Notes
Listen to this episode on Youtube
Christians will try to blend spirituality in with religion as if they’re interchangeable, but they are not. In the episode, I will explain the differences between the two practices.
Chapters:
- 0:00 Introduction
- 1:04 Intro music
- 1:38 Defining both terms
- 3:18 Duality vs oneness
- 4:23 Power outside vs inside
- 4:56 Faith vs proof
- 6:08 Knowledge vs wisdom
- 7:04 Dogma vs personal interpretation
- 8:07 Sympathy vs empathy
- 10:11 Disconnection vs closeness
- 11:05 Bigotry vs tolerance
- 11:55 Self-denial vs freedom enjoyment
- 12:20 Repression vs growth and acceptance
- 13:23 About others vs about you
- 14:24 Expense of self vs love of self
- 14:44 Fear vs love
- 15:45 Outro and music
Transcript
What’s up, good people?
This is your host, Neil Real, and this is the Apostate Apple broadcast.
Today I’m talking about the difference between religion and spirituality.
I used to call myself a spiritual person without knowing what it was all about.
And knowing that difference led me to end up joining a Christian church after I had already left my fourth in my church with my parents.
So if I would have known back then the differences and how much they contrast, I would have never really went back to Christianity.
And so Christianity tends to blend spirituality in with religion.
They kind of say it’s the same thing.
So if somebody says they’re spiritual, they’ll say, yeah, well, I’m spiritual too.
You get to talk in, and eventually, before you know it, you at their church and you win something that ain’t spiritual.
So religion and spirituality is not interchangeable, and that’s what we’re going to talk about today.
But before we do that all right, we’re back.
First, let me just define both terms.
And then I’m going to go through a chart that I found that I kind of modified because it really spoke to me.
It’s a meme showing the differences between religion and spirituality.
Spirituality is the broad concept of a belief and something beyond that of yourself.
It may involve a holistic belief and an individual connection to others, the world, and that we are all a part of something larger which is cosmic or divine in nature.
And that’s what I truly believe spiritual alley is all about.
You’re not just flesh and blood walking around.
You’re beyond this plane of existence.
Okay?
Now here’s the definition of religion.
Religion is the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal god or gods.
Religion usually includes a set of do’s and don’ts, punishments and rewards for following said rules given by the so called god or leader of the religion.
And that’s true for most religions.
That’s especially true for Christianity and Islam.
And so that’s what I’m talking about today.
Religious fundamentalism is really what I’m contrasting with spirituality because I know that there are spiritual systems called religions and they’re not the same thing.
So I’m really just dealing with mainstream religion, which is Christianity and Islam, okay?
And the different fundamentalist beliefs and sex within him.
And so what is the difference between the two?
Religion is about duality.
Spirituality is about oneness.
So duality is the quality or character being twofold.
So light and darkness, destruction and construction, positive and negative, male and female, masculine and feminine, these are all separate things.
So light and darkness are separate.
They’re two different things.
That’s how religion kind of puts things out there.
But when it comes to spirituality, it’s about oneness.
So everything is connected.
Darkness is connected to the light.
They go together, okay?
One is not bad and one is not good.
And it’s not only the differences of tools, but even everything else that fits with that.
I mean, the feminine and masculine, positive and negative, light and dark, these are all connected.
It’s all part of one thing.
But religion will break everything into pieces.
Well, that’s the difference.
I’m leave it at that.
Religion says that divine power is outside of you.
Spirituality says divine power comes from within.
Christianity will tell you you’re nothing without God.
Power comes from him.
But in spirituality, you are God, you are the source, you are part of the divine consciousness, you are part of the universe, and you have the power to create.
And once again, spirituality was something that people practiced before mainstream religion came on the scene.
Continuing on.
Religion is about believing, usually without proof.
And spirituality is about knowing, usually with scientific proof and intuition verified, okay?
So people in the spiritual community are doing things that they know works because they’ve seen it work by scientific methods.
They see it working.
There’s no belief there where they’re just holding on to something without any proof, and then they move on intuition.
So this is annoying without actual proof.
And then once you move on that particular intuition and it comes to pass and it’s verified, things are solid.
They don’t live off of faith.
They go based off of what actually works.
And so there’s so many different disciplines within spirituality that you have to find the ones that work for you.
Sometimes a method somebody personally uses may not work for you, and something you have that works for you may not work for them.
But the bottom line is there’s a knowing and there’s proof.
There’s results.
You see, another one here is religion is about knowledge.
Spirituality is about wisdom.
What’s the difference?
Well, knowledge is just data.
And most Christians have a lot of data in their minds, okay?
A bunch of Bible scriptures, the names of the twelve disciples, the Ten Commandments.
They just got information about characters in the Bible, but they don’t have a lot of wisdom, okay, outside of their own personal wisdom.
But spirituality is about wisdom.
It’s about knowing plus understanding, applying the data alongside experience.
That’s what wisdom is.
And so there’s a lot of wisdom and spirituality.
They don’t want to just know something and have a bunch of ideas given to them by the Bible.
They want to have actual application and experience of what they know.
Religion is dogmatic.
Spirituality is open to interpretation because spirituality is always personal.
It’s about your intuition, about your life.
So can nobody really tell you how something’s supposed to be?
So everything that you see is open to your interpretation.
But when it comes to religion, it’s dogmatic, which is asserting or insisting upon ideas or principles, especially when unproven or unexamined in an arrogant manner, often with an unconsidered rejection of criticism, okay?
So you’re just stuck here’s the beliefs to what it means.
You need to accept it.
The world was made by this god and he had a son, and this is the way things are.
And Jesus is the only way to eternal life.
That’s it.
That’s what our religion is.
And if it ain’t Christians telling you that, it’s Islam telling you allies the way spirituality is not about that.
Things are open to their own interpretation.
Religion calls for sympathy.
Spirituality calls for empathy.
So what’s the difference?
People tend to use these words interchangeably.
They are very similar.
They have to do with feelings and understanding other people.
But in general, sympathy is when you share the feelings of another.
All right, so somebody’s dog just died and they crying about it.
You may start to feel bad about it because they feel bad about it.
You’re like, D***, man, I feel for you.
You may watch a movie and your favorite character get dies or something that happens to them.
You feel some type of way about that.
Empathy is a little different.
Empathy is when you understand the feelings of another but do not necessarily share them.
And the key word here is understand.
So you have a deep understanding even though you don’t sympathize.
So empathy is about putting yourself in the other person’s shoes.
And people who do this are people that are spiritual for the most part, because they understand that everything is connected.
We’re all a part of one big thing.
I’m connected to the tree.
I’m connected to the plants.
I’m connected to the animals.
I’m connected to you.
You’re connected to me.
So if I do something to harm you, I’m going to feel that.
And so people that are very empathetic, most likely, along with sympathy, will not harm people.
They have a strong sense of understanding how what they do affects other people.
Spirituality calls for that because we’re all connected.
Religion just calls for sympathy for the most part.
Now, when I was in religion, I was an empathetic person, okay?
I took the town out to understand people’s plight from their perspective.
I put myself in their shoes.
There’s even passages it’s about do unto others as you would want done to you.
That’s a form of empathy.
But spirituality primarily is about understanding how other people feel.
And the reason why you naturally do that, the more spiritual you become, is because you’re connected.
Religion drives that level of disconnection, but spirituality drives closeness.
Why?
Because I want to know more about you and your differences.
When I let go of religion, I started to learn about witches and all these different people.
I started to look up the LGPT community and say, well, what are these people all about?
Let me listen to some of their stories on YouTube.
People that are different from you, you tend to say, Let me learn more about that person.
That’s what spirituality brings about because we’re naturally curious about the differences of other people.
When you understand we’re all connected.
When you’re separated from everybody and think your religion and your group is the best and everybody else is dead on their way to h***.
That closes you off from understanding and the care for other people.
And this leads me to my next point.
Religion generates bigotry.
Spirituality generates tolerance.
Bigotry is when you have a strong partial, partiality to one’s own group.
Religion, race, politics, et cetera, and you’re intolerant of other people who differ.
But when it comes to spirituality, it generates tolerance once again, because we all connected and we are individuals and we’re unique.
So why would I cut you off?
And so even spiritual people tolerate bigots and religious folks and people that differ from them because we want to understand.
We understand that people are unique and they want to believe what they want to believe and live the way they want to live.
And that’s just how spirituality differs from religion.
Another one here.
Religion demands sobriety, control and self denial, while spirituality allows for laughter, freedom and conscious enjoyment.
So you’ll see people dress the way they want to dress a lot happier as a spiritual person.
Generally, what spiritual alley is about is freedom and the enjoyment in life.
Another thing here, religion is about self improvement through repression and denial of self.
So we read tons of scriptures about that in the past.
So it’s about your conformity to the religious rules at the expense of your own individuality and your own desires.
But spirituality is about self growth through loving acceptance of what is.
So you just accept your true self and the reality around you and the people around you.
Spirituality can lead to you being a more loving and accepting person.
But religion is always trying to conform people and put people in boxes.
And if you don’t fit in their kind of box, then you can’t be around them.
Spirituality is about accepting yourself for who you are and the reality of what is.
If this is the way world is just accepted, if this is the way certain people are going to be, that’s the way they’re going to be just accepted.
We’re not going to try to change anybody.
Another one.
Religion focuses on others experiences and growth.
Spirituality focuses on one’s own experience and growth.
So when it comes to religion, they’re always talking about be like Christ.
Look what Christ did and what his disciples did.
Let’s read a story about what Paul did and what Moses did.
Here’s another character in the Old Testament.
He did this and that.
You’re living through and focusing on the experiences of others.
Okay?
It’s always listen to so and so’s testimony.
But in spirituality, it’s about you.
You are the center of the story.
It’s about your growth.
You’re not trying to base your life off somebody else because you are a unique person, you see?
And religion is trying to conform you into this box, this square of a person that’s like everybody else.
And that’s not the same thing as spirituality.
Religion is about love towards others at the expense of yourself.
I talked about that in the past.
But spirituality is about love towards yourself and assertiveness.
In other words, you ain’t about to let people run over you and you take care of yourself.
You’re focusing on making yourself the best version of you.
Okay?
Finally, religion is fear based.
Spirituality is love based.
So we love ourselves and we love other people.
Why?
Because we’re all connected.
We’re all part of one big universe, and we want to make sure that that universe, in that world for everybody is healthy and whole and abundant and everybody’s taken care of in love.
But religion is based in fear.
Oh, Jesus loves you, but if you don’t keep his commandments and walk in the spirit, you’re on your way to h***.
If it ain’t that, it’s you’ll be ostracized from the religious community.
You’ll be disfellowshipped by your family in the congregation that you attend if you don’t do X, Y and Z.
So these fears that motivate you to continue to support the religion and work in the religion and toil enslave in the religion, it’s what religion is all about.
But spirituality is about freedom.
It’s about love for self and love for others.
That’s all I got for you today.
I hope that helps people understand the differences.
It’s a very big difference between the two.
I hate when they mix them together.
Thanks for listening.
Have a good day.
I appreciate that you listening to the End like share subscribe rate this podcast email me at [email protected] and I’ll be taking a break, but I will be returning soon.
You.