Am I religious or spiritual?
I got to thinking about Christian Science and religion in general and about the stereotypes associated with people who say they are “religious.” When people ask if you are religious and you answer yes, I feel they automatically place false judgments on you like, this guy’s close-minded, or he is going to try to convert me or whatever.
It is hard to explain exactly but the bottom line is that I feel there are negative stereotypes associated with being “religious.” I also noticed it is much more accepted to say you are “spiritual” than religious, especially in the college atmosphere. I was thinking I could avoid a negative stereotype when people ask if I am religious to say “I am spiritual and study Christian Science.” But even with this answer there is a fear there of giving into the belief that I will be judged. I am still dealing with this, and know it’s kind of rambling and hard to understand, but I think it would be fun to talk about. The idea of being religious vs. spiritual in essence.
What are you thoughts?
Posted on Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009 at 5:36 pm | Follow responses with the RSS feedTopics: Christian Science, Sharing Christian Science | Tags: religious, spiritual
It is common these days for people to describe themselves as “spiritual, but not religious”, as if everyone understands what the terms mean. Here’s what I think: If you are “spiritual”, it means that you believe in a “higher power” of some sort, probably a divine and intelligent creator, and you are in search of enlightenment. If you are not spiritual, it means you are an atheist or a nihilist – and you believe there is nothing more to life than the obvious, and no enlightenment to be had. If you are “religious” you are spiritual in a dogmatic way, because any organized religion is inherently dogmatic. It is the rigid stricture of dogma that makes a religion a religion; it draws a line around a particular set of beliefs and rules and says “these are the things that make us us and them them, and this is how you can tell us apart”. Dogma is implicitly divisive, and thus organized religion is, ironically, contra-spiritual.