Spirituality Versus Religion
By Eanna O’Reilly
There’s no doubt that religion is something that means a lot of different things to different people. Religion, faith, spirituality, belief. These are the words that millions of people associate with humans believing in a higher power. If someone tells me they are spiritual, I assume they mean that they have faith and beliefs which are personal to them. They believe in a higher power, whether they call it God or Allah, or whether it is male or female. If someone tells me they are religious on the other hand, I would assume they engage with their spirituality within a religious institution, whether it’s the Catholic church or whatever they’re into.
“I just believe because I believe, and I know for me, that it’s a positive thing in my life.”
Personally, I would describe myself as spiritual, but not religious. For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a personal faith in God. I feel like it’s something that has always helped me throughout my life, especially during difficult experiences I’ve had. Generally, I’d be fairly science-based in terms of my belief in things, but this is an exception. I can’t prove that God exists. I don’t believe in God because of any particular evidence I’ve seen. I just believe because I believe, and I know for me, that it’s a positive thing in my life.
In my opinion, your belief in God is whatever you want it to be. Whatever works for you is what you should go with. That’s if you want to go with anything at all. Your faith should totally be personal, I believe. Think about why you have faith and what it does for you. If it’s been forced on you by someone else, family members, or whoever it might be, that’s not a good starting point. If you have your own faith, then good for you, but if it’s something you’ve gone along with because of fear or external expectations, that’s a different story. To me, it’s all about what it does for you. Do you feel it’s a positive thing? Do you feel like it gives you strength and resolves? Do you feel like it helps you cope with things and get through tough times? Your reasons for having faith should be positive and it should benefit you in some way. Faith and worship can get mixed up and branched together. But they are two completely different things. If you believe in worship, if that’s how you engage with God, then fair enough. But it’s absolutely not a mandatory thing you have to do alongside your beliefs. This for me is where the various religions fall down. All of them have flaws, but the biggest one for me is that they dictate what the nature of your faith should be. They put parameters around it and rules which they wrote themselves.
For me, God isn’t someone who measures people by how much worship they do. My belief in God is simple enough. I would pray to God for different things, to help me with something or to help other people. I won’t ask him/her for next week’s lotto numbers. I don’t believe he/she is in the business of giving people material things they might want. I believe that God is someone who will help things to work out for you if he can. Like the friendly neighbour who’ll help you out if he can because he knows you’re fundamentally a good person. If you’re a person with a character who treats people well and cares about others, I believe he’ll give you a break every so often.
“This for me is where the various religions fall down. All of them have flaws, but the biggest one for me is that they dictate what the nature of your faith should be. They put parameters around it and rules which they wrote themselves. ”
What’s the point of faith? To me, it has to be a positive thing in your life that helps you in some way. You have to be able to relate to your faith for it to be worthwhile. Like the majority of Irish people, I was raised Catholic. Personally, I could just never relate to following the parameters of something dictated by the church and clergy. That just never made sense to me. There are many aspects of the Catholic ideology that I couldn’t relate to or believe in. But the religious dogma says that you’re either all in or you’re out.
Churches and organised religion allow people to engage in their personal faith/spirituality. Which of course, is a good thing. But why on earth do we need a hierarchy of people like the clergy, who are supposedly on a higher level, closer to God than the ordinary man/woman? Would God want a hierarchy of people to exist in his name? I really don’t think so. The bible tells us that Jesus had no respect for the Pharisees (clergy of their time) and regarded them as sanctimonious hypocrites. Before you even get into the major problems of the Catholic church (patriarchal, misogynistic, homophobia, etc.) one of its most fundamental flaws is that it’s built on a human hierarchy. That to me is contrary to how God would want us to organize ourselves.
How do I know what God wants? I don’t. But my belief, which I think most people of faith would share, that he/she is smart. Anyone who is smart and has no ulterior motive is going to be against inequality. That’s just logical. There is so much evidence to show that inequality is a hugely negative thing, which holds back the full potential of the human race. It’s disruptive, damaging, counterproductive, and morally wrong. So why would God want an institution set up in his name to perpetuate inequality? There’s just no logic to that.
At a certain point in my life, I realised that the whole Catholic thing just didn’t do it for me. The ideology, the dogma, and the symbolism. I couldn’t relate to presenting myself before God as an unworthy human sinner. I’m a human, we’re all human. The notion that we should aspire to be saint-like is ridiculous. It’s not natural to be saint-like, to never make mistakes or get things wrong. ‘‘Lord, I am not worthy to receive you’’ is what you say at mass, while you bow down on your knees, essentially apologising for human nature.
“Would God want a hierarchy of people to exist in his name? I really don’t think so. The bible tells us that Jesus had no respect for the Pharisees (Clergy of their time) and regarded them as sanctimonious hypocrites. ”
The time came when I rejected all of that. But I didn’t have to reject my own spirituality. I knew my faith in God was really important to me. So, I continued to engage with it on my own terms. Some people might say ‘‘You can’t write your own rules.’’ But I’d say, why not? Faith is a totally personal thing. It has to be if it’s of any value to someone. This for me is the major difference between religion and spirituality. Personally, I’m spiritual and my faith is important to me because it makes sense, and I can relate to it. Now, if you are religious and the ideology of the Catholic church or any other religion appeals to you or benefits you on a spiritual level, then best of luck. Each to their own.
If there’s one phrase I would use, to sum up spiritual faith, it’s ‘Each to their own.’ If someone ever tells you the nature of your faith is wrong, or you have to follow different rules or aspects that you simply can’t relate to, you should really ignore them. For faith to have any value, it simply has to be personal.
