Jack Preston King
Sep 6, 2018 · 2 min read

The fatal flaw here is the assumption that religion provides spiritual guidance. No, it does not.

Maybe not for you, and I respect that, but it most certainly does for billions around the world. Remember that “religion” and “Christianity” are not synonyms. There are lots of religions in the world. And lots of people gain spiritual guidance from their religious practice.

Religion is a set of doctrines based on a sacred book.

Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, granted. But Hinduism (900 million)? Chinese traditional religion (394 million)? Buddhism (376 million)? Primal-indigenous (300 million)? African traditional and Diasporic (100 million)? Sikhism (23 million)? Juche (19 million)? Spiritism (15 million)? Do you know enough about those religions to say they “follow a book?” What book? I think you’re using a very narrow definition of “religion.”

Religion is intrinsically divisive, setting up doctrinal walls between people; spirituality is intrinsically unifying

I find that when people present this distinction they most often have rejected one of the Abrahamic religions, usually Christianity, and by “spirituality” they mean either a specific Eastern religion they now follow, like Buddhism, or some personal mixture of Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Native American religion, etc. that they label “spirituality” as if a new label could change the nature of what they really are. They are all religions. To make use of the beliefs, philosophies, and methods one likes from any religion, while rejecting the religious context in which those things originate is cultural appropriation. I recently wrote a whole article about that:

BTW, I’m also a vegetarian and a cat-person (referencing your bio), so we’re not at complete loggerheads here!

Thanks, Steven!

Jack Preston King

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Author, poet, philosopher. JackPrestonKing.com. Facebook.com/authorjackprestonking. Twitter.com/JackPrestonKing

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