Georgia Weiler

English 101

Professor Fuller

October 2012

Is Being Spiritual and Not Religious a Cop-Out?

I work as a manager in a retail eyeglass store and encounter many different kinds of people in my day-to-day interactions. I have learned to be a good listener and a chameleon when dealing with people from all walks of life. I try to stay professional and courteous even when talk turns to religion. Some people will talk openly about their church or bible group and I smile and act like I am interested, though I am thinking, if this person knew I did not believe in the Christian idea of God, would they feel different about me?

One day about a month ago, a woman came in needing her glasses repaired. I could tell she was going to be an interesting character when she started quoting bible verses because she saw my co-worker’s many visible tattoos, and according to this woman’s faith, tattoos are considered an abomination to God. My co-worker, Lupe, who is Catholic by the way, told the lady she did not share her beliefs and it was almost comical listening to the woman practically work herself into a frenzy over this. It was my job to become the mediator in this situation, so I tried to be as diplomatic as possible while changing the subject as quickly as I could. The sooner the woman left the store the better for everyone involved. I fixed the woman’s glasses in a jiff and even managed to make her happy that her glasses were once again intact by the time she left. It was really hard to bite my tongue in the situation because the whole time I just wanted to scream and tell the woman to go to her God’s version of Hell. This kind of fanaticism is what scares me most by fundamental Christian people. They do not want to have a rational conversation about theology. Instead of engaging in an intelligent debate, they would rather quote scripture without even hearing the other side of the argument. Heaven forbid you mention that you do not believe the Bible is anything more than a series of stories written by men.

What I am getting at here is that I do not believe that being spiritual and not religious is being a cop-out. Yes, we are a country founded on the Judeo-Christian beliefs of our forefathers and the immigrants that came to America to start a new life. They brought with them their culture and their belief in God and the stories of the Bible. When I went to school as a child, I went to a parochial school from K-8th grade. I went to church every Sunday well into my early 20’s. I was a good girl and feared Hell was a real place one could go when they died if they did not accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior. It wasn’t until I went through a divorce at age twenty-two that I started really questioning what I had believed whole heartedly growing up in the warm, comforting bliss of ignorance. I started wondering if there was another way to believe and started forming my own view on religion that was very different from what I had known for most of my life up until that point. It truly was a turning point in my life and I never looked back.

It was at this time that I did a lot of soul searching. I studied everything about religion I could get my hands on. I learned about Buddhism and Wicca. I learned about Theosophy and the mystic traditions of Judaism. I wanted to absorb as much as I could about all the different