I’m Not Religious
but
I’m Not Spiritual
either.
By
Art Bone
“I’m not religious, but I’m spiritual.”
You hear that line a lot in San Miguel, usually said by women of a certain age who take yoga and meditation classes . . . and, if they believe it, who am I to disagree? But, as an atheist, I came up with the title of this essay to distance myself from these well-meaning folks.
I told this to a visitor when she told me she was a retired Unitarian minister. Her reply was that she never knew what the hell people meant when they said they were “spiritual.” We agreed it’s a catchall phrase that means you believe there’s something out there in the great unknown but not anything bad. Sort of a “God as Big Daddy” that will keep you warm and safe and not let anything bad happen to you, but if anything bad does happen, he’ll be there to fix it.
In other words, Santa Claus.
Santa is the ideal god. He only comes once a year, so there’s none of that tedious going to church and tithing. He brings gifts if you’re nice, and if you’re naughty, he doesn’t really punish you, just leaves lumps of coal.
Have any of you ever known anyone who’s gotten coal for Christmas? Me, neither. And, if anybody deserved coal it was probably me.
Being “spiritual” means having all the good stuff of religion; the uplifting of the Spirit, the absolution, the grace of God, without any of the bad stuff; the sacrifice, abstinence, and certainly none of the pain required of real religious ecstasy. It’s an Easter sunrise service on a mountaintop compared to the penitentes at Atotonilco.
Of course, if that’s all that’s on the menu, bundle me up and don’t forget the scarf and toboggan, we’re headed for the mountains.
My family was Baptist. That’s Southern Baptist, the Baptists who argued the righteousness of slavery until after the Civil War. But not right after. It was June 20, 1995 before they apologized for their defense of the practice of owning other human beings. I believe the reason they gave for not apologizing sooner was that they didn’t want to offend any church members who might be former slave owners. This is the denomination that spawned Pat Robinson, Jerry Falwell, Jim Bakker, and many others of the same ilk.
My Aunt Maude was a member of a Primitive Baptist church in South Georgia. I remember going to church with her and my cousins and hearing the “Hellfire and Brimstone” sermons particular to that denomination. Although they had folks speaking in tongues, they weren’t quite Holy Rollers. I’m proud to say, too, that they weren’t snake handlers. That would be too much to bear.
I also remember my mother and her discussing “Sin.” From what I could determine at that age, “Sin” was everything except going to church. That’s why I admire the Mexican Catholics so much. They seem to have such a good time, with fiestas, fireworks, food, and music. A fiesta at a Baptist church would consist of a prayer and a few inspirational words from the preacher, a huge meal, some poorly sung hymns, a prayer to close, and everybody would be home by nine, in time to watch Matlock.
My parents didn’t attend church regularly until I was in my middle teens, for which I will be eternally (bad word choice) grateful. By then, I had read most of Sinclair Lewis and Elmer Gantry had a profound effect on me. It put me off religion for life.
When I saw the movie, I loved Burt Lancaster’s portrayal of Gantry as a glib, loveable rascal. It was entertaining but nothing like the Gantry in the book, a lascivious, avaricious hypocrite, with no redeeming features. The interesting thing about people like him (and Jimmy Swaggert, and Ted Haggard, and many others) is that they don’t seem to lack faith. They have faith, they believe passionately but they just can’t control the sexual urges they try so strongly to suppress. Jerry Lee Lewis, Jimmy Swaggert’s cousin, said he knew he (Lewis) was going to hell for playing “the Devil’s music,” rock and roll, but he was going to play it anyway.
Faith and belief are two different things. Belief is conditional, whereas faith is absolute. In the dark ages, people believed the earth was a disk, carried on the backs of four elephants, which were standing on the back of a giant tortoise swimming through the ether. When confronted with new evidence, most people changed their beliefs.
The religious faithful, on the other hand, know they have the truth and want no disagreement, even in the face of overwhelming evidence. When Galileo determined, through observation, that the earth was not the center of the universe, but rotated around the sun, the Church excommunicated and arrested him.
Faith ultimately comes down to believing something that can’t be proved. The supernatural world, by definition, can’t be observed or tested, so belief in it is a matter of faith.
On the other hand, the belief in the scientific method is as much a matter of faith as a belief in religion. The only things we can know are things we observe but the act of observing changes the observed. Perhaps the material world is a delusion we’re all sharing. At least, it seems pretty delusional sometimes.
Spiritual Prayer
Lord, grant me:
Knowledge without Study
Strength without Exercise
Insight without Experience
And
Forgiveness without Repentance
Dear God, give me Something for Nothing.
I used to finish off my “I’m not religious but I’m not spiritual either“ by saying, “but I am superstitious.” Actually, I didn’t think I was superstitious but it just seemed to end the sentence nicely.
Now I’ve learned a new word and think it applies better. Substitious. It means believing in something that’s real but not commonly believed.
For instance, I believe that smoking is bad for your health. Years of testimony by tobacco company executives and their hired shills can’t change my mind.
I believe in global worming. I read Al Gore’s book in ‘91 and it made sense to me.
I believe in peak oil, the idea that the world has reached the limit of what oil it can produce and, in the future, the supply is going to decrease at the same time demand increases. I believe oil is going to be much more expensive. Call me crazy but I’ve believed that since I saw the first “Mad Max” movie.