I stumbled across this old topic and...well you know me.
The topic was started by an old member named Pelican(No Longer Active)
Topic Starter writes:
I heard this saying recently :that religion is for those who are afraid of going to hell and spirituality is for those who have already been.
I believe many percieve them to be the same. Personally I believe they are totally different just as the saying implies.
Religion is concerned with knowing god and the afterlife.
Spirituality is concerned with knowing self and this life.
Does religion stunt spiritual growth? Does spirituality promote growth? Or alternatively, have they absolutely no connection?
I am only going to focus on posts made(then) by current active members.
Larni writes:
I actually hate the word spiritual. It gets bandied about the place a great deal in the wrong context.
Spirituality implies some etheric 'spirit' that is somehow distinct from the physical world: much like religion implies some deity (in most cases) somehow distinct from the physical world.
Either way you cut it both invoke something distinct from the physical world.
Knowing yourself and the world has nothing to do with spirit; it is simply being self aware and having an ability to be mindful of your self and environment.
Neither spirituality or religiosity are required.
So I responded. And I think very similar if not approximately as I thought and believed then:
Phat in 2008 writes:
In my world of definitions, religion is mans set of rules and established dogma. Spirituality is the communion between God and man.
Knowing God helps us to understand ourselves.
Going to church only provides us with the dogma of religion.
Some folks believe that not everyone knows God, but that everyone knows about God. Others believe that God is in everyone and that through the process of getting to know ourselves, we find the inner peace that embodies Him. Dogma taught me that Jesus was/is the only way to God. Perhaps in seeking to know myself, I am also seeking to know Christ in me.
"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." ~Mark Twain "
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“…far from science having buried God, not only do the results of science point towards his existence, but the scientific enterprise itself is validated by his existence.”- Dr.John Lennox
“The whole war between the atheist and the theist comes down to this: the atheist believes a 'what' created the universe; the theist believes a 'who' created the universe.”
- Criss Jami, Killo
“The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of a doubt, what is laid before him.” — Leo Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God is Within You
(1894).