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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 ต.ค. 2024
- I learned a lot about theories of religion during my Masters and PhD in Religious Studies, but this process raised more questions than it answered. Religion for most of us has a common sense meaning, but is often different from person to person. Some think of spirituality as being fundamentally different, and others do not. Here are some thoughts on the subject!
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Another compelling video! It was interesting to hear this differentiation from someone with an academic background in this area. Your LGBT example is EXCELLENT and spot-on.
To me, religion always has been and always will be “institutional”, frequently with social and/or political agendas - a form of crowd control. It’s also “tribal”, which, from an anthropological view, is why it still thrives in the 21st century.
NOTHING about MY pantheistic spiritual practice is institutional nor tribal. Moreover, my spirituality was NOT indoctrinated - I discovered it by myself as a child during quiet times alone. My practice does NOT depend upon the approbation of others. It does NOT seek inspiration or guidance from some charismatic “leader”. It does NOT compel me to continuously shell out endless amounts of money to some “communal group”. It does NOT involve or require proselytizing others. It does NOT compel me to blindly adopt and unquestionably follow some manmade dogma, much less anguish for all eternity if I fail to do so.
Call it just semantics, but for me, my SPRIITUALITY is not at all religious!
To expand this topic further, I would be interested in hearing your analysis of cults, and just exactly how are they different from many “mainstream religions”.
I think your view on this and your strong feelings on it are such a good reason for academics not to just dismiss this distinction! Sure, one can blur these definitions somewhat to make religion look more like spirituality and vice versa, but I do think this distinction you make here is meaningful. Good question about cults, actually, I might incorporate that into a video about witchcraft...
I would say both terms are undefined and we follow our own path. This might be unsettling for some folks who think they need solid explanations. Nature doesn't care if you're an Oak or a Maple, you simply grow and sometimes more in one direction than another. Whether you call it religion or spirituality, it's all a personal journey.
I almost didn't recognize you with long hair as it's been a number of years since I watched your first video on Pantheism. I'm glad you popped up in my recommendations. Looks like I have some catching up to do on your videos. Take care and looking forward to seeing more videos! :)
Very true! At a certain point I think I let go of trying to pin them down too, it never would have made sense for me to do so as my beliefs are fluid and I don't like to become dogmatic. Haha yes my hair has grown a LOT over lockdown. Hope you enjoy the catch-up, good to see you on the channel again!
Thank you so for much for taking the time to make this in-depth video! Very much appreciated!
It definitely gave me a lot of input and touched on ideas/concepts that I hadn't heard of before. Looking a back, I guess a functional approach to spirituality was what helped me through times of deep uncertainty after leaving christianity, where I felt like I had to force myself to identify with the term 'atheist' because spirituality seemed so nebulous and not as clearly defined as religion. Although I didn't know how to justify being spiritual without any evidence in the classical sense, I came to the conclusion that, as long as a spiritual practice served to make me feel connected and centered, it was all the justification I needed and that gave me a sense of peace and inner freedom to embrace the part of me that longs to see the world through a mystical lense. I hope that made sense.
If we choose to define religion purely by its function, doesn't that mean that the term religion could be applied to many things that we wouldn't otherwise categorize that way? For example, if we define religion by the function that it gives us a sense of purpose, wouldn't we then also say that for some people, work, friendship or art is a form of religion? I'm surely missing something here, I've never looked into theories of religion before. Very informative video! If you have any recommendations for further reading, I'd love to check them out. Greetings from germany!
Yes, such a good point about "functional" spirituality. We can overcome a lot of mental hurdles by framing it that way, I think.
But your second point - yes! I actually edited out a long section on that. Some scholars cite this as problematic, i.e. following a football team shouldn't be classifiable alongside religions. But honestly I don't see the problem. Functional theories can end up seeming quite broad and "religion" can take on a meaning that it might not in common-sense use.
This is a superb video. I like the way you broke down religion in respect to spirituality. I myself do not have a psychological need to belong to anything or follow any script or pattern. Coming into the study of occult/religious/spiritual phenomena from being interested in demons and monsters, I have no set path or worry about finding what is reality. I have books ranging from ancient Christianity, Judaism, Sumerian beliefs to modern Satanism and it's various forms, necromancy, Thelema, Theosophy, Daemonolatry, Goetia, etc. But your video is very enlightening. Having left a Christian belief system, and it's restrictions years ago, i can truly understand where you are coming from.
Yes I like your point about worrying about what is reality... I think over the years I've embraced more and more the mystery of everything rather than trying to pin anything down.
Hi, Aine! Great video.
I don't know whether you're aware of the model for a definition of "religion" that I explain in my book "Atheopaganism: An Earth-honoring Path Rooted in Science", but it's essentially a 3-part model: that any religion will contain 1) a cosmology, or story about the nature of reality; 2) a set of promoted values; 3) a set of practices (rituals, holidays, etc.). This means that a religious path can be either solitary or communal, although some of the praxis may encourage gathering in groups.
As for spirituality, I see that as the *internal motivation* within a given individual to connect to the broader reality (be that a god, or the awe of nature, etc.), to share this experience with others and to practice rituals that transform consciousness.
In other words, a person's spirituality may be fulfilled or expressed through participation in a religion.
Anyway, I really appreciate the thinking in this video. Thanks for what you do! Mark Green
Thanks Mark! Oh, yes, I've stumbled upon your idea of Atheopaganism before but I haven't read your book, I must! K like this theory of religion, and especially of spirituality as the interior motivation. I think that's an accurate way to describe many people's experiences of the distinction between the two.
Hey and thanks for another great video..! For my whole adult life I've though of religion and spirituality with the terms exoteric and esoteric, exoteric meaning a person's dogmatic and ideological ways of thinking in a certain culture or religion, without paying much notice to actual practice of said religion's so-called spiritual methods. And esoteric meaning a person's personal practice of certain methods in order to achieve union with said religion's god or gods. Now, as both terms usually come from and consist of many philosophical and even psychological symbols, usually in the form of myths, the exoteric version often takes these symbols literally, while the esoteric version uses these symbols as pointers to something which cannot be expressed with words. And these symbols can be anything, Jesus or Jedis, what matters is what kind of results they produce. Most religions and their myths or dogmas have of course been thru the transformations from primitive science or ways to explain natural phenomenon, to adopting these explanations as symbols for something deeper or more personal (or just up to date), and sometimes returning back to the original form. Meaning most religions were probably exoteric first and esoteric later, altho there are exceptions. Are religions then useful, besides acting as exoteric backbones of societies, sometimes in a positive and sometimes in a negative way? I think that there are certain modes of experience or perspectives which can only be accessed through the use of symbols and so-called spiritual practices, as even with the help of for example psychedelic drugs these experiences show up in our mind often as indeed symbols. And the esoterics and mystics have known this through the ages, using the iconography and myths of their culture to achieve this, again sometimes turning previous often childish explanations of the world into more deeper symbols, and sometimes including totally new ones into the exoteric religion, hoping to wake people up. And again, the symbols can be anything that produces results, so whatever works for the mystic is fine. As long as it doesn't hurt anyone else. What the so-called mystical experiences are then? well that is another story :)
These are useful distinctions, and good question about the usefulness of religions. I think exoteric religion is useful really only in cultural and community-building contexts, and ideally should be mutable to the needs of that community.
@ Having experienced some ”mystical” / nondual states myself quite often, I always wonder what they actually are. Are they happening only in my brain, or is the truth a bit more complex than that? Does matter produce consciousness, or is everything actually something ”mental”? I do consider myself a pantheist, but idealism might be something to think about more.
@@avmimaginations1209 I ask myself the same thing all the time. I'd like to believe that it's something a bit more complex, and certainly my spiritual "gnosis"-type experiences place consciousness as all-pervasive. Not so sure about idealism, but there's definitely some interesting stuff in that realm, panpsychism, etc.
@ Yeah. I’ve thought of myself as a scientific pantheist / materialist (the God of Spinoza and so on), but I do realize us apes can’t possibly understand everything in nature. Lately I’ve thought of everything as information, and that information being fundamentally ”consciousness”, altho not necessarily self-conscious (as we are). But this would go well with panpsychism, atman-brahman etc. plus give meaning to my mystical experiences :)
@@avmimaginations1209 Hahaha "us apes can’t possibly understand everything in nature" great way of putting it. Yeah I think the informational model is a decent one, and like you say, helps to incorporate mystical experiences into a cosmological model.
Great video!! I wanted to comment and reflect on what I think is the function of my religious practice. I'm a pagan and a witch for context.
I think the main function for religion for me is behavioral regulation. I'd venture to guess it's a function many people use religious thought for as well.
As a person who experiences mental health issues, spirituality is how I successfully move myself into productive behavior. Casting a spell for a desire often gives me the emotional push I need to move myself out of depression and inaction, into healthy productive behavior.
It reinforces that behavior. I feel the love of deity when I follow through on my plans and behave the way I want to.
I think this is best done with personal individual religious beliefs. Christian's, for instance, regulated the behavior of their groups using commandments and doctrine. As well as the threat of eternal damnation. This is gross and weird to me.
However using religion thout on ones self can be freeing and empowering. Especially when it is focused on positive reinforcement instead of punishment.
Religious thought is the key to improving my behavioral health. I believe this would be backed up by science if I was observed closely enough to be honest with you.
Surely there are other functions religious thought performs for me. This is just the one that is most obvious to me at the moment.
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Hahaha yesss