Philosophy: Religion and Spirituality

Many people don't realize there is a difference between religion and spirituality. Religion often boils down to following a set of prescribed rules of dos and do nots despite what else it may say. One should not murder. One should not steal. Ask a religious person why she doesn't steal something from the store when there's no one around and she'll tell you that it's against some religious figure, divine being, or holy book's teachings. Maybe it's even all three. Whoo hoo.

That is not the case with spirituality. You don't steal when you can because you feel it within you that it's against the way of nature. Your reason is not based on prescribed formulas of right or wrong regardless of whose authority it originates from. There is no divine law you just broke. You don't commit such an action because you feel at peace within yourself when you don't do such a thing.

With every rule there is an exception and that's the problem with blindly following some religion. Holding religious tenets can make you quite a fool though you may fool yourself into thinking you're actually wise.

Case in point, a natural disaster just struck and half the town is deserted. There are looters everywhere ransacking shops and such. You go in a jewelry store and sees that there's a few diamonds and pearls in a dimly lit corner that people have missed. But you realize that as the night goes on and before help arrives, there's no way every looter will overlook it. What do you do?

If you say "God says I should not steal and other people will certainly obey this too and if not let God punish them", you just leave it where it is and go on your merry way out of the city. Shortly afterwards, some gang leader sees them and buys some more weapons and drugs with the money from selling them when things return to normal. God somehow doesn't punish him and he turns a few more kids into crackheads or gang members.

On the other hand, if you say "I'll borrow it for the time being so that other less decent people wouldn't just steal it and never give it back. I'll track down who the owner was when things return back to normal and give him or her back what's rightfully his or hers.", you'll gladly take them.

Let's just say you never manage to track down who the owner was. Was it wrong for you to steal the jewels? In that case, it depends on what you do with them. If you sell the jewels to have money for a vacation I believe so. But if you sell them to donate to a charity I believe stealing them was still good.

There are no rules that's not meant to be broken given the right circumstances. Following rules from a holy book without constant reflection on when to apply them actually makes you more foolish though you might be less selfish. Good job. You're no longer quite a selfish person seeking material gratification; instead you're now more of an idealistic fool who thinks you're actually wise. I'm sure being a fool is better than a hedonist but I'm not sure it's much of an improvement.

As another example, let me talk about Christianity in this country. I have met many Christians who are nice (though I have met a few that's not so nice but that's another topic). But there's two kinds of nice. Some of them are genuinely nice while others are religious nice. By the latter, I mean that you can tell they're only nice to you because some book they follow says so. You can sense their nice is somehow forced. If they didn't follow the book's teachings you can be sure that they wouldn't be this nice to you.

I find that very disturbing for the main reason that if so much of their actions and attitudes are determined by following those teachings, do they ever think for themselves? Or do they just reference the book or their pastor's teachings on what to do just about everytime something comes up? I really wonder how much of their actions are up to themselves to decide and how much they relegate to some book or person's teachings. Maybe this is why I find many of these religiously nice people to be a terrible bore if not merely annoying. Given any hypothetical situation, it's very predictable how they'll react. *Yawn*

There's countless other examples of how following a religion actually makes you more foolish than wise. I'll just list out a few I thought of here that's especially applicable in the states:

- Condemning the theory of evolution without understanding how scientific theories work

- Claiming abortion to be wrong regardless of the mother's circumstances

- Condeming gay people as sinners who should miraculously turn straight even though the tendency is often inherently biological

- Talking to people of other beliefs and telling them that they're definitely going to be severely punished by God if they don't convert

- Evangelizing to people who don't really need evangelizing and who's actually more spiritual than you though they don't agree with you on certain "fundamental" principles

- Believing people who can dreamwalk, dream of the future, tell the future of people, spiritually sense their surroundings, etc. to be charlatans or even worse practitioners of evil sorcery

The way to do this is not to think about by what rules or holy words should you do or not do. Instead just reflect on the consequences of an important decision on the world. By world I'm referring to the general sense of anyone or anything including yourself. If the way you take causes greater disharmony in the world in the end, don't do it. On the other hand, if it causes greater harmony or has no effect on the world, why not do it? It's always possible to follow a religion and be spiritual instead of "religious".

There is a caveat here though. I do believe that some people do need religion. Not everyone is sensitive enough to the needs of themselves, other people, or the planet's well-being. Some people are not born that way. They cannot or have a hard time feeling the pain of others. Maybe they somehow are born or have grown long accustomed to even attaining pleasure from hurting others. In these cases, I believe strictly following a religion to be a powerful means of control. The alternative can be much worse.