Catholic Civil War Brewing?

I would conjecture that *spiritualists* (made up word for this post) would refer to ppl who recognize a spiritual force to life beyond the material, but do not subscribe to any attempts to define or really know much about it, how it works, etc. PPl who 'send good vibes', talk of 'vibing', mojo, karma, and such, rather than God, Allah, Jehovah, or multiple named gods of Hindu, and such. *Religionists* (same thing as above--that is, im not really employing the term per an existing definition that I'm aware of, rather just for the obviously self explanatory purposes of this post) are folks who subscribe to an established school of thought often built on dogmas, as to the nature of the spiritual, and in fact, view the 'spiritual' as a means of communication between the material world, and the religious deity/ies they worship and believe in, rather than believing the spiritual to be THE object of their worship. e.g.--in most religions, angels are beings (albeit spiritual), not inanimate forces of immaterial energy; God (or gods to pagans) are beings with wills, not mere forces.

That's how figure it (i.e.--jmho), fwiw.

 

Way back in the 70’s Billy Graham described the US as “a pagan country in which many Christians reside.”

 

A simple google search found me this polls show 40 percent of people claim to go to church. 20 percent actually go

 

Christianity declining in the declining West, exploding elsewhere.

 

Yeah, I guess there's a "woo" spectrum!

Even Hitchens spoke of the numinous or transcendent while making efforts to distinguish those experiences from superstitious/supernatural claims. Sam Harris affirmatively defended the word "spiritual," though he likely has a different take on what it means than many others.

Sam Harris | Home of the Making Sense Podcast

I strive for precision in my use of language, but I do not share these semantic concerns. And I would point out that my late friend Christopher Hitchens—no enemy of the lexicographer—didn’t share them either. Hitch believed that “spiritual” was a term we could not do without, and he repeatedly plucked it from the mire of supernaturalism in which it has languished for nearly a thousand years.

It is true that Hitch didn’t think about spirituality in precisely the way I do. He spoke instead of the spiritual pleasures afforded by certain works of poetry, music, and art. The symmetry and beauty of the Parthenon embodied this happy extreme for him—without any requirement that we admit the existence of the goddess Athena, much less devote ourselves to her worship. Hitch also used the terms “numinous” and “transcendent” to mark occasions of great beauty or significance—and for him the Hubble Deep Field was an example of both. I’m sure he was aware that pedantic excursions into the OED would produce etymological embarrassments regarding these words as well. Carl Sagan also freely used the term spiritual in the same way. (See C. Sagan. 1995. The Demon-Haunted World. New York: Random House. p. 29.)


We must reclaim good words and put them to good use—and this is what I intend to do with “spiritual.” I have no quarrel with Hitch and Sagan’s general use of the word to mean something like “beauty or significance that provokes awe,” but I believe that we can also use it in a narrower and, indeed, more personally transformative sense.

Of course, “spiritual” and its cognates have some unfortunate associations unrelated to their etymology—and I will do my best to cut those ties as well. But there seems to be no other term (apart from the even more problematic “mystical” or the more restrictive “contemplative”) with which to discuss the deliberate efforts some people make to overcome their feeling of separateness—through meditation, psychedelics, or other means of inducing non-ordinary states of consciousness. And I find neologisms pretentious and annoying. Hence, I appear to have no choice: “Spiritual” it is.

 

BTW, the world’s leading atheist , Richard Dawkins, came out as an agnostic awhile back.

Further thoughts …

“Spiritual but not religious” means everything and nothing. It means “I won’t tell you you’re wrong if you don’t tell me I’m wrong.”

 

I've thought about various word choices and what to call myself. Dawkins seems to think it's largely a debate over semantics.

Richard Dawkins Offers Advice for Donald Trump, and Other Wisdom | Scientific American

At the Templeton meeting, you described yourself as an agnostic, because you cannot be certain that God does not exist, correct?

This is a semantic matter. Some people define atheism as a positive conviction that there are no gods and agnosticism as allowing for the possibility, however slight. In this sense I am agnostic, as any scientist would be. But only in the same way I am agnostic about leprechauns and fairies. Other people define agnosticism as the belief that the existence of gods is as probable as their nonexistence. In this sense I am certainly not agnostic. Not only are gods unnecessary for explaining anything, they are overwhelmingly improbable. I rather like the phrase of a friend who calls himself a “tooth fairy agnostic”—his belief in gods is as strong as his belief in the tooth fairy. So is mine. We live our lives on the assumption that there are no gods, fairies, hobgoblins, ghosts, zombies, poltergeists or any supernatural entities. Actually, it is not at all clear what supernatural could even mean, other than something which science does not (yet) understand.

 

Reading Bertrand Russell, while in college, had the net effect of strengthening my faith. Starting out as a Religion major, my professors chipped away at my faith while an atheist built it back!

 

Being spiritual as opposed to being religious affirms the positive aspects of faith such as love, charity, kindness, honesty, unselfish generosity without the cumbersome hindrances of dogmas and doctrines. It seeks and recognizes connections that bind us and the world we live in together, rejecting the requirements and ritualistic constructs of religious practice and the necessity to believe religious tenets. Spirituality recognizes what goes around comes around, that penances for our transgressions will sooner or later, be paid through karma.

It's being open to possibilies, remaining teachable as every experience we have , every situation we find ourselves in has aspects intended to teach us something to shape us and mold us into better people. Spiritually inclined Christians are more concerned with how they can improve the world and minister to those who are in pain and need as opposed to saving their souls from a fiery torment after they die.

 

Yeah. No one said "America". The church is global and it is growing.

Also the numbers you cite tell us that 75M Americans regularly attend church. That is an increase, and Gallop says 40%.

But for the 1000th time, the church is the body of believer, not the formal attendees.

We have good friends that spent 10 years doing mission work overseas but do not attend traditional church here in the states now. They have in home fellowship, just as the church in Acts did. Millions of others do the same.

But while the rate of growth per capita is slower, 75M is an increase, and the US is far behind other places. The church is exploding in Africa, China etc.

 

Small churches are dying as larger community based churches come about.

Many smaller churches are now merging to have a greater cohesive impact.

Our church is 11 years old and has roughly 1000 people.

 

The USA is the only place I could get good data. Places where it’s exploding are places with small amounts of xtians. Doubling two is 4.

 

Clearly you arent reading links.

Read the one I sent above:

Christianity has been estimated to be growing rapidly in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. In Africa, for instance, in 1900, there were only 8.7 million adherents of Christianity; now there are 390 million, and it is expected that by 2025 there will be 600 million Christians in Africa.

The same link mentions that it is still growing at or near the birth rate in the US.

You should really atop and examine why you are so adamant about spreading a falsehood. Because that is all you are doing my friend.

 

Perhaps we are both cherry picking data. People over report their church attendance by almost 100 percent in the USA. Don’t you think that could happen elsewhere?

 

This can mean a variety of things to different people, but I would say people who claim this may tend to focus more on their own connection with a higher power and less on the community aspect of support, encouragement, accountability with others who share their view.

Go GATORS!
,WESGATORS

 

Religious means believing or worshipping in a deity (i.e., god or gods).

Perhaps one can claim to be spiritual as in believing in life after death (i.e., believing in a material world and a spiritual world after the material world death) without identifying a deity? But my guess is that they believe in their own version of a spiritual world without identifying specifically with an organized religion. Like psychics and mediums and such.

 

I think it’s a catch all term that means whatever one who likes to believe in nonsense and doesn’t want to define it.

 

I’d tell Richard “deal”, you’ll find out yourself eventually.