What can I do now? Learn more about different ways to express spirituality. Try meditation as a way to gain some perspective on your life. Read up on the history and practice of different types of spirituality. Explore other topics It's not always easy to find the right place to start.
What's on your mind? Tags Spirituality Identity Article Learn more. It's a spiritual community that works. Nazli Ekim, who works in public relations in New York City, says calling herself spiritual instead of religious is her way of taking responsibility for herself. Ekim was born in a Muslim family and raised in Istanbul, Turkey. She prayed to Allah every night, until she was 13 and had to take religion classes in high school.
Then one day, she says she had to take charge of her own beliefs. I've lied, cheated, hurt people -- sometimes on purpose. Did I ever think I will burn in hell for all eternity? I didn't. Did I feel bad and made up for my mistakes? I certainly did, but not out of fear of God. The debate over being spiritual rather than religious is not just about semantics. It's about survival. She reads Tarot cards, runes, and cowrie shells.
Scott is not alone. When we talk about religion in America, we usually break the faithful down into familiar categories along political lines: a religious usually evangelical Protestant right and an atheistic left. But almost 20 percent of Americans, according to a survey released this week by the Public Religion Research Institute PRRI belongs to a category that transcends stereotypical religious identity. The survey , which profiled about 2, American adults in the early months of , found that 18 percent of Americans identify as spiritual but not religious.
By contrast, 31 percent of Americans identify as neither spiritual nor religious. They tend to skew younger and more educated than religious Americans, with 40 percent holding at least a four-year college degree and 17 percent having some form of postgraduate education. Participants who scored highly on the religiosity index frequently attended worship services and reported that they considered religion to be an important factor in their personal lives. Just three in 10 religiously unaffiliated Americans ranked as spiritual but not religious, suggesting that most spiritual-but-not-religious Americans maintain links with a more formal religious identity; the largest groups of these identify as mainline Protestant 18 percent or Catholic 18 percent.
Jones, in a press release. The study found that the single greatest spiritual experience for this group was not prayer or meditation but music: A full 71 percent of spiritual Americans reported having been inspired or touched by listening to a piece of music in the past week, compared to just 43 percent of nonspiritual respondents. For others, even those who consider themselves atheists or "nones," the concept of spirituality might feel critically important.
They say it has to do with how we interact with others, with living more contemplatively, and with appreciating nature and the natural world. One person who has made a career out of examining the concept is Krista Tippett. It's an area that lights up during more traditional religious experiences of feeling in touch with God, but more broadly also when that "transcendence" involves communion with nature or humanity, the research finds.
Tippett says she's noticing the emergence of a powerful secular spirituality. Now, she says, it's harder to carve out a place for it.
These days, many young people put their passion into different areas — things like work, politics or even spin class, she says.
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