Are you spiritual but not religious?
People often say they are spiritual but not religious. Meaning they believe in something bigger than themselves but do not necessarily call it ‘God’ or follow any religious practices. Often, people fear the dogmatisation of religion not religion itself. People who do consider themselves religious fear being mistaken for religious extremists. Sadly, many religions have been misrepresented by religious extremism, with tragic consequences. And is it not possible that extreme atheism might also lead to tragedy?
Can atheism disprove God any more than religion can prove the existence of God?
For me, I feared, being thought of as ‘naïve’ for believing in anything religious since we now live in a world in which many of us are taught that science has ‘disproven’ religion. But even science has its limits. Plus, many great minds have been both scientific and religious in their thinking – Albert Einstein, Florence Nightingale, Erwin Schrödinger, Srinivasa Ramanujan to name a few.
Think about it, the question, does God exist? Cannot be clearly proven either way:
An atheist and a religious man walk into a bar and order a bottle of spirits. The religious man pours himself a drink and says, ‘this spirit is like that of God – I feel its power once it’s in me’. The atheist pours himself a drink and says, ‘this spirit is like that of god – its power is merely a delusion.’ They continue to debate the existence of God until the bottle is empty, so, they order another one. And the bartender says, ‘You won’t find any answers at the bottom of this one either’. But they ignore him and continue to drink until the religious man proclaims ‘I have lost my sight’ and the atheist tries to stand and drops down in a heap. And the bartender says ‘your argument is like this spirit – if you don’t know when to stop, its power, takes both your sight and your legs’.
Our beliefs may vary but our humanity is shared.
Believing in a religion or in atheism does not make you an intelligent person nor does it make you a good person. Our actions and relationships show our qualities much better than our beliefs.
Once we get past the superficial differences of religions, what we find are core values, shared by all spiritual practices; Love, compassion, goodness… Most people seek to develop such values whether they consider themselves religious, spiritual, agnostic or atheist. For me then, spirituality is about the deeper sense of life that we all share, life at it’s most meaningful.
Why does the spiritual or religious matter? That’s a big question. And you can find many books already written on the topic.
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