Next reality topic – Religion vs Morality vs Spirituality.
I am going to split this into multiple parts, because there are multiple distinct thoughts I have on this topic. The first part I’ll give you my take on religion, morality and spirituality.
Religion has been called by Karl Marx the “Opiate of the masses”. My own understanding of the tenet of religion is a group of people sharing a system of beliefs with regards to the inexplicable (i.e. god, death, the unknown in general) for mutual comfort and understanding. Communities are formed, people share a common cause and beliefs, and work together to study and understand them. Or at least, that was how it began.
Religion has become something beyond this, though. More than just a place to belong and share beliefs and worship your chosen deity – it has become a defining point. Many people in some way or other identify with their religion in an almost racial or nationalistic way. Judaism is an excellent example of this. I was born and raised Jewish, and still consider myself Jewish – culturally. But I do not practice the religion of Judaism any longer. But I digress.
Religion has come to be something far more than just a group of people gathering to worship as a community. It has become a banner for war, it has become a beacon for intolerance, it has become a flag for isolation and separatism. And arguably, it has been this a LONG time now, be it during the Crusades centuries back, or in the current age of zealots and extremists, where religion has been made an excuse to persecute those who do not believe the same.
None-the-less, this is not the main brunt of my thought process I am laying out here. One of the key points that comes of those fervent in their belief system is that without religion, you have no spirituality nor morality.
And that is my philosophical discussion topic today. While religion CAN provide a template in which to create your moral compass and spiritual practice – it is NOT a total package. I firmly believe that these are three SEPARATE BUT EQUAL tenets – religion, morality, and spirituality.
It is entirely possible to be religious but amoral and not spiritual; moral, but not practicing any religion or spirituality; spiritual, but amoral and practicing no religion; or any combination therein. No one of these tenets can imply the other two, far as I have ever seen.
So lets break this down, then. Religion I have covered above, really. This is a means to bring together a mass of people to share a belief system to understand the impossible. Religion creates templates and rituals for different aspects of life, neat boxes to place one’s self into for comfort and community. That is the way of it, whether you are talking about any flavor of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, etc.
Morality is a code of ethical behavior. It is the code by which we determine right and wrong in any given community. I think morality is also VERY misunderstood. Like religion – there is NO ONE TRUE morality. What I consider moral YOU might not – and vice versa.
I think I have to tangent here to another core in my own belief system – pretty much NOTHING is truly black or white. It all falls into the grey or colored areas in the middle. And this to me is a big part of my own take on all three of the tenets I am putting forward here. This could become a VERY long post if I delve too deep into THIS part here.
Anyhow – morality. Morality, in my opinion, is an individual idea. We all have a different moral compass, and while we can easily agree to disagree, I don’t think anyone is any more right than any other. And there is no one true right way.
Yes, I recognize there are certain universal ideas of morality, but they come with grey areas, too. It is wrong to steal. Black and white, sure. But are you stealing wealth to amass more wealth – or are you stealing loaves of bread to feed your starving family? While both are arguably wrong – where’s the line in this situation? Can there be a wrong and a more wrong, and the consequence therein? Similarly – it is wrong to murder. Also pretty black and white. But are you murdering a guy simply ‘cause you do not value his life, or are you murdering him in the process of defending your OWN life? Again – the black and white gives way to shades of grey.
And then we get to sin. The idea of sin is that you have done something that is not considered moral, be it within your religious group, or local community. President Clinton was getting blowjobs from an intern in the Oval Office, and a lot of people took offense to this and considered him a sinner. But there are any number of leaders in Europe who very openly have both a wife and mistress – and this is not considered a sin, or amoral. So this becomes a cultural supposition – what is acceptable to one is not to another. This is the backbone of the entirety of the tenet of morality – and, yet something else to dive into another time – the reason I do not believe in the concept of sin. So how DO you define morality?
And thus we reach spirituality. What is this? To me, this is the belief in that which is beyond basic comprehension. It can be a belief in god, or the powers-that-be as I call them, or a pantheon of gods, or karma, or feng shui, or any other expression of belief in the immaterial. Atheism is the opposite of spirituality. Spirituality, to my mind, is believing in something beyond the physical universe we are in. Yoda stated it best – “luminous beings are we – not this crude matter!” That is to me the ultimate expression of spirituality – it is the belief in the unseen soul and what may lie beyond it.
Yes, religion in its inception was about a common community sharing spirituality and morality. Arguably, that is still its point. But these are still separate and equal tenets – as I have met more than my share of so-called ‘religious’ folk who are about as spiritual as my I-Pod, and utterly amoral or otherwise hypocritical.
Ok, so I DO have a point in all of this – it just requires a lot of exposition to get to it! Religion is not the answer. I have nothing against the idea of religion – what I have a problem with is the preaching of intolerance that religion often comes to represent. Note – I am not saying it ALWAYS is this way – but far too often for my liking.
Anti-abortion, anti-homosexual, anti-muslim, anti-christian, anti-interracial, anti-whatever, I don’t believe that religion meant to create exclusionism – I thought the point was inclusiveness? Why do people use their religious beliefs to break other people and be intolerant of THEIR ways? I recognize that this has ALWAYS been the way of this – history is full of holy wars and religious strife and persecution and so on and so forth.
And this is where I make my primary point – you do not need religion for morality and spirituality. They can and do exist apart from it. And if the world had fewer religious folk and more spiritual and/or morally focused folk – focusing on THEIR OWN morality and spirituality and not trying to make everyone else follow their way – I do think it might just be a better, brighter, more tolerant place for everyone.
Religion does not belong in public schools. Nor politics. Nor civic structures. Nor local or national infrastructure. Religion should be separate and apart from policy, especially when it comes in so many forms and practices and beliefs…and they LOVE to conflict with each other over their own rightness. A community of like believers can be a GOOD thing, I truly believe – but if they work together for understanding and community, not intolerance and separatism.
To conclude this very long winded entry – my thought process and idea I am presenting here may offend you. It may be that you utterly and completely disagree with me on this. But I welcome that – my whole entire point is that you should ask questions, and you should analyze what everyone believes – but only YOU can set your compass. Only you can determine where you own religious philosophy, morality, and spirituality lie.
If nothing else – I hope this contributes to opening the mind to possibility.
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