trying to understand the differences. started this topic on the xjwsforchrist forum as well and would like to ask jwn posters the same question
spirituality and religion - what are the differences?
by soft+gentle 68 Replies latest watchtower bible
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Balaamsass
Everything.....
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Jeffro
'Religion' is to 'spirituality' as 'McDonalds' is to 'hamburgers'.
Both usually involve a collection of irrational superstitions accepted without any reliable basis.
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poppers
Religion is imposed upon you by others and is directed by rules, dogma, and superstition. Spirituality comes from within and is a natural flowering forth of one's inner essence into the world around you. Religion doesn't necessarily foster spirituality, and in fact often suppresses it. Spirituality doesn't require religion, but it can be the inspiration for it.
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cofty
Until somebody defines spirituality I have no idea.
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Lozhasleft
What Poppers said very eloquently
Loz x
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Sulla
What cofty said. In the vernacular, spirituality seems to mean general, vague, feelings of grooviness with life, the universe, and everything. Religion, at least on this board, seems to mean people telling you what to do.
Oh well. I'm religious, just not spiritual.
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Fernando
From our family's personal experience:
Spirituality is about personal, organic (natural), deep, inner, transcendence, awakening, liberation, regeneration and transformation which results from reconnecting with God on his generous terms as outlined in the "unabridged gospel" message of grace, where a right and clean standing with him is IMPUTED as a free gift that cannot be earned, deserved or paid for.
Religion is unavoidably about contrived, supremacist, sectarian, cultic, legalistic, hypocritical and external transformation, under the control of a ruling religious clergy class (GB/FDS/Pharisees). Jesus called it "whitewashing graves", "cleaning the outside of the cup", "gnat straining" and "camel gulping". The fruits of the religious spirit that inhabits Pharisees is evident in all the deviance reported about the WBTS on JWN.
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jeremiah18:5-10
I recently read on another site an illustration of the difference between the physical man and the spiritual man which may fit this. They illustrated it as a physical man focuses on the artwork, a spiritual man the artist, a physical man focuses on the building a spiritual man the builder.
" One thing we know about a spiritual examination is that it is different from a physical examination. In other words, whereas a physical examination requires the use of the five senses, a spiritual examination does not. A physical examination can only take you so far because it is dependent on there being tangible things to examine. A spiritual examination begins where a physical examination leaves off because it is not examining tangible things at all.
An illustration might better explain the difference. A physical examination looks at the art; a spiritual examination looks at the artist. A physical examination looks at the science; a spiritual examination looks at the scientist. A physical examination looks at the building; a spiritual examination looks at the builder. In each instance, the physical examination looks only to the results; whereas the spiritual examination looks to the source, the meaning, the value."I don't know if that applies at all to your question, but it's an interesting musing nonetheless.
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Jeffro
Spirituality is coming up with your own irrational beliefs based on superstitions to explain things you don't understand.
Religion is buying into someone else's.