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Old 09-11-2017, 07:11 PM
Molearner Molearner is online now
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Join Date: Feb 2014
Posts: 4,460
 
These discussions of religion and spirituality seem to often digress from any sense of reality. The fact is that, in reality, they can comfortably co-exist. There is a naivete based on the assumption that we live our lives in a transparent and totally honest way without hypocrisy. This is simply not true. People who profess honesty when faced with starvation will steal to survive...they will cheat on their taxes, their spouses, they will praise dictators that they detest, they will declare that all is well when they are in tremendous pain and under great stress. In regards to religion they will belong to churches that dictate no birth control, no abortions and secretly follow neither dictate. None of these aberrations precludes them from having a genuine spirituality. There is no one that is all good just as there is no one that is all evil. People co-exist in bad marriages whether it might be a marriage to an individual, a religion, a relationship, a set of stated beliefs or a particular political party, form of government or a country.

There is a great amount of hypocrisy among advocates of spirituality as opposed to religion. It is this: they wish to make themselves separate from religion and in their next breath tell one that they must be accepting of and charitable to everyone that differs from them.....e.g. Muslims, Jews, Catholics, Protestants, fundamentals, black, white, Democrats, Republicans, rich, poor, the criminal, those that live in ivory towers.....etc. the list in endless. The greatest test, IMO, for anyone that aspires to be spiritual is to not allow themselves to be drawn into a philosophy of separation that seemingly elevates themselves into something that is nothing more than an elevation of their individual egos. And the greatest commandment is this: (you finish the blanks).......:)
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