I am having a discussion with a friend who believes by the definition of the word "religion" and "organized" that spirituality falls within the definitions, hence, spirituality is considered an organized religion.
A particular area of spirituality/spiritism, channeling, he also considers to be "organized religion". I wanted to know, from people who practice spirituality, do you consider yourself part of an organized religion?
BTW, I think he is wrong, as spirituality doesn't have the same structure as organized religions have.
[QUOTE=alanna25;314969]I am having a discussion with a friend who believes by the definition of the word "religion" and "organized" that spirituality falls within the definitions, hence, spirituality is considered an organized religion.
A particular area of spirituality/spiritism, channeling, he also considers to be "organized religion". I wanted to know, from people who practice spirituality, do you consider yourself part of an organized religion?
BTW, I think he is wrong, as spirituality doesn't have the same structure as organized religions have.
Thoughts?
Alanna[/QUOTE]
It would completely depend, alanna25, on how one defined 'spirituality'. I would suggest that authentic spirituality has nothing to do with either organized religion, spiritism, channelling, or any other form of delusion, but the relationship of a conscious mind with the cosmos.
Look at the awe and wonder in a child's eyes as water runs through his or her fingers and you'll get an insight into what real spirituality is all about.
It doesn't involve either religious dogma or the inward emptiness that leads to the pathetic gobbledegook of spiritualism.
[QUOTE=Namchuck;336006]It would completely depend, alanna25, on how one defined 'spirituality'. I would suggest that authentic spirituality has nothing to do with either organized religion, spiritism, channelling, or any other form of delusion, but the relationship of a conscious mind with the cosmos.
Look at the awe and wonder in a child's eyes as water runs through his or her fingers and you'll get an insight into what real spirituality is all about. It doesn't involve either religious dogma or the inward emptiness that leads to the pathetic gobbledegook of spiritualism.[/QUOTE]
The kind of closed-mindedness and arrogance that you are demonstrating here also does not lead to real spirituality. For many people, spirits and the spiritual world are reality because they experience personally. You can't tell someone who has seen spirits that they don't exist. For these people, they find just as much fascination in exploring these realities as you say a child finds in running water through his/her fingers. This doesn't mean they are delusional. It probably means that they are aware of realities that you are blind to.
If you come in here and insult different belief systems, you're no better than the worst fundamentalist religious believers.
The way I see it, spirituality is an element that may or may not be a part of any organized religion.
I mean, what is the spiritual? At it's most basic, it has to relate to our own spirit. Which some people don't even think we have; they think the kind of self-awareness that we think of as "higher functioning" consciousness is simply a by-product of evolution.
But that's a guess. Spirituality is separate from Science because Science is at a loss to explain spirit. Science is good at the What? and How? but not so hot on the Why?, I mean, as in, like, why is it there at all in the first place?
That's where religion comes in. First comes the experience. Then comes the attempt to make sense of it, explain it, put it into some kind of context. Science can do that with the material world. But the intricacies of mind and spirit, thoughts, ideas, dreams, etcetera etecetera... not so good. But Religion doesn't have to "prove" it's assertions the way Science does. Because most religions rely upon received wisdom, passed on to us from somebody else's direct experience.
Spirituality, I think, is the experience. So Look at the awe and wonder in a child's eyes as water runs through his or her fingers echoes (deliberately or by chance, I dunno) Blake's lines about seeing heaven in a wildflower and eternity in a grain of sand. It's understanding, in an intuitive, spiritual way, how it's all connected. And nobody needs religion to be able to do that.
Why not consider science as a help and aid to finding spirituality?
Science examines life experiences for their meaning. Many believe it can only happen with the 5 senses. But many scientists are seeing the world more as a 'cosmic dance of energies' than a fixed machine in modern thought.
In psychic development (and science is looking in that direction also) we use our 5 senses that normally apply to the material existence and add 2 more: intuition form the gut and I know from the heart. Psychic development can be done with or without spirituality - that is personal choice.
Spirituality within expands with all life's experiences. Religion is one of those experiences. And religion can be understood from a science point of view as well.
Why not consider science as a help and aid to finding spirituality?
Science examines life experiences for their meaning. Many believe it can only happen with the 5 senses. But many scientists are seeing the world more as a 'cosmic dance of energies' than a fixed machine in modern thought.
Funny,, I can't think of any instance where science has found "meaning" in life experiences. Science is good at telling us that something happened and the mechanics of that something, or that something simply is, and what that 'is" is comprised of.
Where's the meaning in that? Seems to me any meaning is meaning simply overlaid on it by the individual. It's arbitrary. Meaning, that take fifty people and an event, and you'll most likely get 50 different "meanings" of that event, even if science can tell you unequivocally what happened from a material point of view.
