The word “religion” comes from the Latin word religionem, which means, “respect for what is sacred, reverence for the gods; conscientiousness, sense of right, moral obligation.” Religion is connecting to the Divine through someone else’s experience. It is primarily concerned with believing in, following, and obeying the rules created by a certain Deity or spiritual teacher.
Iconic singer David Bowie famously described spirituality vs religion in the following brilliantly irreverent way:
Religion is for people who’re afraid of going to hell. Spirituality is for those who’ve already been there.
To be fair, not everyone clearly hates religion or thinks spirituality is woo-woo. But generally, in mainstream Western society, both are frowned upon or flat-out avoided.
Since religion began its increasing decline in the early 20th century which was promoted by the Age of Enlightenment in the previous period and reinforced by the horrors of the world wars, the idea of “God” is now largely seen as not just infantile, but ludicrous.
In the words of Nietzsche, the well-known German philosopher who essentially prophesied the crumbling of religion in the West (“God is dead”):
What do we do with a human God, when we turn to God, precisely because we’re disgusted by mankind?
This kind of statement perfectly summarizes the kind of (rightfully justified) cynicism and disillusionment that we carry toward the popular patriarchal notion of a white dude sitting in the sky, judging all our actions...<<<Read More>>>...
