spirituality

I'm curious, what does it mean to you when someone says: “I’m spiritual but not religious”?

Operator turned investor. Day job in TradFi. Exploring the future of onchain social investing @crossroads.  🟪

I think it’s one of those instances where ambiguous semantics don’t serve the discussion very well. I looked up “religious” and came up with two different definitions. 1

Aviator, diver, Etherean, nexialist, PhD in aviation ∩ climate science | Host of /diving /ethfinance /eth-staker /geopolitics /science /singapore /thomas

However, Merriam-Webster says “manifesting faithful devotion to an acknowledged ultimate reality or deity”, which suggests that even DYI preternatural beliefs qualify for being religious. 3

So according to the former, you can be non-religious but still spiritual (if you believe in something preternatural), but in the latter, both are more or less interchangeable (which is also how I’ve always seen those terms). 4

In fact the Oxford definition for “spiritual” includes “relating to religious belief”, so even Oxford kind of suggests they’re ~ equivalent. 5

In my case, I am squarely irreligious, and it hasn’t come to my mind to ever describe myself as “spiritual” — despite a pure intellectual curiosity for (not a belief in) the occult and the preternatural. 6

Oxford dictionary says “believing in a religion”, which requires aligning oneself to one of the existing dogmas. By that definition, you could be non-religious but still “spiritual” if you have your own set of DYI preternatural beliefs. 2