Why is Spirituality & Religion grouped together...

Birds of a feather...

Maybe, and maybe not. Anyway, it's got nothing to do with the subject, and so it's irrelevant in this context.

It doesn't?
Pardon me. You linked them yourself.

I did. But a debate on wether or not they are birds of a feather was not the intention of the thread.

But since english isn't my first language I may have misunderstood the expression. I took it to mean that spirituality and religion are two words expressing the same thing.

That depends on what Osso means by spirituality and religion. I find them to be fundamentally distinct phenomena, especially if we confine our definition of religion to organized "religion" (churchianity). As you may know by now, my definition of religion has to do with re-connection of the individual (at least in terms of his awareness) with the totality of Reality (re-ligare: ligare is from the root of ligament qua connector). Spirituality has to do with "spirit" which is very unlike the notion of ghost and very much like energy, strength, etc., what we mean when we talk of a spirited horse or the spirit of an age or place (e.g. zeitGEIST). In everyday speech, however, we do tend to limit spirituality to religious belief*. Is that what you mean, Osso, by birds of a feather?

* although as someone pointed out here recently, religiousity and spirituality can both be related to the quality of energy.

Cyracuz, I understand exactly what you are saying. Actually, Norway, I knew it from the time that I was little. Religion is a means of control, but spirituality is an inner sense of things, rather like the "peace that passeth understanding."

We can't explain it, but we are very much aware of it.

We're on the same page Letty.

The way I see it, any organized religion is a set of beliefs that one who holds to that religion adopts. To believe in these without question will likely prevent you from searching for answers, since all answers are given. This does not require you to think and feel. Only obey.

A true spiritual quest is to question these answers, to cooperate rather than obey blindly. To think and feel instead of believing whatever a person of supposed authority claims to be true. It might be true, but you should arrive at that conclusion as a result of personal experience, not because someone tells you.


JL

Perhaps the notions of spirit as ghost and spirit as energy aren't that far apart. Your comment about "the spirit of things" (an age or place) made me think of previous discussions where we've talked about how there are no true distinctions among things, merely projections of the percieving entity. No me and you, only perception creates such boundaries.

And this perception doesn't always alter when reality does. I am thinking of friends that have passed on. The concepts I have of them linger on, and sometimes they have an effect on my life, even though theirs are over. In that sense, they're ghosts, and they command some of the energy focused in my perception of self, so to speak.

But in light of what I've written above, and what we've talked about earlier, are they any less real even though the people who gave rise to the concepts of these personalities in my mind have gone away?

I surely didn't say they are the same thing. There is a connection, for some people.

Look at the categories on a2k. Would you like to multiply those? You may have your chance, as a2k is being reorganized, and the whole concept/organization of categories may be changing. I doubt the one or two busy people figuring out categories five years ago would halt at the idea that you don't like these two subjects being placed together. You'd like to see spirituality fit into sports?

Perhaps the organizers will show up and speak to your somewhat precious question.

Ah, I'm afraid I missed the point of the question of this thread. It never occured to me that Cyracuz was referring to the way topics are organized in the forums. I thought he was asking about why people IN GENERAL think of religion and spirituality as similar or identical. I don't think he was criticizing the organizers. Is that right Cryacuz?
Good night all.

Ah, I'm afraid I missed the point of the question of this thread. It never occured to me that Cyracuz was referring to the way topics are organized in the forums. I thought he was asking about why people IN GENERAL think of religion and spirituality as similar or identical. I don't think he was criticizing the organizers. Is that right Cryacuz?
Good night all.

Works for me

Excuse me gentlemen. You really missed the whole point here.

Cyracuz was very rude to Osso and what is in order here is an apology.
This happens a lot on these particular threads, spirituality, relegion, abortion, life, science that women are not welcome and are subjected to very obnoxious male behaviors .

Osso is a long time member and well respected and does not deserve cyber-bashing.

Sglass

I don't see how I was rude to Osso. I responded to his comments, and even though the words I chose were maybe not the friendliest, I think I gave an acceptable response. It was certainly not my intention to offend him, just to answer. But this was certainly not the point here.

But, Osso, if I offended you I am sorry for it.

And another thing, Sglass. Most often it is impossible to know the gender of the person behind the nickname, and it is really of little importance on an internet forum unless you're there to meet sex partners, which I assume we're not.

Anyway, JL is right. I was making a comment inspired from how the categories are grouped on this forum. Merely an observation, and if it's worthy of discussion, only time will tell. It was not a stab at the organizers. I have only gratitude towards those, for doing it at all. Great fun for many years.

But there really is a division between those who are religious and those that are "free-lance spiritualists", in lack of a better term. Letty has the gist of it, with her comments. I believe it is possible to become a person in spiritual growth, and I also believe that religion is a means of inhbiting such growth very often.

Speaking as a athesist with an interest in spirituality, I note that some atheist writers, like Dawkins, tend to lump religion and spirituality together, whereas others like Harris do not. IMO, this clearly leaves Dawkins exposed to the "charges" of reductionism and naive realism.
It is only by contrasting the the two terms within the same discourse area that "sense" can be made of them.

Calling yourself an atheist with an interest in spirituality implies that you yourself see a difference between spirituality and religion.

But this atheist writer, Dawkins, does he realize that science is just as much a result of human spirituality as is religion? Perhaps more so, since religion leaves a lot of room for manipulation and mind control that is very "unspiritual", and that serves mostly physical needs expressed as fear, greed or lust, and so on.

Granted, science serves a lot of physical needs, but the branch of activity itself stems from the curiousity if man.

JLN has expressed the difference between spirituality and religion well enough. IMO The point Dawkins misses is that even scientific "evidence" lies in the eye of the beholder, albeit that "scientific beholders" tend to be in universal paradigmatic agreement. This seems to be because Dawkins is unwilling to attempt the step of "transcendence of self" (a spiritual term) or "observation of observation" (a cybernetic term) perhaps because he feels this is a move towards semantic incoherence.

He may as well take that step fresco. He's incoherent generally so semantic incoherence should come quite easily to him.

Semantic incoherence is hard to avoid when moving into areas that challenge the dualisms of language, as trancendence of self does.

Cryacuz' statement that "Semantic incoherence is hard to avoid when moving into areas that challenge the dualisms of language, as trancendence of self does" could have been written by Fresco or myself. This is the burden that Fresco and I have been carrying for some time now.

Given my experience with Cyracuz and Osso (the latter in person) I can't imagine either one of them intending to offend the other. They are both among the highest quality individuals (pardon my elitism) of A2K.

Cryacuz you did get Osso's gender wrong. She is a lovely lady of high sophistication, artistic talent and humane principles. Now don't you feel like a sh*t head?