Showing posts with label spirituality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spirituality. Show all posts

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Glenn Reynolds on why spirituality is more popular than religion

Citing a Pew Research Forum report, which cites young people as being spiritual, but not religious, Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit had this to say:
Well, that’s because religion often tells you to do things you don’t want to do, or to refrain from doing things you want to do, while spirituality is usually more . . . flexible.
I'm not sure if he considers that a bug of a feature, but he hits the nail on the head. Far too much of the so-called spirituality today centers around the idea of God wanting our attention, but little more. The idea that God may actually expect certain things of us beyond a generic, flexible "being good" is inconvenient at best.

No, the inconvenient truth is that God has a plan for us, and that plan calls for us to meet certain standards of behavior. Attempts to water it down so that we can feel better about ourselves with less effort will not work out well for us in the end. I mean seriously, do you really think you can tell the creator of the universe that "I'm sure you didn't mean all that 'thou shalt/shalt not' business. Here, let me show you what I am willing to do for you, though."?

Good luck with that.