Universal Life of Alan Ministry

I’ve been thinking “what is a religion?”, especially in the context of someone who doesn’t believe in supernatural beings.

The role religion plays in life is that of moral, ethical and spiritual guidance, where “spiritual” is basically “emotional well being”. None of that depends on some supernatural “parent” being to tell you what’s right or to love you even when you do bad things – the former can be worked out easily enough and the latter you can get from a dog (as long as you don’t mistreat the dog, in which case you wouldn’t deserve to be loved anyhow).

Another way of looking at it is: Science is about how and what we know, Religion is about how and what we feel.

Although Secular Humanism is kind of the anti-religion group, I think it’s more on the Science side, in that it’s promoting a rational, scientific, approach to dealing with the world – and they’re right as far as that goes.

Those who want some spiritual camaraderie or even guidance without having to rely on a mystical non-existent supernatural “something” (be it God or Gaia) still need someplace to turn. I call that Spiritual Humanism: a rational, realistic, approach to emotional and moral well being.

I’ve already posted a number of things that exemplify what I mean, but in time I’ll work out some key principles to define it.