SPIRITUALITY VS. RELIGION

Spirituality

Spirit is a word that describes life. It has its etymological roots in
the Latin word for breath (spirae).It has been defined as the
animating principle, or non-physical aspect of a thing. It is that
which makes something alive.

Nature is a grand system connected by relationships using a
diverse array of communication. In the duality of time and
space, space is the material and time is the movement which
breathes life. Time is spiritual. You do not see time itself but you
see it expressed materially through change. 

Spirit is the intellectual outlining of the non-physical, animating
qualities belonging to a thing. To be spiritual does not mean you
must deal with ghosts, spirits, gods, or any thing theistic, it
simply means that you recognize your aliveness. I guess I'm
spiritual.

Religion

Religion is a word that describes fixed, unchallengeable
attachment. It has its etymological roots in he Latin word
'religare' which means to bind. Religion is not exclusive to
theistic bindings. Many people form religious relationships
with other things like money, sports teams, political parties,
people, world-views, aesthetics; essentially any logos-imbued
paradigm regardless of what's the epistemic source from which
it is derived can become religions.

Religion is a natural human tendency. Depending upon how far
you're willing to recognize these locked-in bindings, the more
likely it is that everyone is religious to some extent and degree.
We find a strong sense of comfort, value, and identity through
religion. Our religious tendencies have played a
role in our development and survival as a human species. It is
our ability to form rigid, unquestionable
attachments which has allowed us to conspire efficiently into
societies as well as act quickly in the face of danger in order to
survive.

On the flip side, this biased attachment that is religion is also
extremely limiting and a recipe for hard to control disaster. The
sacrifice of religious servitude is in submitting/giving up one's
authority over
the matter. A large portion of that which humans form religious
attachment to is unnecessary in the religious sense of
relinquishing authority. We can still have just as much utility
without the need for dogmatic fanaticism.

This in itself is a form of transcendence when we can be
philosophical enough to use a belief for its pragmatic sake
without closing off our openness to other, many times
contradicting, perspectives and values. Recognizing the
possibility that that which we hold strong to may be a
fabricated intellectual construct without any actual, objective
existence of it's own, does not need to take away from the
idea's merit.

To be religious with regards to something means that you are
so fixed that anything which is differing or challenges it
becomes offensive to your very sense of self. That's the
bind that religion makes. It expresses itself in the archaic
'reptilian' aspects of the triune brain, and its compulsive,
impulsive, survivalistic, rigid, instinctual, irrational character.

We can all engage with and hold on to preferences, passions,
values, and affinities, so to use them as tools for our own
advancement, pleasure and sense of belonging. This sort of
connection or holding is not exclusive to religious binding as
you maintain your ability to let go, change your grasp, and shift
your vantage.

Even the belief in having a protective relationship with an
anthropomorphic god can instill a more mature version of
security than that which a teddy-bear would do for a child who
is afraid of the unknown dark of night. And all this can be done
without religion.

There are people who hold non-religious theistic beliefs just as
there are people who bind religiously to anti-theistic beliefs. It's
just a matter of recognizing these natural tendencies to want to
magnify your sense of value through locking in with a faith that
also blinds you from the big picture.