Religiosity, Spirituality and the Moral

[Gavin Duffy]

Again attempting to remain neutral, my paper is suggesting that the pre-conception of religious members generally being of higher moral standards than the irreligious stems from social identity theory, an innate tendency for religious members to perceive other religious members (in-group) as more moral due to shared identity; often citing 'christian' fundraisers or charitable organisations as justification for these beliefs (disregarding the fact that an 'atheist fundraiser' would be redundant and would most likely simply be a fundraiser). This is not to mention exclusively shared values among members such as obeying the sabbath, religious attendance etc. - acts considered to make them more moral, however, which have no relevance to people not within their in-group.

Perhaps I will further elaborate on my interpretation of spirituality (aware this could make me somewhat of an iconoclast on this forum lol). Spirituality is a form of self-transformation, predicated upon individual psychological growth emanating from transcendent subjective experience regardless of religious orientation. Transcendent subjective experience being an altered stated of mind - of awe, of mystery, of peace and is extremely difficult to convey without having experienced or attempted to experience such phenomena. It is connected to a profound sense of direction or purpose in life, a process of involution, independent of self-concept, generally at odds with religious solipsistic tendencies (and is generally theoretically grounded in the field of positive psychology if anyone is interested). I completely understand any skepticism or disregard towards these ideas as hocum or pseudoscience but for me it is in no way outside the laws of reality.

There is a growing movement now known as ‘secular spirituality’ within western demographics; a life position positing humanistic ideals of love, compassion, contentment, inner-peace etc. Research posits that these are moral themes of human experience which do not impede an objective materialist view of reality, and do not acquiesce to a supernatural divinity or organised dogma.