Spiritual But Not Religious? Danger, Will Robinson!

I just read an article on CNN’s website; “Are there dangers in being 'spiritual but not religious'?” Apparently, it is “trendy” to say that one is spiritual but not religious, which as I understand it, is an assertion that the SBNR person feels free to pick and chose from various religious traditions those things that best reflect their own beliefs, without being tied down to the dogma of a single religion. It seems to me that this is a step in the right direction, if it steers the individual away from blind religious fundamentalism and closer to rejecting religion all together, but it still sounds like most of them are inclined to imbue philosophical writing with mystical, magical powers that don’t really exist.


The article asks (but doesn’t really answer) the question “Are there dangers in this?” As a slightly outspoken atheist (and observer of more outspoken ones), I can answer; yes. That is, narrow-minded religion bullies may try to get you fired from your job, driven out of your community, or even get you killed. However, none of the above was mentioned in the article.

Not surprisingly, Jesuit Priest, James Martin, who arguably has zero experience outside of organized religion, doesn’t like it and thinks it’s driven by egotism. "Being spiritual but not religious can lead to complacency and self-centeredness," says Martin. "If it's just you and God in your room, and a religious community makes no demands on you, why help the poor?" Gee, I don’t know, Father. Maybe you should get out of your church and ask some of the many, many non-religious people who are out helping the poor. Or, alternately, maybe you could talk to all the conservative Xian tea-baggers who prefer to spend their spare time advocating for the elimination of all government help for the poor. And do I have to point out all the complacency and self-centeredness that has had the Catholic church in the headlines recently?

The bottom line is that the dangers in being spiritual but not religious are that those people aren’t under the thumbs of purveyors of organized religion and could ultimately realize that the rigid, dogmatic demands of said religions are pure hogwash. Then they may point out to other people, maybe via, oh, I don’t know, a blog, that Catholic priests want to control everyone else’s bedroom although they can’t control their own, and fundy protestants want to quote-mine the Bible to legitimize the advocacy of bigotry and intolerance, and Islamic fundies just want to kill everyone who disagrees with them. Or maybe the danger is that the SBNR folks will miss out on all the fun of spending eternity with the aforementioned religious groups.

The Shroud: Shrouded in Mystery

By an interesting coincidence, I read an article yesterday in Discovery News about a burial shroud found recently in a 1st cen. tomb in Jerusalem that is very dissimilar to the shroud of Turin. Then, today, I watched an episode of "Mysteries of the Bible" on the National Geographic Channel that was on the subject of the Shroud of Turin. Then in yet another coincidence, I started thinking about shows and articles about the shroud of Turin.

The discussion of the famous shroud is, not surprisingly, very polarized, with commentators frequently saying either it is a medieval fake or it is proof of the resurrection of Jesus. Rarely have I heard anyone discuss any possible interpretations between these two extremes.

I'll say up front that I lean more toward thinking it is a medieval fake (probably not a big surprise to anyone) but I would also point out other interpretations. For instance, one book I've read (I'm sorry I can remember neither the title nor the author) suggested that it is a burial shroud of a 14th cen. man tortured to death in an imitation of Jesus' crucifixion. The author even referenced an article about postmortem occurrences that account for the creation of the image on the cloth. This brings me to my main rant.

Even if one could prove that the Shroud of Turin is a 1st cen. shroud from Jerusalem, it does not prove that the image on the shroud is that of Jesus. Hardly anyone has suggested in their discussions that this image might be of someone else. Who is to say that this is not the shroud of Smelly Joe of Jerusalem whose extreme body odor caused permanent damage to all his clothing?

Proponents of the religious relic view point to the evidence of injuries consistent with the descriptions of the crucifixion in the bible (off the subject: does anyone else think it's funny that bible is pronounced "buy bull"?) but we have no way of knowing whether Jesus' treatment was unique or whether lots of people received similar treatment. The Roman soldiers might have been giving him torture package #7, especially since they seem to have had robes and thorny crowns conveniently at hand.

Likewise, the opponents of the relic view rarely consider that the shroud might not be an intentional counterfeit and they therefore may be overlooking some processes of decomposition or chemical action that may be serendipitously useful in a modern application. While this kind of scientific scrutiny would probably be the most beneficial use of the cloth, the odds of prying it out of the hands of the Catholic church long enough to do tests are pretty slim.

Meanwhile, for the faithful the less scrutiny the shroud receives, the better it is for them. Since Jesus' existence has never really been proven, positively identifying the man depicted on the cloth could be catastrophic, although like all inconvenient truths, most likely they would just deny it anyway. Still, the thought that maybe we should really be celebrating Smellyjoemas on Friday is pretty funny to me.