might be delusions. But then i applied the logic and rationality my Dad taught me: If the experience could be verified, validated it was 'real', if not it goes in the 'still unverified, not evidential even to myself' column. You have to understand that i was 13 or 14 and one of the experiences was a prophetic dream about one of my sisters in a hospital, before i was informed that she was and we'd be visiting her, diagnosed with Schizophrenia. At that time one of key factors of that diagnosis was the 'word salad' thing. Only i never had trouble following what she was getting at. The amount of detail in the dream confirmed during the visit was huge.

That opened a new path of research, i was already reading up on various faiths, folklore/myths/legends from global cultures, now i also spent time searching out what they had to say about such experiences. And of course read Edgar Cayce, an experiencer of the phenomena and J.B. Rhine who researched it

i don't want to hijack your thread with more examples, tho i will say that over time the sheer abundance of the experiences, the benefits (often balanced with difficulties and downsides as most things in life are) of them helped me accept their reality.

I'd also like to suggest you seek out a paranormal thread or two of OneEyedDiva, and revisit the 'Afterlife question thread' As several people talk about similar experiences on those threads. In fact i think it would be so much benefit to you i'm going search for them and 'mention' you in a comment so you can find them.
 
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@Della said
"Conversely, I don't think I've ever heard anyone say they were religious but not spiritual."

i've known a good number of people of various faiths who are both religious and spiritual! Absolutely! Religions can be instruments for experiencing and expressing spirituality.

However, my first feeling/reaction was that they may not deny or dismiss their own 'spirituality' but many religious folks are highly critical of any spirituality that does not conform to their views or that of their church/clergy.
 
I don't know how this fits into the conversation, but I feel compelled to write it, even if it doesn't.

My mother was in hospice care, dying of various cancers. I knew that her biggest fear was that she would be declared dead and cremated while she was still alive. This is the story of her actual death.

My sister woke me up and told me our mother had died. We always had at least one of us spend all day and night with our mother. It was 4:30 a.m. The nurse had already been in and verified the death, but we had to wait for another nurse who was the one who actually declared death.

I went straight to my mother and looked at the machine that she was attached to. Her heart rate was 70. I told my sister to get the nurse, stat. The nurse came in and said no worries, it's just a broken machine. Give me a break. I told her to replace it twice with another machine before the nurse would agree with me that it was unlikely that 3 machines in a row would have the same data and all be broken.

I knew my mother was dying, but she was not dead yet, and I said that to the nurse. We three stood by the bedside watching the machine for 20 minutes. Gradually she flat-lined. The nurse who travels around to various places to declare death officially would not arrive for a few hours.

I know about liver mortis, so 2.5 hours later, I checked that it had occurred, and it had. Only then was I fully convinced that my mother's worst fear would not come to pass. While I didn't like it that, if she could hear, she heard me arguing with the nurse about whether she was dead or not. OTOH, I was glad that if she did hear it she would be glad to know that I was not going to take any chances with her being dead or alive.

After that, all I had to do was make sure my sister didn't hire a funeral home that would charge her for things cremated people didn't need, like body washing, fixing her hair and makeup, and embalming. I washed my mother's body myself because, to my surprise, I wanted to. My mother's was the first dead body I saw, and it wasn't scary at all. (Her last words to us before we all went to bed that night were "Girls, don't be scared"). Maybe that's what she meant. Her body was still warmish when she died, but her hands and neck were ice cold. She looked peaceful, as though she were sleeping.

Well, I did see a dead body from pretty far away one time, but that doesn't count. I was at a wake, and the doors were open at both our wake room and the one across the hall. These were huge rooms in a funeral home. The folks in the other room seemed to be drunk and having a good time. The deceased was sitting up in his casket. They used some kind of board to prop him up. I thought that was very strange, but I don't have much experience with wakes and funerals. My little third cousin, a preschooler, wasn't going to see that, so I closed the door of our wake room.

Even though I knew she was dying (I read a book about the signs), I couldn't believe it -- she, at 82, had always been an energetic, brilliant, vibrant person, until cancer got her. When she told me about the cancer, I told her that whatever she decided to do, I would be fully supportive. It dawned on me after she died that she had decided to do nothing (stage 4 esophogus cancer metastized to her liver, stage 4 recurred cancer had metastized to her liver and lungs), except for letting my sister and I take her to MD Anderson. We had not been told the extent of my mother's cancer because she didn't tell us. I don't think I actually thought my mother would ever die until the signs of death will be soon showed up. Even at that point, medical personnel was still giving her 6-18 months to live. I cornered a doctor at the hospital and she verified that death would be soon. I didn't tell my sister that, though, because she was fully in denial. I was in denial that my triplets would be born premature, so I know how hard it is to persuade someone who is in denial of the truth. Up until the last moment, I was still insisting my babies weren't going to be born yet, put me on meds to stop pre-term labor. Doc said head of #1 is crowning, I said push him back in, then. Obviously I was terrified about the fate of my babies, and I figure my sister was terrified about our mom dying. Well, I know she was.
 
feywon said:
Many people crave the social aspects of 'belonging' to...something. i've read about some folks creating Atheist groups aimed at 'fellowship', community. Here's an article from 2016 in the Atlantic about it.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/09/oasis-secular-groups/499148/
Click to expand...
Take a look at the events page (there are others on Meetup that don't show up here as the site on Meetup is a closed group); this group is mostly Atheists and part of its mission is to form a secular community:

https://www.facebook.com/cflfreethought/events/?ref=page_internal

If anyone's interested in the rest of the mission, goals, etc., here's the website:

https://www.cflfreethought.org/
 
feywon said:
However, my first feeling/reaction was that they may not deny or dismiss their own 'spirituality' but many religious folks are highly critical of any spirituality that does not conform to their views or that of their church/clergy.
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When I went to church and was a Christian, our church was split between traditional churchgoers and people who had similar experiences to mine (including the pastor) or were very receptive to them. My experiences felt like they never did many people any good. The best thing about them was that they were verifiable.

I extremely rarely remember my dreams, so I don't have anything to offer in that area. I do have knowings that consist of me knowing a fact about someone (usually a very sad one), and then I just wait and pretty soon they confide in me. That did some good because a friend of mine had some horrible experiences in her childhood - which she had never told anyone, but she told me after I'd already realized it via the knowing. She had been treated for bipolar disorder for many years (but I never thought she had it after researching it - none of the symptoms). So after she told me that, I suggested she get a new therapist who would treat PTSD. That changed her life. I didn't, she did, I want to make clear. Being treated for PTSD is difficult for the client, and with her it took a few years. Plus she told me her then-current therapist would never let her talk about those horrible experiences. Not the therapist for my friend.

This type of knowing only happens when I have been meditating every day, and it doesn't come to me during meditation. I no longer meditate.
 
feywon said:
@WheatenLover said in part
"I used to have some pretty strange spiritual experiences when I was a Christian."
Me, too, throughout my life regardless of religious or spiritual orientation at the time.

"Because prayer is a form of meditation, at least for me, ..."
i've written at length in a couple of threads about the commonalities of prayer and meditation. either done properly is almost indistinguishable from the other. Many meditators, have several things happen--while not all unpleasantness disappears from their lives (we do live in an interactive reality in which the actions/words of others can impact us)--we will find ourselves more able to stay calm regardless of situation, to trust we'll find solutions to problems--for ourselves and others. And the synchronicity goes thru the roof, big and little things alike--and i count things that may have been inconvenient for me but were of benefit to others--because i was in right place to help them.

"...but eventually I started worrying that these actually were delusions."
Directly opposite of my experience, when they really got going strong (early teens) i worried they might be delusions. But then i applied the logic and rationality my Dad taught me: If the experience could be verified, validated it was 'real', if not it goes in the 'still unverified, not evidential even to myself' column. You have to understand that i was 13 or 14 and one of the experiences was a prophetic dream about one of my sisters in a hospital, before i was informed that she was and we'd be visiting her, diagnosed with Schizophrenia. At that time one of key factors of that diagnosis was the 'word salad' thing. Only i never had trouble following what she was getting at. The amount of detail in the dream confirmed during the visit was huge.

That opened a new path of research, i was already reading up on various faiths, folklore/myths/legends from global cultures, now i also spent time searching out what they had to say about such experiences. And of course read Edgar Cayce, an experiencer of the phenomena and J.B. Rhine who researched it

i don't want to hijack your thread with more examples, tho i will say that over time the sheer abundance of the experiences, the benefits (often balanced with difficulties and downsides as most things in life are) of them helped me accept their reality.

I'd also like to suggest you seek out a paranormal thread or two of OneEyedDiva, and revisit the 'Afterlife question thread' As several people talk about similar experiences on those threads. In fact i think it would be so much benefit to you i'm going search for them and 'mention' you in a comment so you can find them.
Click to expand...
Although I'm an Atheist, I'm certainly not going to say these things are or are not "real," whatever "rea'" means. I just wanted to say there's a wonderful, easy-reading book by a neurologist who talks about many of the the paranormal events that people have which can (not have to be) explained neurologically.

The Spiritual Doorway in the Brain: A Neurologist's Search for the God Experience by Kevin Nelson

There are certainly some things we can't explain; I've had plenty of experience with those. I know they happened; I just don't know how they happened. Then, again, we learn new things every day and what was once considered "magic" or the doings of a supernatural being are now seen for what they are -- the laws of physics, etc. So, if it seems to be "way out there," I just figure that some day there will probably be a non-supernatural explanation.
 
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Dancing_Queen said:
Although I'm an Atheist, I'm certainly not going to say these things are or are not "real," whatever "rea'" means. I just wanted to say there's a wonderful, easy-reading book by a neurologist who talks about many of the the paranormal events that people have which can (not have to be) explained neurologically.

The Spiritual Doorway in the Brain: A Neurologist's Search for the God Experience by Kevin Nelson

There are certainly some things we can't explain; I've had plenty of experience with those. I know they happened; I just don't know how they happened. Then, again, we learn new things every day and what was once considered "magic" or the doings of a supernatural being are now seen for what they are -- the laws of physics, etc. So, if it seems to be "way out there," I just figure that some day there will probably be a non-supernatural explanation.
Click to expand...
Personally, i don't classify anything as supernatural or paranormal they are naturally occurring things that we just don't have explanations for yet. i will sometimes use those words for convenience sake but often preceded by "so-called".

Once one accepts the notion that consciousness is not just a by product of physical brain and social conditioning, that neither matter or energy can be destroyed but they covert back and forth and that all living things have energy fields all sorts of things labeled as being outside the range of natural/normal make sense. Telepathy, psychometry, premonitions, remote veiwing (deliberately or in dreams).

For long time neurobiology has focused on understanding the our 'minds' considering only the physical aspects of the brain and essentially ignoring the mind or consciousness. Neuroplasticity goes a long way in explaining many of the 'phenomena', the results i've both experienced with meditation and witnessed among other meditators, but i think some of that is confusing cause and effect. In time, at current rate likely after i've transitioned, they may recognise and acknowledge that consciousness was the driving force of how our brains evolved and how they function, and that personal intention, goals influence the nuts/bolts of neurons and synapses that allows for what they are currently learning about neuroplasticity.

I am a big fan of science, but very aware of how rigid paradigms can be. In desperation to be considered a science the field of human psychology went to far in viewing the mind in mechanistic terms, with the notion that chemistry could solve all mental problems. In practice they created more problems because not only are things like dosage for individual needs important they were accurate diagnosis is crucial and Szasz did studies that showed that diagnosis often varies depending on each doctor's interests and areas of expertise, despite being presented the same symptoms and behaviors as each other.
 
WheatenLover said:
...

This type of knowing only happens when I have been meditating every day, and it doesn't come to me during meditation. I no longer meditate.
Click to expand...

Meant to mention In my comment with the responses to sections of yours above, many meditators will take 'breaks' from it because the synchronicity, premonitions and empathic 'knowings' become overwhelming at times. Most of us keep going back to it because we find our own lives seem to 'work' better and we like being to help others. Your friend did the hard part but she needed someone to help her see she had options. That is doing good in the world, that fits with the values of most every religious and spiritual system, as well as basic human morality that agnostics and atheists also practice.
 

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