What is the different in SPIRITUALITY and RELIGION?

Answer 1

Dear Ajay,

I personally don't see much difference between the two.

I believe Religion is man-made and involves people who practice their beliefs in a church type of setting.

I believe as Eri says that Spirituality is a cop out for people who don't go to church.

I distinguish both from Relationship and that is not man-made. It comes from our Creator. He wants each and every person to draw near to Him and know Him and call upon Him with their JOYs and sorrows.

Answer 2

Spirituality and Religion are at two ends of a continuum. On the Spiritual end is freedom, care of the soul, getting in touch with nature and God's creation or whatever soothes, pacifies, and elicits feelings that you find helpful and pleasing. Spiritualists have a deep sense of understanding about the world and require no assistance in moving to their center and establishing peace in their minds. They hold to the spirit of the law and are not petty about some minor offenses that seem to break the letter of the law.

The Religion end is the strict, ethical, institutional, procedural end that provides people with laws, rules, and governance, a heirarchy. It is required for those who have little or no understanding or knowledge of spirituality. They need to be led like sheep by a shepherd, have doctrine spoon fed to them, and be disciplined when they err. They are spiritual infants. I see it as parochial, short-sighted, and missing the spirit of the law by adhering and holding others to the letter of the law.

I've belonged to both extremes. By the way, religionists now tend to end up in fundamentalism which is the extremist view that they are right and everyone else is wrong. This is what happens in religions.

Answer 3

Spirituality has nothing to do with religion. Religion is another insurance scam for the ignorant and the gullible. People for the most part are born into a religion and never get beyond it. Their parents, meaning well but not really very knowledgeable either sent their kids to the local church and Sunday school because it was the thing to do. As the kid grows up he or she becomes very resistant to outside criticism of their faith because we don't want to think our parents and teachers might be wrong. That then becomes the first hurdle to becoming an adult - you've got to start thinking for yourself. Meaning just because you were born there does not mean you have to stay there. However, we become so busy with family and career and bringing home the bacon we're usually just too tired to think much beyond it. Indeed 95% of people never get beyond this point. They spend their entire lives ignorant and gullible and seldom even dreaming there might be something better. That is just exactly where religion seeks to keep them. They want to keep you deaf dumb blind and stupid where you are, so they can continue to fleece you. And you, too busy or too tired, let them do it because it's easier to give someone some money and ask to be told what to do than to figure it out for ourselves. It's easier to fork over some dough than read a book or do anything that might threaten our time. We think we have bought some insurance with the man upstairs if we give some money,even though we never took it very seriously.
Spirituality, on the other hand will try to enlighten you and show you how to think for yourself. Exactly what the religious people will not do because then you might get away,then they couldn't control you.
Then when they preach hate and violence and promise you 70 virgins in heaven if you only kill some people you won't believe it. Then you have learned to think for yourself.
Now you have graduated to the top 5% of humanity who are at least open to the possibility that there might be something better. If you are smart enough to realize you need to read up on these things and study with an open mind,then everything you encounter becomes an avenue to it, to further your understanding. By now you have discovered Hinduism and Buddism and maybe you have read Plotinus and Plato and Alice Bailey and Jane Roberts and A Course In Miracles and a thousand and one other worthy authors each with their own variation on things,and you begin to discover these people are really all saying the same thing, each in their own way. They are all talking about truth, the same truth. Indeed there are as many paths as there are people but they all lead to the same place. They all lead home. No matter how diverse you were when you started out you begin to suspect we might really be all the same. Not only the same point of view but the same person. Beginning to suspect we might be playing all the parts all the time and only pretending to be different we arrive at some clarity as to what the "son" really is. He is us and when we begin to accept that is the "second coming". The Holy Spirit, long a trusted companion and guide and infallible advisor begins to be seen in a new light as our higher self. And with further clarity we realize no difference between us and we are one. And this is the Grail Quest, and we realize we have been on it all our lives,and we are the "Grail" and we have discovered ourselves and all the time we thought we knew ourselves and didn't even know who or what we were looking for. We look back and marvel at how far we've come and we see it's but a single step and all the others are still there, still blind in their cocoons of unknown search and to some of these we reach out a hand and they bite and kick and we endure and try again and seldom do they listen or even seem to care and we see ourselves in them and we know it's as it should be and we smile and go among them as the road unfolds before us.

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Answer 4

Religion is spirituality framed within the tenets of organized religion... adhering to a specific doctrine or set of beliefs in other words. I think when people reject religion but still describe themselves as "spiritual" what they're saying is that despite their rejection they nonetheless have a yearning to believe in something, or have an intuitive sense of something meaningful that exists outside the strict boundaries of science. I always viewed the word a bit suspiciously, as it strikes me as such an ambiguous, fence-sitting word... but I've used it myself and wasn't even quite sure what I meant by it at the time. I guess it would also encompass the whole gamut of alternative beliefs that run outside of organized religion... New Age, Wicca, astrology... etc.

Answer 5

Spirituality is when the Spirit of God indwells a person and changes him
or her to be more like Jesus every day.Jesus talked about the fruit of a
truly spiritual person in Matthew 5 chapter.
Religion is when man perverts what Gods Word the Bible says and
try to please God by mans own works.
In Christ in Love,
TJ57

Answer 6

Spirituality is what you feel as an individual; your personal relationship with God. Religion is a set of dogmas and traditions that you follow as part of a group who worships God in the same manner you do.

Answer 7

Religion is institutionalized spirituality. Spirituality is just the basic state of being spiritual, or akin to your non-material surroundings.

Answer 8

Spirituality focuses more on your relationship with God whereas religion is the variation of the man-made study.

Answer 9

Spirituality is developing you own spirit, religion is an organization one chooses to follow.

Answer 10

Religion is organized and has set beliefs and practices. It is what you do. Spirituality is within the person.