It's hard for me to answer this without thinking about spirits when you say spirituality. I don't believe in any spirits or anything like that that help us to find happiness.
I believe in faith in myself, my loved ones and humankind. It is up to us to find our way through this world and make it a good place.
It depends on how you define spirituality.
As for what is religion? It's the belief system that makes up how you live your life. I don't know if an atheist could be religious.
Anyone can have spirituality. There are other spirits out there besides God.
Spirituality is not the same as religion. I see religion as following guidelines or rules. Spirituality is knowing God on a personal level. So I guess spirituality can count for other spirits as well.
I am a spiritual atheist. Religion usually requires a "god" belief, or faith in "god". Spirituality, OTOH, does not require it. It can have it if the person wants a "god" belief, but it is not necessary. Definitions:
The problem with spirituality is that it is undefined. Now a lot of people think this is a good thing, that opens them up to creativity. But it is really sterile and unproductive. The fact is, whenever you experience something, you form conceptions of it. If you're looking to access whatever it is you're trying to access, you have to have a conception of what it is you're accessing. Then you have to develop methods of accessing it, interpreting it, etc. etc. All this work takes "spirituality" and starts turning it into a religion. Basically they're trying to re-invent the wheel.
"Spirituality" is a lot like "mysticism." Some people think that you can have mysticism by itself, but that is patently untrue. Mysticism only exists with the context of a religion. So you have Jewish mysticism, Catholic mysticism, Protestant mysticism, Buddhist mysticism, etc. etc. but you cannot find or create mysticism without a religious context. The same is true for spirituality.
Many people try and define religion as being only the monolithic organized structures that currently exist. Bu this erroneous conception, they think there are only 4 or 5 religions in the world. This is absurd. Each one of those major religions is divided into an infinitude of different sects, denominations, ways of life and spiritual disciplines. Consider the difference between Jerry Falwell and St. Francis of Assissi, and yet they are both "Christian." Realistically speaking, you cannot define religion as the sum of Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism and Hinduism. Those are just examples of religions. You're obviously a smart man, so I'm sure you're familiar with Socrates. The examples of religion aren't the definition of religion, just like the examples of courage, truth, love, etc. aren't the ideas themselves. Furthermore, such a limited definition of religion is extremely ideologically centrist, defining religion only as a comparatively few structures. What about Native Americans, Siberian shamans, African tribes, Australian aborigines? Do they not have religion? It is a common form of Euro-American ideological imperialism to say "Oh, they're so much more in tune with nature, they're so much more spiritual," but that is a blanket claim without any merit that just amounts to a quiet racism. The fact is, such "primitive" religions are very complex and vary widely among the different populations (you also see the same hidden racist/imperialist attitude in modern "pagans," and new age rs but that's another rant altogether).
What does religion boil down to? The famous anthropologist Clifford Geertz defined it as having five elements: "(1) a system of symbols which acts to (2) establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by (3) formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and (4) clothing these conceptions with such an aura of actuality that (5) the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic."
Notice how that definition does not include God. Many people also think that religion by definition requires an idea of God. But such a definition is grounded in an exclusively Western perspective of Western religious history. Buddhism, for example (at least in quite a few schools) makes no claims on the existence of a god or gods, some even going so far as to say that the existence of gods is irrelevant. And yet Buddhism is without doubt a religion.
So you see, God is not necessary to religion. Which is why more recent, secular attempts at spirituality, though they try to distinguish themselves from "religion," really only end up forming their own religions.
Any attempt to access spirituality must eventually take on some kind of conceptual framework. This framework, the very fact that it is a framework, defines itself as a religion. The definition of religion does not consider the content, but merely the arrangement of the content. DNA by definition is only the arrangement of genes, and the precise order of arrangement itself does not change the fact that it is still DNA. If you try to have spirituality without a framework, you can't really have anything at all.
The states described by religious leaders as "spiritual" states (during prayer, meditation etc) can be reached by atheists as well. I am an atheist, but I meditate. It relaxes me. There's nothing godly or anything about it, but it can sort out my thoughts and I feel very connected to the earth almost when I do.
Also LSD has been given to Buddhist monks and they said it was very similar to their deep meditations.
Religion normally applies to a group of people or organization that have a set of beliefs about the supernatural or God and a certain moral code.
Spirituality deals more with how you treat other living beings including yourself. It is also about having certain knowledge of the supernatural, but does not necessarily mean you have to have faith in something. It also could mean to improve your own knowledge about God or the Universe. I would imagine that Atheists could be spiritual, why not?
A religion - or a code of beliefs - can have many facets and aspects. Atheism can for some people just mean taking out one aspect of that belief system. The rest of it needn't disappear as a result. Buddhists certainly have religion, spirituality and faith, but just not (necessarily)in a 'creator' god.
I am a bit on the fence on the concept of 'spirit'/'soul'. I think it's self-evident that there's something that distinguishes humans and animals from, say, a piece of plastic. Further, there seems to be something in the body that exists when a person is alive and doesn't when a person is dead. It may just be a self-perpetuating electrical field, or it may be a soul. Or the difference might just be one of semantics. Yet even if I believe I have a soul (and I think that I do believe that), it doesn't mean I believe that any creator gave that to me or can take it away from me. Without copying Nikki too much, I consider myself a spiritual person. Or, let me say 'spiritually aware' - I am cognizant of a kind of connectedness between people in a way similar to Jung's oceanic consciousness or Hinduism's concept of Brahman vs. Atman. I hope that doesn't sound like hippie new-age babble. The point is that I can believe this (or at least be attracted to the concept) without extending that belief to a creator father figure - or, rather, to anything external.
Plus, I can do yogic flying. Except I can't. But I'd like to one day!
Please understand that I answer your question, not because I believe you have any serious inquiry into the subject, but in the hope that there may be those who read the responses of others and be helped by my answer. Religion is simply and only man's vain attempts of discovering and paying homage to a supreme being, who may or may not exist. It is always false and deadly. Spirituality is on an entirely different plane and is true or false based entirely upon the source of that spiritual power in play. The practice of spirit ism and spiritualism are both spiritual in nature and do require faith, but their source is demonic and leads only to deception, misery and ultimately death. To deny that there is spiritual power in the universe aside from God (YHVH) and that is available to all and practiced by many is false and naive. The Apostle Paul told us that there are many gods, or entities that are called gods that are worshiped, but that these are simply demonic beings ensnaring and deceiving the simple minded, ignorant and gullible souls of man. There is only ONE true God and His name is YHVH. To this God and Him alone do those that are truly spiritual serve, worship and obey. All other gods, be they Allah, Buddha, Krishna, etc are either false gods of mans religious imagination or demonic entities whose being and power is real, but whose source is from Satan, the enemy of YHVH and mankind. We all worship something or someone. We all know who you worship Jim_ Darwin, but there is no weaker, more pathetic god in the universe than self. Poor choice. Try again.
Actually religion is anything that you do religiously.
It could be said that those in the martial arts follow a certain religion.
Spirituality could be of GOD or of SATAN as both are spirits.
I would say that religion is largely the result of Satans attempts to distract us from God's saving grace through Jesus Christ. Religion is obstructing our view of God. Christianity is far from free of this problem.
Spirituality is an integral part of our created being. Our identities are fundamentally spiritual, created by God to be God possessed through Jesus, but ONLY with our consent.
If we are not by God's grace, posses ed through a faith in Jesus, then through our sin our spirits are condemned. Since however, the pacifies of Jesus, justice is deferred until we appear before the judgment seat. If then our spirits are God possessed then salvation is already secured, prior to judgment.
It is my belief that by God's grace, small children will be judged as sinless and will therefore receive salvation. Beyond that who can know the full extent of God's grace.
Luk 18:16
But Jesus called the children to him and said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. (NIV)
Religion is the organization of people around a certain set of beliefs, where spirituality is the measure of a person's soul. The soul is not tied to religion in any fashion, and thus neither is spirituality to religion.
Personally, one can be without religion, but still very spiritual. I believe spirituality focuses around a set code of ethics or morality we set for ourselves.
Faith is not tied to any deity. It can used as a way express support upon another human being or anything else. You can have faith in yourself without being tied to religion.
An atheist could very well be more spiritual than a Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, Jainist, etc. It's all up to the person.
What is religion? What is spirituality? Can an atheist have a spirituality? Or does i
