Anybody Here Not Religious But Spiritual?

[Alanantic]

I feel there's more potential in those relationships. Agree?

 

[Alanantic]

Really? Nobody? Well, sorry for all the posts. I just had nothing else to do today.

 

[mecca]

Really? Nobody? Well, sorry for all the posts. I just had nothing else to do today.

lol

 

[elsbet]

Really? Nobody? Well, sorry for all the posts. I just had nothing else to do today.

It's good you're here!
I don't really know what to make of the "spiritual, not religious" claim. Seems like it could mean something different for each person. What does it mean for you?

 

[Alanantic]

I was raised a Christian but it just wasn't enough. After that, I just went on my own search for Truth. I found it everywhere! All religions have some, philosophy, art... A favorite quote:
"Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned." – Anonymous

 

[Red Sky at Morning]

I was raised a Christian but it just wasn't enough. After that, I just went on my own search for Truth. I found it everywhere! All religions have some, philosophy, art... A favorite quote:
"Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned." – Anonymous

"Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily."

Colossians 2, 8&9

 

[JoChris]

I was raised a Christian but it just wasn't enough. After that, I just went on my own search for Truth. I found it everywhere! All religions have some, philosophy, art... A favorite quote:
"Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned." – Anonymous

Which denomination?

 

[Daciple]

I believe that you are Religious, regardless of your assertion you are not. What exactly does it mean to be Religious?

Definition of religious
1:relating to or manifesting faithful devotion to an acknowledged ultimate reality or deity
2f, relating to, or devoted to religious beliefs or observances
:scrupulously and conscientiously faithful

You clearly in the very short time here expressed that you have a faithful devotion to an acknowledged ultimate reality, and have also expressed ideologies on which you choose to observe or be devoted to that belief. You have also spoken as to how others should or should not expresss or observe their devotion to their beliefs and chimed in on which way and beliefs are correct or incorrect. You along with literally every human I personally have ever met and spoken to in real life or on a message board, are Religious, even so called Atheists are actually Religious, so much more so than many who label themselves observers of large well known Religions...

It is impossible to unmarry Religion from Spritiuality, all Spritiuality is the manifestation of faithful devotion to an acknowledged ultimate reality or deity, hence if one says they are Spritiual then they are by definition Religious. I believe that many are wishing to make the term Religion a dirty four letter word to be frowned upon, usually because they have traveled down a path in which they married themselves to an institution, didnt like what they found there and decided to reject the whole ideology thus choosing to equate Religion with the insititution they didnt find satisfying.

I have also found that most who wish to turn Religion into a dirty word have choosen to devote themselves to a form of Religion that inherently rejects Christ and the Word of God above all other ideologies and Religions. It has been interesting to see how often this has played out, I can see it already in the few months I have been back on this site, those who expressed one ideology then quickly falling away into some other ideology and essentially claiming a rejection of Religion. In my view those who do this, many times those who proclaimed to follow Christ, have been hurt or upset by those within Christidom and then due to their anger or frusration head down another path in search for the same exact thing they were looking for in Christianity. In those cases what I believe is that they never were truly worshiping or following Christ, they were following men and insititutions, if one has a true Born Again experience and truly meets the Christ of the Bible, you will never be able to deny Him, no matter what.

Sure you may get mad and angry at Him, you may even throw a fit like the little child you are and storm away from Him, but you would always know deep down what it was He did for you when you were Born Again, and that no matter what happens in this World, that He is who He said He was when He saved you. That new man isnt just some ideology in a book, its a true literal reality to anyone who has ever been truly Born Again. No matter what happens to me in this life, I cant ever deny what Christ has done, I cant ever deny what happened to me in the summer of 1999 and cant ever deny the things I have seen since then. I find it impossible that anyone who has truly experienced a Born Again moment in their lives to ever truly deny that as long as they live. To those who wish to tell me they were once Christians and then arent, I say you need to get Born Again, if you ever get Born Again you wont be able to deny it, even if you wanted to, and I can tell you at points in my life I wanted to deny God. Cant do it, ever...

 

[rainerann]

Yes, I would consider myself spiritual and not religious. The Bible says "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world." (James 1:27)

This is to be spiritual and not religious. The problem is that people think being spiritual is this introspective process that is essentially a selfish pursuit. Spirituality is love, serving others, with some introspection on how our actions affect others. All of this can be derived from James 1:27.

To have religion is to have rules based on superstition. Like one plus one equal reward, and that breaking certain rules defined by religion subtracts from this potential reward. Therefore, the religion controls the actions of the person in their pursuit of rewards from above.

The reason people choose religion over spirituality is that they are most often afraid of getting hurt. It is hard to love and serve others when they have the potential to hurt us and many religious practices are often created to avoid or deny the pain of betrayal or some other form of suffering in the world. Rituals can be distracting.

To be spiritual is to overcome this fear and love when you face betrayal, which is a consequence of our present while the verdict that we will receive when we stand before God's judgment may remain unknown or seem too far off to worry about.

New Age spirituality is also a way to avoid or dissociate pain in most cases as well. So most of our attempts to alleviate pain in either extreme, are what separate us from God and can make it difficult to understand Him or know Him.

Another verse on the spiritual life.

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no Law. " (Galatians 5:22-23)

So yes, I consider myself spiritual and not religious.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[Aero]

I don't think that love and peace can exist together. The phrase "kill them with kindness" comes to mind here. Because love is a destructive force. We can give love a flattering definition and polish all the edges, but it's still a jagged blade.

What I'm saying is you can follow all those "Godly" virtues, and still be throwing weapons. Still have a deep fire burning within the depths of your soul. And that fire can't be contained by earthly ideas. The most positive mind has the strongest fire burning at that depth.

I really do believe that too. I try to avoid the whole positive vs negative game. I think in terms of healthy vs unhealthy. And like I said. A healthy virtuous person, is still very dangerous. They might be the most dangerous, just not on the surface.

 

[Alanantic]

"Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily."

Colossians 2, 8&9

Oh, please. You're "religious"...UNLESS...you can quote from...Gita. Here's an example:

"When goodness grows weak,
When evil increases,
I make myself a body.
In every age I come back
To deliver the holy,
To destroy the sin of the sinner,
To establish righteousness."

Krishna, Bhagavad Gita

 

[Alanantic]

Which denomination?

Why is that important to know? In the past, for me.

 

[Zoidberg]

Religion debates, my favorite! Here's my opinion.

 

[Alanantic]

I believe that you are Religious, regardless of your assertion you are not. What exactly does it mean to be Religious?

Definition of religious
1:relating to or manifesting faithful devotion to an acknowledged ultimate reality or deity
2f, relating to, or devoted to religious beliefs or observances
:scrupulously and conscientiously faithful

You clearly in the very short time here expressed that you have a faithful devotion to an acknowledged ultimate reality, and have also expressed ideologies on which you choose to observe or be devoted to that belief. You have also spoken as to how others should or should not expresss or observe their devotion to their beliefs and chimed in on which way and beliefs are correct or incorrect. You along with literally every human I personally have ever met and spoken to in real life or on a message board, are Religious, even so called Atheists are actually Religious, so much more so than many who label themselves observers of large well known Religions...

It is impossible to unmarry Religion from Spritiuality, all Spritiuality is the manifestation of faithful devotion to an acknowledged ultimate reality or deity, hence if one says they are Spritiual then they are by definition Religious. I believe that many are wishing to make the term Religion a dirty four letter word to be frowned upon, usually because they have traveled down a path in which they married themselves to an institution, didnt like what they found there and decided to reject the whole ideology thus choosing to equate Religion with the insititution they didnt find satisfying.

I have also found that most who wish to turn Religion into a dirty word have choosen to devote themselves to a form of Religion that inherently rejects Christ and the Word of God above all other ideologies and Religions. It has been interesting to see how often this has played out, I can see it already in the few months I have been back on this site, those who expressed one ideology then quickly falling away into some other ideology and essentially claiming a rejection of Religion. In my view those who do this, many times those who proclaimed to follow Christ, have been hurt or upset by those within Christidom and then due to their anger or frusration head down another path in search for the same exact thing they were looking for in Christianity. In those cases what I believe is that they never were truly worshiping or following Christ, they were following men and insititutions, if one has a true Born Again experience and truly meets the Christ of the Bible, you will never be able to deny Him, no matter what.

Sure you may get mad and angry at Him, you may even throw a fit like the little child you are and storm away from Him, but you would always know deep down what it was He did for you when you were Born Again, and that no matter what happens in this World, that He is who He said He was when He saved you. That new man isnt just some ideology in a book, its a true literal reality to anyone who has ever been truly Born Again. No matter what happens to me in this life, I cant ever deny what Christ has done, I cant ever deny what happened to me in the summer of 1999 and cant ever deny the things I have seen since then. I find it impossible that anyone who has truly experienced a Born Again moment in their lives to ever truly deny that as long as they live. To those who wish to tell me they were once Christians and then arent, I say you need to get Born Again, if you ever get Born Again you wont be able to deny it, even if you wanted to, and I can tell you at points in my life I wanted to deny God. Cant do it, ever...

What I guess I was shooting for are those who's "beliefs" aren't PRIMARILY founded in a particular religions. Like I said I've found an appreciation and truth in ALL the world's scriptures, in addition to philosophy, art, and contemporary writings. I'm still searching. I'm looking for "explorers" to compare notes with.

 

[Alanantic]

Religion debates, my favorite! Here's my opinion.

Seen that before. Saved it to my pics!

 

[Alanantic]

Yes, I would consider myself spiritual and not religious. The Bible says "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world." (James 1:27)

This is to be spiritual and not religious. The problem is that people think being spiritual is this introspective process that is essentially a selfish pursuit. Spirituality is love, serving others, with some introspection on how our actions affect others. All of this can be derived from James 1:27.

To have religion is to have rules based on superstition. Like one plus one equal reward, and that breaking certain rules defined by religion subtracts from this potential reward. Therefore, the religion controls the actions of the person in their pursuit of rewards from above.

The reason people choose religion over spirituality is that they are most often afraid of getting hurt. It is hard to love and serve others when they have the potential to hurt us and many religious practices are often created to avoid or deny the pain of betrayal or some other form of suffering in the world. Rituals can be distracting.

To be spiritual is to overcome this fear and love when you face betrayal, which is a consequence of our present while the verdict that we will receive when we stand before God's judgment may remain unknown or seem too far off to worry about.

New Age spirituality is also a way to avoid or dissociate pain in most cases as well. So most of our attempts to alleviate pain in either extreme, are what separate us from God and can make it difficult to understand Him or know Him.

Another verse on the spiritual life.

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no Law. " (Galatians 5:22-23)

So yes, I consider myself spiritual and not religious.

Just my 2 cents.

Yes, but...can you quote from anything else?

 

[Zoidberg]

Seen that before. Saved it to my pics!

Amazing! I believe in your opinion. I was raised a Catholic, but admittedly I am looking for the truth of why we were created. I just did not feel like sitting in a Church, singing some Hymns, listening to some Bible verses, getting the Eucharist, and feeling like you have Arthritis wasn't working for me. The world is always a spectacular site to me, the way it comes together into one, all of the different landscapes, animals, etc. I just need to find out the truth of why we were created in this world.

My opinion is that our society will always make advancements in technology. We will eventually build spaceships, have wars over spaceships, and fly across the galaxy to other Planets. Our minds will still have the same flaws, but we will advance towards goals.

The end of the world is not coming for a long time; there's even no date in the bible. We must work to prevent Climate Change and Global Warming from affecting our Planet. We must look towards the future.

 

[rainerann]

I don't think that love and peace can exist together. The phrase "kill them with kindness" comes to mind here. Because love is a destructive force. We can give love a flattering definition and polish all the edges, but it's still a jagged blade.

What I'm saying is you can follow all those "Godly" virtues, and still be throwing weapons. Still have a deep fire burning within the depths of your soul. And that fire can't be contained by earthly ideas. The most positive mind has the strongest fire burning at that depth.

I really do believe that too. I try to avoid the whole positive vs negative game. I think in terms of healthy vs unhealthy. And like I said. A healthy virtuous person, is still very dangerous. They might be the most dangerous, just not on the surface.

I actually agree with you. Love is more of a driving force rather than a Valentines day card. The point I was making is that love doesn't seek to protect itself from opposition. This is kind along the lines of what you are saying here.

The prophets are some of the best examples of this kind of love. They would act in a way that was often rejected by others but refused to change in order to prevent this rejection.

Love is often hard for people to understand. Have you ever tried reading the book of Jeremiah Aero? I think you would find it encouraging.

 

[rainerann]

Yes, but...can you quote from anything else?

I don't need to, these are the best. However, I can quote from other sources when there is a reason to do this, but in the pursuit of truth. A lot of information is false.

I think we would all do better taking more math classes than trying to study spirituality from a million different perspectives.

 

[Alanantic]

I don't think that love and peace can exist together. The phrase "kill them with kindness" comes to mind here. Because love is a destructive force. We can give love a flattering definition and polish all the edges, but it's still a jagged blade.

What I'm saying is you can follow all those "Godly" virtues, and still be throwing weapons. Still have a deep fire burning within the depths of your soul. And that fire can't be contained by earthly ideas. The most positive mind has the strongest fire burning at that depth.

I really do believe that too. I try to avoid the whole positive vs negative game. I think in terms of healthy vs unhealthy. And like I said. A healthy virtuous person, is still very dangerous. They might be the most dangerous, just not on the surface.

We each have a point of view and a rationale behind it. That's the beauty of egocentric consciousness!

Amazing! I believe in your opinion. I was raised a Catholic, but admittedly I am looking for the truth of why we were created. I just did not feel like sitting in a Church, singing some Hymns, listening to some Bible verses, getting the Eucharist, and feeling like you have Arthritis wasn't working for me. The world is always a spectacular site to me, the way it comes together into one, all of the different landscapes, animals, etc. I just need to find out the truth of why we were created in this world.

My opinion is that our society will always make advancements in technology. We will eventually build spaceships, have wars over spaceships, and fly across the galaxy to other Planets. Our minds will still have the same flaws, but we will advance towards goals.

The end of the world is not coming for a long time; there's even no date in the bible. We must work to prevent Climate Change and Global Warming from affecting our Planet. We must look towards the future.

Are you a SyFi fan? As a kid I loved Isaac Asimov, Heinlein, etc. I've always been future oriented. Be Here Now is still a difficult concept for me...