Spiritual vs religious

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I know a few AA diehards who credit AA for many years of sobriety. Decades actually. No one wants to knock this.

But it seems to be more of a lifestyle than a support group. Almost a quasi religion that expects a lifelong commitment.
 
I'm not knocking that it works for a lot of people. I'm just saying it turns off some people for a couple different reasons that I think are quite reasonable.

Do they have AA meeting options that are less higher-power-y?
 
paradox3 said:
Is there really a difference between these two concepts?
Or is it an artificial line in the sand?
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The split between spiritual and religious is real, but recent and culturally narrow. For most of history they named the same thing: a bond with the sacred lived inside tradition, with its texts, rituals, leaders, and community. Mystics and monks were spiritual because they were religious.
The word spiritual has since stretched. It once meant belief in spirit or God. Now it can mean concern with the deeper or non-material side of life, which may be fully secular. It still signals belief in something larger for many, but that larger thing might be God, nature, humanity, or simply depth beyond the everyday. The word has stretched so far it risks losing specific meaning.
The modern divide grew in the West over the last two centuries as people kept practices like meditation while rejecting dogma and authority. Spiritual but not religious became a way to seek meaning on personal terms. But the shift goes deeper than style: religion implies submission to something received; spirituality implies sovereignty over one's own meaning/making. This relocates authority from tradition to the individual.
Today religion leans on external authority and shared rites. Spirituality leans on inner authority and personal practice. The line is porous. Many religious people are experiential, and many spiritual people echo old dogmas in new language: the universe, vibration, energy. They borrow the gravity of the sacred while rejecting the weight of tradition. This is genuinely new, not just individual curation, but a claim to the authority of the sacred without its constraints.
In much of Asia the split never quite fit. The distinction marks a real shift in how the West relates to the sacred, but it is young and not universal. It describes our moment more than the long span of human memory.
 
Pavlos Maros said:
The split between spiritual and religious is real, but recent and culturally narrow. For most of history they named the same thing: a bond with the sacred lived inside tradition, with its texts, rituals, leaders, and community. Mystics and monks were spiritual because they were religious.
The word spiritual has since stretched. It once meant belief in spirit or God. Now it can mean concern with the deeper or non-material side of life, which may be fully secular. It still signals belief in something larger for many, but that larger thing might be God, nature, humanity, or simply depth beyond the everyday. The word has stretched so far it risks losing specific meaning.
The modern divide grew in the West over the last two centuries as people kept practices like meditation while rejecting dogma and authority. Spiritual but not religious became a way to seek meaning on personal terms. But the shift goes deeper than style: religion implies submission to something received; spirituality implies sovereignty over one's own meaning/making. This relocates authority from tradition to the individual.
Today religion leans on external authority and shared rites. Spirituality leans on inner authority and personal practice. The line is porous. Many religious people are experiential, and many spiritual people echo old dogmas in new language: the universe, vibration, energy. They borrow the gravity of the sacred while rejecting the weight of tradition. This is genuinely new, not just individual curation, but a claim to the authority of the sacred without its constraints.
In much of Asia the split never quite fit. The distinction marks a real shift in how the West relates to the sacred, but it is young and not universal. It describes our moment more than the long span of human memory.
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It is quite a gap eh! So the word goes ... and it too slips by ...
 
In such a stretch of word is there anon? Anon defined as "its coming" and there it was already gone before you had a sense of it ... and thus anon sense ... filling the need for incarnate; being something that appeared not as it seemed ... at least according to one definition that could convert discussion into hostile exchange ... because we do not know and Beta (the second one). A series of number s was initiated as nominal ... but the literalists denounced numinous matter as secular ... not sacred in the vernacular sense!

Run such words by a stone and it will be awed into violence as it is eroded ... a type of relative kinesiology! So there it was as already departed in good sense ... the reason why mortals fade out ... boredom at the best of times ... it it isn't spectacular they won't have it!

Celibacy and its counter evolves ... with a lot of sparklers ... so the initiator needed some powdered irony ... just imagine! And yet we still have no end of responses ... because of a populace of eclectic know-it-alls that spread and stretch so we can get some transparency ... it happens with paired ions in matrix when colliding with light ... and thus Lamb death ... a fuzzy end? Like when one falls off at night when circles with dark Ness? That stuff travels ... especially under the trees as Machiavellian mate ... not Gabriel ... his counter ... the outsider placing a number on it ... numinous?

That'll start an out rage ... that external aura ... with an article that's elle Aura causing a shock and drawing out the OHC M'n ... where there was nothing prior ... but is was fallen into as the D-K Curve ... kind'a like Dicky as Richard moving over the hills and D' ale ... Adam'δ thing ... that numbed us into a dense piece ... note that which is mostly uncertain ... is likely to depart the established portion!

In short I don't know a lot about ultimate big black enigmas ... because they cause ultimate debate ... it goes on and will come about ... why?
Prior dissatisfaction by those that initiated the item of comprehension as not. Not what? Its incomprehensible ... because of the unreachable ends ... being a long way off an this pha resides ... beyond us ... extreme flamers! You've encountered them ... be kohl and carry some light ... darkness can absorb deeply differentiating absorption from adsorb! It is the rub that takes time ... unguent? Un goo n'd! No longer a guan ...
 
paradox3 said:
So where does belief fit in? Are there both spiritual and religious beliefs?
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A follower can follow a person or an institution, One need not be labelled Christian, for instance, to be a follower of Jesus, but the institution would prefer followers of them to use the moniker, so make it 'sound' like they follow the same ideals. That of course is another matter.
 
Institutions are preferred to keep folk off-base ... if they knew anything consider who would find themselves in a detrimental and degrading position ... empirical folly?

Consider the myth of One Flew Over ... would that have been Gabriel? Dark as the depth of Nacht ... thus knocked ...
 
For me spiritual means connected or seeking connection, sort of a superego thing. Seeking meaning is an ego kind of thing, part of seeking control. Seeking meaning seems like seeking justification for being. It is okay to just be.
 
Spiritual.

I was just thinking that if I were Jesus, I’d be saying to God, “I don’t want to be a Messiah. I’m just a human with human feelings. If you are all loving and knowing and merciful - can’t you just fix it so we all live in peace together with individualized happy lives? If you put us here - you could’ve created those conditions. I know you have the power and the mercy. If people believe you’re just a God of hard, violent knocks, this quagmire of fear and anger and injustice won’t stop. You know what’s going on is scary - why torture peoples’ minds with ongoing fear? Crucifying me isn’t going to make a difference in 2000 years, it’ll just create extremes of disagreement and war. I’ve learned enough about human behaviour to see the trajectory. If you want more of your kids’ respect don’t be so nasty.”
 
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Will there always be people that believe they are being crucified ... some alien complex?

Some of us were crucified long ago and are justified learning how to get out of it ... the 3 forms of office (bureaucracy) wish to wield a fierce grip ... it is gravid ... that 4 th portion that allows a 5th in the epistemology ... quintessence? A Ba 've applets?

I just don't know about any of it as it is all strange ... like Jesus in Gay Lilly ... Eros've Charon? Explains that chewing sensation ... gnawed upon ... rodential ...

Life is a long Ç' hew as Ed declared, a great display tonight ... much right out of the dark! Even the craw dad's exclaim ...

Is Mariah profound as well as wide? So the story spreads ... because of the Wadi Urans ... Urns if the "n" is silent icon ...

It come right after the middle ... that's M ... paradigmatic ... with a thin upright!

Difficult if not hard to understand ... the mythical normal ... it is enclosed in stories about its existence ...

With some return on the input ... the great "I Am" becomes confused also ... and regresses ...

Did you ever seek regress?
 
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Thus that one step back after the TU forward approach ... very pointed!

I watch this from the fringe ... never been part ... rather excluded from right, left or the regressive ... a position from which you see it all go down ... folk hate descent ... the descent of man is rough activity ... like a nail driven in annihilation ... onxy with the alternate's ide ...

Ide's are blow away ... ungrasped!
 
Those with “feelings” get crucified over and over by brutes in their lives so some peoples’ ‘helping’ solution is “ ‘beat’ them numb. Torture them until they give in to us and become us.” Even if it’s psychological - it’s still the same old story. It’s not a different way Luce, it’s just the path to ruining the world - no love there. Armies do it. It’s brutal, but veiled. It’s not an effective tactic to ‘convert’ everybody to your ways. Some just won’t join you, they just can’t. I’m resistant to the depth of your darkness.

Thank God for diversity.

People with feelings do need to be brave and call it out.
 
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Kimmio Laughterlove said:
can’t you just fix it so we all live in peace together with individualized happy lives?
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That would be nice but in order to do so we would have to give something up. We were meant to learn how to live properly with the knowledge of good and evil, not to be turned back into the family pet.
 
I don’t believe in “kingdoms” I guess. No hierachies is a goal. At least, it’s a future hope even if I don’t get to see it. It won’t happen anytime soon. I find a lot of mansplainin going on with religious fundamentalists. So I guess if it’s got to be their way because they insist they have a patent on it, I’m not interested in their kingdom. I think they are poor judges of what fairness looks like.
 
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