Turns out someone already wrote a whole book about this, though he doesn't seem quite that critical about it (from the excerpt, anyway). The book is called Spiritual, But Not Religious and it is published by Oxford University Press (Hey Brian, get me a free copy!) It has somewhat middling reviews.
An excerpt is here: http://www.beliefnet.com/story/109/story_10958_1.html
It basically makes the distinction between the public worship of religion and private worship of spirituality. He is able to give demographics (though he does not cite his sources in the excerpt):
"A large number of Americans identify themselves as "spiritual but not religious." It is likely that perhaps one in every five persons (roughly half of all the unchurched) could describe themselves in this way."
"We also know a few things about today's unchurched seekers as a group. They are more likely than other Americans to have a college education, to belong to a white-collar profession, to be liberal in their political views, to have parents who attended church less frequently, and to be more independent in the sense of having weaker social relationships." (Fruity liberals!)
But though Fuller doesn't seem as critical as I, he notices the same contradictions:
The "spiritual, but not religious" group was less likely to evaluate religiousness positively, less likely to engage in traditional forms of worship such as church attendance and prayer, less likely to engage in group experiences related to spiritual growth, more likely to be agnostic, more likely to characterize religiousness and spirituality as different and nonoverlapping concepts, more likely to hold nontraditional beliefs, and more likely to have had mystical experiences.
and:
The confusion stems from the fact that the words "spiritual" and "religious" are really synonyms. Both connote belief in a Higher Power of some kind. Both also imply a desire to connect, or enter into a more intense relationship, with this Higher Power. And, finally, both connote interest in rituals, practices, and daily moral behaviors that foster such a connection or relationship.
Friday, May 30, 2008
Spiritual, but not religious
Thursday, May 29, 2008
My crusade against the spiritual.
I have a lot of distaste for idiotic fruity liberals, by which I usually mean hippies and their ilk. Not all of them, of course, but a vast majority, or at least the ones I seem to come across. People with whom I am ashamed to identify with as a liberal, because they are idiots and say stupid things like I am voting for Obama because in my gut I just feel he is the right person. It almost makes me want to be a conservative, but two weeks ago I spoke to a random girl who wore a utilikilt but was defiantly red, and she was even more aggravating. And I'm sure there are much worse than she.
Anyway, my crusade against the spiritual basically comes down to the fact that being spiritual is just an easy way for people to pretend they aren't religious even though they really are. Now, I hate religion with a passion. I see no difference between Scientology and Catholicism. (Scientology only seems more silly because it is newer. Older religions have the benefit of being spoon fed at an early age. Too bad for Suri Cruise.) There are differences, of course, between the spiritual and religious. They're spelled differently, for one. Religion is organized (outside of Yoga parlors), for two. But really, they're both illogical beliefs, rooted in absolutely no proof, and, if anything, proof to the contrary.
Science can't explain everything, but it attempts to with a rigorous and evidence-based method. Scientific knowledge is continuously accruing, and there is simply no excuse to be religious these days anymore. There probably hasn't been for at least the past century. Perhaps there was a time when religion seemed worthwhile as it provided a means to an end. But as the great Mencken said: "It is often argued that religion is valuable because it makes men good, but even if this were true it would not be a proof that religion is true. That would be an extension of pragmatism beyond endurance. Santa Claus makes children good in precisely the same way, and yet no one would argue seriously that the fact proves his existence. The defense of religion is full of such logical imbecilities." Mencken also said: "The only way to reconcile science and religion is to set up something which is not science and something that is not religion." And Einstein wrote: "The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish."
Idiotic fruity liberals will, of course, as per their presented image, decry such things as creationism. They will be pro-science and get their news from NPR. And yet they will accept astrological bullshit (just for fun, they swear), become "one" with nature, and tell people they're "not religious, but they're spiritual," as though believing in spirits was somehow an enlightened and advantageous state of being, more than the average atheist and certainly more than rudimentary religious folk. They spew faux-intellectual thoughts (which, no doubt, they heard on NPR that same morning or read in some tract or pamphlet) without having considered what they're saying themselves. They read about issues without reading into them. They are bandwagon liberals who want to appear smart but don't really know what they're talking about.
I was talking to my roommate a few days ago about my new crusade. Now I'm not talking about my annoying, crazy, vegan roommate, who of course is exactly one of these idiotic fruity bandwagon liberals, but the one that I like who is generally thoughtful and reasonable. Anyway, she said that she wouldn't loudly announce it, but that she'd consider herself spiritual. So I asked her what she meant by this. Do you believe in God? Do you believe in spirits of trees and animals? And she replied that she simply thought there was a higher being than humans. Like god? No. You know, life is so complex, it's not just randomness. And I said do you know what that is? that is intelligent design. And she denied it. But that is precisely what it is. Spirituality is the belief of something superhuman and supernatural. It is supersilly. I don't know why the spiritual get a free pass. It is as intellectually squalid as religion.
What is strange about all this is that I think the hardest things for people to believe are things they cannot see (hear/feel/smell/etc.) with their own eyes (senses.) People can read and grasp Einstein's theories of relativity, and yet they won't really believe that a moving clock ticks slower than a stationary one. It is natural to be skeptical of things that you can't see and seem illogical, and yet most of this world is willing to blindly follow babbling psychopaths go on about gods and higher authorities and heavens and hells.
To all the spiritual people, I say, stop being so disorganized; arrange neatly and be horrified to discover yourselves no different than the religious.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Spammers know me so well.
I got spam the other day. It wasn't advertising anything but merely making a statement:
In other gossip, Ariel is cheating on Eric:
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
What more in the name of love?
"We are a proud people."
The Mayans, Japanese, Iraqi, Iranian, Batswana, Latvian, Georgian, Uruguayan, Antarctican, Danish, Chilean, Vulcan, Bolivian, Australian, French, American, and certainly the Monagasque ("We are small but proud!") are all proud people. Is there a nation of the non-proud? Even countries that are officially ashamed are secretly proud. (The hippies and idiot liberals (not all liberals) of the United States are outspokenly ashamed of our country, but damn proud of themselves for being so loudly ashamed. They like to talk about moving to Canada but they will never actually do it.)
(In something of a contradiction, most religions view pride as a sin. But this is generally ignored. Gluttony, in the US at least, is also widely ignored.)
So perhaps all people are a proud people, but not everyone can be equally proud. Usually it is the downtrodden, war-beaten, raped, and indigenous that speak up most about being proud (we're willing to give them that much after we take away their land), but that doesn't make them any more proud than anyone else; it just happens to be all they have left.
What I would like to do is develop a measure of proudness (dealing specifically with National Pride, as opposed to proudness of ethnic, cultural, or familial groups, or of the personal variety.) Voluntary military participation is probably a good starting point; people who are willing to die for their country are probably prouder than people not willing to die for their country:
National Pride (Pn) = Voluntary Military Participation (M) / Population (K)
This is imperfect, however, because a country with a more technologically advanced military doesn't need as many people to keep their country from being taken over by another. So we should control for military might, by multiplying by the amount of military spending per capita:
Pn = (M/K) x (Total Military Spending (S)/K) = MS/K^2
This result is skewed towards countries that are less populous, lack natural borders, and fight a lot. In other words, it is too pro-Israel. To adjust for this, we should adjust based on amount of war activity:
Pn = (MS/K^2) x Wadj = MSWadj/K^2 , where Wadj is the War adjustment factor .
Next, in addition to fighting, there is also a cultural element to National Pride. I think we can reasonably measure this by the amount of flags sold per capita:
Pn= MSWadj/K^2 + Flags Sold (F)/K = MSWadj/K^2+F/K
You might argue that I should adjust for aesthetic quality of the flags, but frankly, if my country had an ugly flag, I'd have less pride as well.
So there you have it. The unit of measure for pride should be Lions. So. By this measure, we can see that the proudest people are the Irish. They have 17,844 Lions of Pride. Plus one Bono.