Practical and Spiritual

Shedding light into the old religious debate.

I found out something new about myself this week. Well, it's not a big surprise or anything, I just had one of those moments when a light bulb blinks above your head... I found out I'm very practical. I'm the kind of person that would cook lunch and not wash the pot if I knew I'd have a similar dinner later. And I guess this is how I deal with almost everything. I try to be logical, efficient, straight forward. My actions usually have a point, even if the point is simply "to get happy". And since I'm like that, my automatic way of perceiving the world is to project this practicality onto others when trying to make sense of what they do. Well, now that I've realized this is just my perception, I can look at things from a new angle.


This simple thing sheds light into another topic: religiosity. I'm constantly wondering why some people really hang on to religion, because for me it's so easy to understand that religion was man-made, and even if God happened to exist, he's not anywhere to be seen. And a God who doesn't affect the world is as good as no God - for every practical purpose. But that's the thing. If you take out those who are religious only because they were born into it, never were taught how to think critically, or are afraid to get out for the imposed guilt, most of the real religious people are not in it for the practicality.

This must be difficult for some atheists to understand. From most of the arguments I hear from atheists trying to make sense of religious beliefs, I feel many atheists lean to the practical side like me. They tend to assume religious people are in it for the comfort, or because they got somehow lost in the search for truth and ended up in the wrong end of things. Atheists often argue against religion pointing out inconsistencies, logical flaws... Of course, this might reach to the not so religious people. But my guess right now is that the real superstitious people are not so practical about things. They don't want the facts, evidence, or things that actually work; they are looking for something beyond, something spiritual.

Duh, that's obvious!

But not as much as I might have thought. Their way of seeing the world is so unpractical that is probably unexplainable for someone who takes a more practical posture. So don't wait for an explanation here, because I still can't get it completely. I feel it's the same way I can't get poetry. For me it's like "oh cool, the words rhyme", but for others it releases feelings, emotions. I'm not saying I have no emotions: I do love, cry... I don't think anyone is entirely practical, in fact, I don't think anyone is entirely anything. There's no black and white. Nevertheless, there is a world of feelings connected to impracticality which I don't understand - and wish I could.

I guess the whole conflict comes about when the spiritual people try to bring any practicality to their spiritual search. When they start praying for things, talking about physical hell, virgin rewards, forbidden food, divine punishments - then they simply sound like fools, and rock the boat for all the other spiritual people. And when they try to change laws and impose weird systems of belief, they go from fools to intolerant bastards. There's nothing practical about spirituality. If God, ghosts, spirits, vampires, unicorns go beyond what's natural, trying to apply a cause-effect relationship to those is against their very nature. In Brasil people say that "God writes right along twisty lines", meaning we cannot read it. So even if there's a God and you think you are reading the lines, don't expect to convince any practical (or reasonable, for that matter) person, because it just doesn't make sense.

You know, just because I'm not here talking about the beauties of the spiritual world, it doesn't mean I'm against it. I'm aware that I might sound harsh sometimes. But the truth is that I see a lot of people who do get something out of the spiritual world, and I try to find it too, to have that experience. I want to get the most of my brief life, and maybe there's this whole world I'm missing out. And now that I've realized how practical I am I can start looking at a bigger picture. I read somewhere that while it's difficult for religious people to question their views, the non religious can change their opinions without major changes to their lives. I'm glad I'm in the flexible side, and I hope I can understand more about the other side with time. I think this new angle of practicality is a good beginning - what do you think? Am I totally off?