Spirituality vs. Being Religious - It’s Video Friday

Comment by: Lisa Wellington

I think Barb’s genuine humility is evident here.

This video reminds me of a quote by Flannery O’Connor (1925-64)Novelist and short-story writer.
“Dogma can in no way limit a limitless God.”

Comment by: skikid

I was fortunate enough to be able to travel to the Grand Canyon a few weeks ago, we got to stay on the rim in a hotel. I was there with my family and we are a bit nerdy in that when ever we go to a national park we go to the ranger talks. The talk for the night we were there was in the “Chapel of the Ages” and was by a Hopi woman who was telling her peoples creations story. It was one of the coolest parts of the trip, hearing a woman speak about spirituality that moved her, in way that I don’t normally hear.
As I move through my own doubts about God (relgion?) I find myself trusting in that which has moved my heart like nothing else ever has, that truth that my heart understands. I think what I heard from the Hopi woman was her expressing that in a different way.

Comment by: Tom in Sacramento

Big surprise: I didn’t think much of it. I mean, it reinforced my impression that Barb is a kind and caring woman. It also reinforced my impression that she doesn’t have a real strong grip on Christian teaching. Some may consider that a plus, but, if the subject is Christianity — and maybe it’s not [shrug] — then one ought to connect with the proper source of reality.

Ex., Someone might say to me, I know about Rick. He’s a crabby sort of fellow, short and squat, no sense of humor… Well, I can conclude that they are out of touch with reality. Because I know Rick. He’s my brother. He’s tall and good looking and he is fun to be around and has a great sense of humor. There is no substitute for knowing.

And, touchy feely as it is to “know Jesus”, if it doesn’t line up with the only absolute, verifiable account we have, then it cannot be the same Jesus.

When Barb talks about Muslims or Hindus and whatever god works for them, that’s great if you are a pragmatist or a utilitarian. But Jesus said, “I am the way…no one comes except by me.” So, you can be glad if a person is deluded but happy, but … [shrug] truth is truth.

Now, all that said, some of the comments by the Native American speakers reminded me of something I found a long time ago. It is an example, I think, of how God has salted His truth all over the place so that, when people hear the gospel they will have familiar hooks to hang it on.

I have a sand painting of the “Talking God Spirit”. The description on the back says:

This Indian design represents a talking God who communicated between the Great God Spirit and man. He carries a medicine pouch at his back which contains all the powers necessary to communicate with all the Great Spirit’s creations.

I bought this because I found it fascinating that this is a pretty good characterization of Christ’s mission.

Comment by: TXatheist

Tom said

So, you can be glad if a person is deluded but happy, but … [shrug] truth is truth.

And that would be you? Cause there ain’t one shred of verifiable evidence for Jesus nor that quote, it’s heresay at best. The book of John was written about 85 CE. That’s way after Jesus so it’s heresay at best.

Comment by: Eliza

NCxian #1 - thanks for the tip, that helped!

In response to the video: First, I really like Barb’s approach & openness. Cool. Second, my favorite line from the video is

The belief system [in his tribe, or among Native Americans] is that the way you treat the world around you is the way you’ll be treated.

It’s the Golden Rule, expanded to considerations beyond “just” other humans. (Taken literally, it does suggest it’s dicey to eat anything though - lest you be eaten in return. Though that lunch buffet sure does sound good…

Comment by: NCxian

Do you think it is possible that God sent somebody like Jesus (or Jesus in another incarnation) directly to the Hopi?

This is a question I ask myself about Muslims. My understanding is that Mohammed pleaded with God for a special revelation for his people because he thought they could never accept the God of the Jews and Christians (because of bad blood between them, I think). And God answered his prayers. I got this idea from one of Karen Armstrong’s books, but I read it some time ago so I am not able to be more specific about it.

Comment by: Bob

Tom wrote: When Barb talks about Muslims or Hindus and whatever god works for them, that’s great if you are a pragmatist or a utilitarian.

I appreciate Barb’s approach (being a “learner” with people) but I have to agree with Tom on this point. When I hear people say things like this, my little head translates “what works for you” to “create a god in your image”. God doesn’t “work for us”, He IS.

Barb’s New Kind of Christianity seems more like Unitarian Universalism to me.

Comment by: Ir

Bob wrote: Barb’s New Kind of Christianity seems more like Unitarian Universalism to me.

I would agree that there’s significant overlap.

However, UUs don’t believe Jesus is God or otherwise single him out in any special way. In theory they could but I would think that people who do so are likely to prefer liberal Christian communities where everyone is interested in Jesus in particular, but also where there is strong de-emphasis on doctrine. In other words there is freedom to learn from other belief systems and also set aside whatever in your own seems counterproductive/evil/useless/meaningless.

My personal hesitation about such groups is that I’m afraid they may have de facto doctrines that they are anti-doctrine.

I see I have a lot in common with them but having left some groups because I don’t like the ‘you’re supposed to be like this’ I want to be careful not to make the mistake of joining a group which has just as much ‘you’re supposed to be like this’ but which looks appealing right now because they so strongly reject my former groups’ ‘you’re supposed to look like this’. (If you see what I mean)

Comment by: TXatheist

bob,
I am not a UU xian though there are some but yes they have no problem with people realizing god has many faces. They understand that xianity is no more true than any other mythology so it’s a track to understand god/jesus but never to be as naive as to think xianity is the absolute truth.

Comment by: Ir

TXatheist: I am not a UU xian though there are some but yes they have no problem with people realizing god has many faces. They understand that xianity is no more true than any other mythology so it’s a track to understand god/jesus but never to be as naive as to think xianity is the absolute truth.

I think I’m right in saying some UUs are atheists and some believe in some sort of supernatural reality. As I understand it, each local UU group has a slightly different emphasis; atheists would probably be more comfortable in some UU groups than others; likewise I expect Christian UUs might be more comfortable in some UU groups than others. One of the UUs near me recently appointed a new minister who I think I read called himself a ‘liberal Christian’ - or maybe it was just that he said things which indicated he was very close to liberal Christianity. Two people complained after he led his first meeting there because he used the word ‘God’. :)

I would imagine Spong would be pretty comfortable around UUs and vice-versa.

Comment by: TXatheist

Our minister uses the word god but it doesn’t bother me because if I shared my atheism with him he wouldn’t care. If I shared my atheism with a fundamentalists they’d think that xianity was the truth and I was not on the right path. It’s the arrogance of the god idea that differs with each UU person. No uu xian has told me i’m wrong and if they do then we will have a discussion but it’s not like that. I think they label themselves UU xian and not just xian so one can easily identify them as non-fundamentalists. But yes if my minister used god every sermon I’d get tired of it. It’s used in various methods so I find it personal for him, not dogmatic as attached to some story.

Comment by: Eliza

Lisa W, nicely said!

Not trying to provoke debate, but to think aloud through some of the great stuff I’ve learned on this site. The discussions here have taught me that a person’s spiritual experiences and beliefs:

(1) are very real and very meaningful to him/her. Another person can respect and acknowledge those beliefs and experiences, but person A can’t directly experience person B’s feelings and beliefs.

(2) can’t be “downloaded” from one person to another, though people can experience spiritual presence in the same location and/or time and/or situation and/or context, and people can share their spiritual experiences through language; and

(3) can’t be understood or fully appreciated by someone who hasn’t had spiritual experiences, or perhaps by someone who has had similar feelings but doesn’t interpret them as coming from a power/force outside the self.

Please let me know if you disagree w/ any of the above, or would phrase anything differently, or add/remove qualifications. This is a new construct for me & it’s better to move the walls now rather than later!

I’d add these 2 more controversial thoughts (which I’d call observations, but that implies a higher degree of objectivity than I should try to claim ;) ):
(4) spiritual experiences and beliefs are expressed & interpreted within a context & culture, which can include any of a large number of organized religions; and

(5) given the intensity of the external-power-greater-than-me sense of spiritual experiences (I’m guessing and interpreting here), the construct in which those feelings and beliefs are interpreted, for example an organized religion, can become firmly held as the one true path (or, as Spong calls it, “door”) to God/gods by its adherents.

Comment by: Tom in Sacramento

Eliza wrote:

Not trying to provoke debate, but to think aloud through some of the great stuff I’ve learned on this site. The discussions here have taught me that a person’s spiritual experiences and beliefs:

(1) are very real and very meaningful to him/her. Another person can respect and acknowledge those beliefs and experiences, but person A can’t directly experience person B’s feelings and beliefs.

I would agree strongly…depending on how we define “spiritual”. I see “spiritual” as a defining human characteristic that enables us to formulate a worldview. As far as I know, no one has ever suggested that any other life form possesses this characteristic. But, if this is reasonable, then it suggests that atheistic beliefs are a form of “spiritual belief”. That seems clear and sensible to me but I don’t know how it will go down with others.

(2) can’t be “downloaded” from one person to another, though people can experience spiritual presence in the same location and/or time and/or situation and/or context, and people can share their spiritual experiences through language; and

I assume what you’re saying is along the lines that when thousands of people “go forward” at a Billy Graham meeting, it is an example of people sharing the “experience of spiritual presence”. Is that the idea? If so, I think this is a good point.

(3) can’t be understood or fully appreciated by someone who hasn’t had spiritual experiences, or perhaps by someone who has had similar feelings but doesn’t interpret them as coming from a power/force outside the self.

I like this very much, especially because of the last clause. Because, even for a Christian, me included, I am pretty skeptical about anyone making claims that God spoke to them. I wouldn’t say it can’t happen. But I would ask, How do you know it wasn’t your own mind doing the thinking? I think it is a very hard thing to discern even if a person is well attuned. And if a person is not well attuned, the “logical” notion would be that this was something that originated in my own thinking.

I’d add these 2 more controversial thoughts (which I’d call observations, but that implies a higher degree of objectivity than I should try to claim ;) ):
(4) spiritual experiences and beliefs are expressed & interpreted within a context & culture, which can include any of a large number of organized religions; and

I think this is very important. I happened to hear a lecture this morning by a fellow with a PhD in NT studies from Hebrew University in Jerusalem. (He explained that Jewish historians are vitally interested in the NT documents because many aspects of Jewish life and tradition are first mentioned in writing in the NT docs, and not until much later in Jewish documents.) And he laid out a bunch of stuff that illustrated how fully understanding the many contexts of a belief system can explain and enhance the general appreciation for the belief system itself.

We’ve talked bout some of this here; he gave a great illustration. He now teaches in NYC. And he says his ethnic students get this idea very easily. He asks his Spanish-speaking students, “Have you eveer tried to tell a Spanish joke in English?” A lot of stuff just doesn’t translate easily.

So, yes, this is another great point.

(5) given the intensity of the external-power-greater-than-me sense of spiritual experiences (I’m guessing and interpreting here), the construct in which those feelings and beliefs are interpreted, for example an organized religion, can become firmly held as the one true path (or, as Spong calls it, “door”) to God/gods by its adherents.

I think you’ve got the right result but the wrong mechanism. Certainly the tendency is to define MY way as the RIGHT way. But I think that is a human characteristic. In fact, the speaker this morning made a similar point in talking about Jesus’ message.

He said, Jesus began His ministry by proclaiming the day of the Lord and identifying it with caring for the needy and freeing the oppressed. Those two elements come from two different passages of Isaiah. The first talks about the day of the Lord including care for the needy and judgement for the wicked. He left that last part out. The second talks about what God considers a good sacrifice and it includes the freeing of the oppressed.

Well, (cultural context) the Jews knew those passages by memory and realized He’d linked two different passages. And (historical context) the Jews were an oppressed people suffering under Rome. And (religious context) the Jews understood the Messiah’s role to be political deliverance and judgment on the oppressor. So, when Jesus linked two texts and left off the judgment part, if ticked off His hearers. Because, like all of us, they had defined themselves as the white-hats, and they defined the Romans and gentiles as black-hats.

And the speaker talked about how — another illustration that reminded me of our conversations — when we want to illustrate the bad guys that deserve judgment, what do we do? We draw a line and put some indisputably bad guys on the other side. We always use: Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot. But he continued that, once you’ve drawn that line, it is then just a matter of creeping judgmentalism. And pretty soon, the people in the church down the street deserve to go to hell because they don’t do communion the way we do.

So, I’m inclined to think your last point is a mere human characteristic, not a spiritual characteristic. And, indeed, we have seen atheists, who claim no “external-power-greater-than-me sense of spiritual experiences”, revile Christians and their beliefs in precisely the same manner as some Christians have damned atheists to hell. (The only difference being that atheists don’t have a hell to send us to. THAT’s gotta be frustrating. ;-) )

All in all, excellent analysis, Eliza. Very nicely done. (Sorry my response wasn’t as succinct as your original.)

Comment by: Eliza

NCxian and Tom — thanks very much for your comments. As Julie Marie said, I find I am trying to choose my words more carefully. I am trying not to put my foot in my mouth so often, or at least not to chomp down so hard when I do! Language comes in on so many levels here and in every communication between people, influencing how we relate and react to each other, and how we visualize things.

I was trying to describe how I’m seeing people talk about their spiritual beliefs, but from what you say I’m seeing we’re really talking about beliefs from any/all sources. Tom, your comments about how strongly atheists hold, present, and can try to impose their beliefs really pointed this out to me. And as you said, Tom:

depending on how we define “spiritual”. I see “spiritual” as a defining human characteristic that enables us to formulate a worldview.

I was intending to refer, as I said in the original #5, to a sense of a power/force outside the self. From Wikipedia “Spirituality is, in a narrow sense, a concern with matters of the spirit…the emphasis is on personal experience. It may be an expression for life perceived as higher, more complex or more integrated with one’s worldview…”

Tom, you also said:

I assume what you’re saying is along the lines that when thousands of people “go forward” at a Billy Graham meeting, it is an example of people sharing the “experience of spiritual presence”. Is that the idea? If so, I think this is a good point.

Actually, that’s not what I meant. I meant that Billy Graham or the person standing next to me at one of those meetings (or talking to me afterwards) can’t “download” their experience of that event into me so that I experience it the way they do. In fact, I might have an opposite reaction — a feeling that the event is a sham — and that feeling is a real experience for me, as real as the experience of the person next to me who is moved by the spirit.

So, how about a modified construct (fewer items, but each a bit longer):

(A) A person’s beliefs and experiences are very real and very meaningful to him/her. Another person can respect and acknowledge those beliefs and experiences, but person X can’t directly experience person Y’s feelings and beliefs. People tend to feel strongly that their beliefs, and the way they approach them, is/are the right way — and other beliefs, or other ways of approaching them, is/are the wrong way.

(B) Beliefs and experiences can’t be “downloaded” from one person to another, though people can experience spiritual presence in the same location and/or time and/or situation and/or context, and people can share their spiritual experiences through language. As a corollary, spiritual connection can’t be understood or fully appreciated by someone who hasn’t had spiritual experiences, or perhaps by someone who has had similar feelings but doesn’t interpret them as coming from a power/force outside the self.

(C) Experiences and beliefs are expressed & interpreted within a context & culture, communicated largely by language (but also through art…what else?). For spiritual experiences and beliefs this can, but does not have to, include any of a large number of organized religions.

So, then, I re-pose my prior #5 as a question. Does the intensity of, or the quality of, the external-power-greater-than-me sense of spiritual experiences (which non-spiritual experiences don’t have by my definition of spiritual experiences above) affect how religious beliefs are expressed, or protected, or promoted by its adherents/believers? Compared with other beliefs/stances?

Comment by: Lisa

Eliza said:

So part of what I want to throw out there, how/why does finding what feels for all the world like a valid route to God sometimes result in someone speaking/writing to others in the belief that that route must be the only valid route, for everyone?

Here’s what I think:
Two possible postures:
a) based on a negative stance
b) based on a positive stance.

a) says, “Consider the Cost” ie: this route is tough, consider the possible hardship before taking the leap. I’ve mastered how difficult this is so I had better be right.
This posture can set up a mind set of ‘misery loves company’ and a resentment of anyone who does it differently/easier than me. That would imply that I was either doing it wrong or additionally that it was costing me dearly. I would want to avoid that feeling so my route HAS to be right.

b) says, I’ve tried other routes. This is what has fit for me and I’m a tough fit. I’m really happy and I bet most other people, if they knew what I knew, would benefit from this route. I must be right. I shall tell the world.

What do you think “c)” should be?

Comment by: Westy

Historical, orthodox Christianity is either true, or it is not.

Exactly. It either is or isn’t. Us discussing it here isn’t going to change that, but we can know that someday, we’ll ALL know one way or the other.

Comment by: NCxian

Tom: Do you think that your experience walking with God for 50 years leads you to believe that Jesus is the only way to God? Or do you think that it is the Christian tradition (informed by the Bible) that you have become a part of as a disciple of Christ that leads you to believe that Jesus is the only way to God?

Please don’t interpret this as a challenge, because I don’t mean it that way. I ask because I think your response to that would get to the crux of Eliza’s #5 question, “what causes believers to think that their way is the only way”. My thinking is that it is not the quality of the experience. I am thinking it is the context (adherence to Christian tradition) that causes one to interpret and express the spiritual experience as “one way”.

It is a very thought-provoking piece of Eliza’s 5-point plan!. Thanks, Eliza!

Comment by: Eliza

Westy said

we can know that someday, we’ll ALL know one way or the other.

Ahh, but how can any of us be certain that we won’t just die and that’ll be that - that the ability each of us has to “know” vanishes once our brain dies with our body? That’s what I think happens. And I expect never to know that for sure!

Comment by: Simon

Sorry, I thought this was a porn site.