You can’t be ‘spiritual but not religious’
Recently I was talking to a girl who said something interesting to me. She said, “I’m not religious at all. I’m spiritual and try to be faithful though.”
I thought the idea that one could be ‘faithful’ without an object or system was fascinating, albeit, inane. I asked her what she’s being faithful to, if there is no God, no rules, no revelation, nothing to really be faithful to.
She, unsurprisingly, hadn’t put too much thought into it. Yet, this idea is incredibly popular in our western culture at large. “Spiritual but not religious” is one of the most common religious identities I see on dating apps. But in all honesty…what does it mean??
When someone says he is being ‘faithful to his wife,’ what does he mean? Well, it’s not some vague adherence to her as an entity. When two people are married, they don’t commit to a vague, abstract idea of marriage. They stand before witnesses and state what and who they are committing to. That way, they will know if and when they’re being unfaithful to their spouse, since they explicitly stated what it is they are committing to.
Being faithful to their spouse is synonymous with being faithful to the vows made on that day. They know who and what they are being faithful to.
It’s similar spiritually. When someone says they are ‘faithful but not religious,’ or don’t believe in a god, they are saying that they know neither who nor what they are committed to, what they’re faithful to. (But darn it, THEY’RE COMMITTED TO IT!)
It’s really a useless statement.
“I’m faithful to my wife, but I don’t know who she is, what she looks like, or what she expects from me, so I’m just vibing. But I’m definitely married to her…whoever she is.”
You’d call that guy insane.
The word ‘religious’ comes from the Latin word religare, which means ‘to bind,’ as in with ropes. So, a religious person is one who has bound themself to God. By this definition, it’s really is synonymous with ‘faithful,’ as these people have committed, without remorse, that they will be near to the God they worship; that they know who God is, and that they know what God wants for and from them. It’s a beautiful term. Isn’t etymology great?
(Granted, the word in today’s parlance has come to mean ‘someone obsessed with rules, who looks down their nose at others, who is judgmental, or who is obsessed with going to church and doing the rituals.’ So I understand people not wanting to be like that.)
But no, I don’t think one can be ‘spiritual but not religious.’
Being spiritual implies that you believe something about the unseen realm, including your own spirit or soul. You have a system by which you think spiritual things work (many such folks typically base these off of their own experience, desires, and what’s convenient for them…), which implies that there are, in fact, rules.
Every person on earth believes that there are rules. Even simple ones like, “be tolerant of other people and their beliefs.”
Why? Who says? Why is that an objectively good thing? Someone may believe this and hold to it as a universal spiritual truth…but where did it come from? Nearly every person has rules and a map of their ‘spiritual system.’
…And that means that all of us are, to some degree, religious. We all have at least a loosely-constructed spiritual system.
And what’s the term for a spiritual system?
Say it with me now…
A religion.
You can’t be faithful without being religious.
You can’t be spiritual without being religious.
The only other option is Nietzsche’s route, where you simply adhere to power and erase all morals and ethics. Whoever is most powerful makes the rules and everyone else follows them. There is no universal right and wrong. We’re all building our own sandcastles and the tide is rising.
But if there is something larger out there making rules and designing the way the universe functions, it may be worth finding out more about how it’s all intended to work, and attempt, in our own feeble ways, to be faithful to that.
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P.S. There is also the agnostic argument (agnostic = a+gnosis in Greek; unable to be known) which says that God is so beyond our comprehension that there would be no way to know anything about this being. Our little human minds couldn’t comprehend. Well yes…unless that God enters into our own reality and reveals Godself to us. Unless He joins us as a human, speaks human language so we can understand it, and essentiall,y makes the first move. Could we reach up and know this God? No. But what if He came down and made Himself know to us? Is that an option?
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