I consider myself spiritual as opposed to religious. I am often greeted with a strange look when I tell people this. I was raised Protestant but I found religion to be way too constricted. Here is why:
1. Spirituality has no rules. Religion creates rules to control. I once had a friend tell me that someone should forgive her for an ugly action because that someone was a devout Catholic. This is wrong on so many levels and actually felt icky to me. As a spiritual person it is not my place to demand forgiveness. We are not separate. We are all drops in one big ocean. What you do to others you do to yourself. If you feel someone needs to forgive, offer forgiveness. Or simply observe your thoughts on this and see how your feeling changes. This leads me to my second difference between spirituality and religion.
2. Religion separates, spirituality unites. There are so many different religions in the world. I was raised Protestant, many of my friends are Catholic, and I grew up in a predominantly Jewish community. Spirituality combines all the truths from the different religions into ONE. This is awesome and was a great discovery to my soul. My Catholic friends on the other hand believe if you don't know Jesus like "they" do you will be damned to hell. And the Jews killed Jesus so guess where that sends them. Imagine my delight when I became spiritual.
3. Spirituality is based only on love and not on fear. Growing up a Christian I was taught to fear God. Revelations 14:7 - He said in a loud voice, "Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come. Worship him who made the heavens, the earth, the sea and the springs of water."
This could not be further from the truth. God knows nothing of fear nor does He judge. Besides fear is a way to attract more fear into your life as it is a law of the universe. Wouldn't you rather attract more love. Whenever I feel fear I quickly transmute that energy into love and find my life a whole lot happier and full of more love happenings and less fear.
Have a wonderful day! Until next time, much love, Kathie :)