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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Chapters:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"acf":{"file_name":"aa-ep21-religion-vs-spirituality","duration":"17:36","ep_num":21,"file_size":16,"transcript_content":"What's up, good people?\n\nThis is your host, Neil Real, and this is the Apostate Apple broadcast.\n\nToday I'm talking about the difference between religion and spirituality.\n\nI used to call myself a spiritual person without knowing what it was all about.\n\nAnd 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.\n\nSo if I would have known back then the differences and how much they contrast, I would have never really went back to Christianity.\n\nAnd so Christianity tends to blend spirituality in with religion.\n\nThey kind of say it's the same thing.\n\nSo if somebody says they're spiritual, they'll say, yeah, well, I'm spiritual too.\n\nYou get to talk in, and eventually, before you know it, you at their church and you win something that ain't spiritual.\n\nSo religion and spirituality is not interchangeable, and that's what we're going to talk about today.\n\nBut before we do that all right, we're back.\n\nFirst, let me just define both terms.\n\nAnd then I'm going to go through a chart that I found that I kind of modified because it really spoke to me.\n\nIt's a meme showing the differences between religion and spirituality.\n\nSpirituality is the broad concept of a belief and something beyond that of yourself.\n\nIt 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.\n\nAnd that's what I truly believe spiritual alley is all about.\n\nYou're not just flesh and blood walking around.\n\nYou're beyond this plane of existence.\n\nOkay?\n\nNow here's the definition of religion.\n\nReligion is the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal god or gods.\n\nReligion 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.\n\nAnd that's true for most religions.\n\nThat's especially true for Christianity and Islam.\n\nAnd so that's what I'm talking about today.\n\nReligious 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.\n\nSo I'm really just dealing with mainstream religion, which is Christianity and Islam, okay?\n\nAnd the different fundamentalist beliefs and sex within him.\n\nAnd so what is the difference between the two?\n\nReligion is about duality.\n\nSpirituality is about oneness.\n\nSo duality is the quality or character being twofold.\n\nSo light and darkness, destruction and construction, positive and negative, male and female, masculine and feminine, these are all separate things.\n\nSo light and darkness are separate.\n\nThey're two different things.\n\nThat's how religion kind of puts things out there.\n\nBut when it comes to spirituality, it's about oneness.\n\nSo everything is connected.\n\nDarkness is connected to the light.\n\nThey go together, okay?\n\nOne is not bad and one is not good.\n\nAnd it's not only the differences of tools, but even everything else that fits with that.\n\nI mean, the feminine and masculine, positive and negative, light and dark, these are all connected.\n\nIt's all part of one thing.\n\nBut religion will break everything into pieces.\n\nWell, that's the difference.\n\nI'm leave it at that.\n\nReligion says that divine power is outside of you.\n\nSpirituality says divine power comes from within.\n\nChristianity will tell you you're nothing without God.\n\nPower comes from him.\n\nBut 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.\n\nAnd once again, spirituality was something that people practiced before mainstream religion came on the scene.\n\nContinuing on.\n\nReligion is about believing, usually without proof.\n\nAnd spirituality is about knowing, usually with scientific proof and intuition verified, okay?\n\nSo people in the spiritual community are doing things that they know works because they've seen it work by scientific methods.\n\nThey see it working.\n\nThere's no belief there where they're just holding on to something without any proof, and then they move on intuition.\n\nSo this is annoying without actual proof.\n\nAnd then once you move on that particular intuition and it comes to pass and it's verified, things are solid.\n\nThey don't live off of faith.\n\nThey go based off of what actually works.\n\nAnd so there's so many different disciplines within spirituality that you have to find the ones that work for you.\n\nSometimes a method somebody personally uses may not work for you, and something you have that works for you may not work for them.\n\nBut the bottom line is there's a knowing and there's proof.\n\nThere's results.\n\nYou see, another one here is religion is about knowledge.\n\nSpirituality is about wisdom.\n\nWhat's the difference?\n\nWell, knowledge is just data.\n\nAnd most Christians have a lot of data in their minds, okay?\n\nA bunch of Bible scriptures, the names of the twelve disciples, the Ten Commandments.\n\nThey just got information about characters in the Bible, but they don't have a lot of wisdom, okay, outside of their own personal wisdom.\n\nBut spirituality is about wisdom.\n\nIt's about knowing plus understanding, applying the data alongside experience.\n\nThat's what wisdom is.\n\nAnd so there's a lot of wisdom and spirituality.\n\nThey don't want to just know something and have a bunch of ideas given to them by the Bible.\n\nThey want to have actual application and experience of what they know.\n\nReligion is dogmatic.\n\nSpirituality is open to interpretation because spirituality is always personal.\n\nIt's about your intuition, about your life.\n\nSo can nobody really tell you how something's supposed to be?\n\nSo everything that you see is open to your interpretation.\n\nBut 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?\n\nSo you're just stuck here's the beliefs to what it means.\n\nYou need to accept it.\n\nThe world was made by this god and he had a son, and this is the way things are.\n\nAnd Jesus is the only way to eternal life.\n\nThat's it.\n\nThat's what our religion is.\n\nAnd if it ain't Christians telling you that, it's Islam telling you allies the way spirituality is not about that.\n\nThings are open to their own interpretation.\n\nReligion calls for sympathy.\n\nSpirituality calls for empathy.\n\nSo what's the difference?\n\nPeople tend to use these words interchangeably.\n\nThey are very similar.\n\nThey have to do with feelings and understanding other people.\n\nBut in general, sympathy is when you share the feelings of another.\n\nAll right, so somebody's dog just died and they crying about it.\n\nYou may start to feel bad about it because they feel bad about it.\n\nYou're like, D***, man, I feel for you.\n\nYou may watch a movie and your favorite character get dies or something that happens to them.\n\nYou feel some type of way about that.\n\nEmpathy is a little different.\n\nEmpathy is when you understand the feelings of another but do not necessarily share them.\n\nAnd the key word here is understand.\n\nSo you have a deep understanding even though you don't sympathize.\n\nSo empathy is about putting yourself in the other person's shoes.\n\nAnd people who do this are people that are spiritual for the most part, because they understand that everything is connected.\n\nWe're all a part of one big thing.\n\nI'm connected to the tree.\n\nI'm connected to the plants.\n\nI'm connected to the animals.\n\nI'm connected to you.\n\nYou're connected to me.\n\nSo if I do something to harm you, I'm going to feel that.\n\nAnd so people that are very empathetic, most likely, along with sympathy, will not harm people.\n\nThey have a strong sense of understanding how what they do affects other people.\n\nSpirituality calls for that because we're all connected.\n\nReligion just calls for sympathy for the most part.\n\nNow, when I was in religion, I was an empathetic person, okay?\n\nI took the town out to understand people's plight from their perspective.\n\nI put myself in their shoes.\n\nThere's even passages it's about do unto others as you would want done to you.\n\nThat's a form of empathy.\n\nBut spirituality primarily is about understanding how other people feel.\n\nAnd the reason why you naturally do that, the more spiritual you become, is because you're connected.\n\nReligion drives that level of disconnection, but spirituality drives closeness.\n\nWhy?\n\nBecause I want to know more about you and your differences.\n\nWhen I let go of religion, I started to learn about witches and all these different people.\n\nI started to look up the LGPT community and say, well, what are these people all about?\n\nLet me listen to some of their stories on YouTube.\n\nPeople that are different from you, you tend to say, Let me learn more about that person.\n\nThat's what spirituality brings about because we're naturally curious about the differences of other people.\n\nWhen you understand we're all connected.\n\nWhen 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***.\n\nThat closes you off from understanding and the care for other people.\n\nAnd this leads me to my next point.\n\nReligion generates bigotry.\n\nSpirituality generates tolerance.\n\nBigotry is when you have a strong partial, partiality to one's own group.\n\nReligion, race, politics, et cetera, and you're intolerant of other people who differ.\n\nBut when it comes to spirituality, it generates tolerance once again, because we all connected and we are individuals and we're unique.\n\nSo why would I cut you off?\n\nAnd so even spiritual people tolerate bigots and religious folks and people that differ from them because we want to understand.\n\nWe understand that people are unique and they want to believe what they want to believe and live the way they want to live.\n\nAnd that's just how spirituality differs from religion.\n\nAnother one here.\n\nReligion demands sobriety, control and self denial, while spirituality allows for laughter, freedom and conscious enjoyment.\n\nSo you'll see people dress the way they want to dress a lot happier as a spiritual person.\n\nGenerally, what spiritual alley is about is freedom and the enjoyment in life.\n\nAnother thing here, religion is about self improvement through repression and denial of self.\n\nSo we read tons of scriptures about that in the past.\n\nSo it's about your conformity to the religious rules at the expense of your own individuality and your own desires.\n\nBut spirituality is about self growth through loving acceptance of what is.\n\nSo you just accept your true self and the reality around you and the people around you.\n\nSpirituality can lead to you being a more loving and accepting person.\n\nBut religion is always trying to conform people and put people in boxes.\n\nAnd if you don't fit in their kind of box, then you can't be around them.\n\nSpirituality is about accepting yourself for who you are and the reality of what is.\n\nIf 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.\n\nWe're not going to try to change anybody.\n\nAnother one.\n\nReligion focuses on others experiences and growth.\n\nSpirituality focuses on one's own experience and growth.\n\nSo when it comes to religion, they're always talking about be like Christ.\n\nLook what Christ did and what his disciples did.\n\nLet's read a story about what Paul did and what Moses did.\n\nHere's another character in the Old Testament.\n\nHe did this and that.\n\nYou're living through and focusing on the experiences of others.\n\nOkay?\n\nIt's always listen to so and so's testimony.\n\nBut in spirituality, it's about you.\n\nYou are the center of the story.\n\nIt's about your growth.\n\nYou're not trying to base your life off somebody else because you are a unique person, you see?\n\nAnd religion is trying to conform you into this box, this square of a person that's like everybody else.\n\nAnd that's not the same thing as spirituality.\n\nReligion is about love towards others at the expense of yourself.\n\nI talked about that in the past.\n\nBut spirituality is about love towards yourself and assertiveness.\n\nIn other words, you ain't about to let people run over you and you take care of yourself.\n\nYou're focusing on making yourself the best version of you.\n\nOkay?\n\nFinally, religion is fear based.\n\nSpirituality is love based.\n\nSo we love ourselves and we love other people.\n\nWhy?\n\nBecause we're all connected.\n\nWe'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.\n\nBut religion is based in fear.\n\nOh, Jesus loves you, but if you don't keep his commandments and walk in the spirit, you're on your way to h***.\n\nIf it ain't that, it's you'll be ostracized from the religious community.\n\nYou'll be disfellowshipped by your family in the congregation that you attend if you don't do X, Y and Z.\n\nSo 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.\n\nBut spirituality is about freedom.\n\nIt's about love for self and love for others.\n\nThat's all I got for you today.\n\nI hope that helps people understand the differences.\n\nIt's a very big difference between the two.\n\nI hate when they mix them together.\n\nThanks for listening.\n\nHave a good day.\n\nI appreciate that you listening to the End like share subscribe rate this podcast email me at neil@neoreal.com and I'll be taking a break, but I will be returning soon.\n\nYou.","youtube":"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=nhW5uVD5uJo"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nealreal.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nealreal.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nealreal.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nealreal.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nealreal.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nealreal.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nealreal.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nealreal.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nealreal.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}