Religious and Spiritual

We grew up with rituals that felt empty.
We learned a foreign language barely enough to pronounce the words of the prayers, but never use it conversationally.
We were taught to write “God” as “G-d”. Not one of us bought into it. Not our friends, classmates, cousins, kids down the street, no one.

We dipped our pinkies in wine, and complied with more rituals (and giggled less) in the presence of older relatives. Singing the prayers was acceptable in temple, but sounded gay at home. You’d pull off the stupid yarmulke the second you got out of hebrew school.
We drew lines between rituals we followed and the ones we didn’t. People who were more strict followed more rituals about not doing certain things on certain days. They observed more rules about carrying things on Sabbath or turning on lights, they were “religious.” The lives of the more religious ones at least seemed more consistent.

Spiritual but not Religious

It’s no wonder that when my generation escaped from strict religious requirements, they shed inane rituals. If those customs were the way to connect with a deity then fine, toss that deity out with the other stupid stuff. Yet… most people weren’t ready to simply declare themselves Atheist. They acknowledged some higher power, just not literally a bearded guy in the sky, not the one they grew up with. They loosely grouped gods from across religion into a general purpose god, a spirit. a new age Gaia.

They rejected the rigidity, irrationality & harm of organized religion and invented spirituality without the baggage. Each individual was invited to gather a “best of” set of rituals, pulling in those that feel more true to them.
We got custom personalized religion and crystals and drum circles and appropriation.
Many in my generation took to calling themselves “spiritual but not religious”. The Universe is listening. To manifest your dreams, tell the Universe what you most treasure. This deity isn’t the kind that punishes. People might acknowledge the power of prayer, not because the literal God literally took action, but recognizing the validity of psychology and self-care - praying means paying attention to yourself, and what you need. Just taking the time to frame what you care about will focus you. There’s a spirit, but not an organized religion. This spirit wasn’t the kind that only listened in their special house of worship.

But New Ageism didnt have family history, it didn’t have Yiddish, or gefilte fish. After being away for a chunk of our lives, some things gave warmth, like a seder, even if you no longer bought into the exodus myth. It was a shared cultural reference. It meant you came from somewhere. We mixed some of the old stuff back in, rediscovering some of our grandparents’ culture.

America got to know the Atheist Jew, like Bernie Sanders. Implicitly they learned the Jewish vibe from Seinfeld.

Intentional Culture fills a real need

No one ever tried to argue that the ancient rituals made sense. They were empty because no relevance could possibly have survived for millenia. I can’t believe it was ever meant to. It’s no wonder that people wanted something else in their place. Deliberate culture-building tacitly acknowledges the need for ritual, and the power of it. Invented holidays became a thing.

Across society people built their lives no longer with thousand year old religious guidelines telling them who to marry, when to work, what to attach to their doorposts, what to study, how to tithe, what to wear on your head, what to eat, what to revere. I recognized the oppression that people lived under centuries ago, having every part of their lives laid out in simple rules, yet envied them for not having to invent their whole damn society.

The fact that modern people filled in all the gaps with new customs and new rituals shows there was a space to be filled. Many of the old rituals were wrong for us, for sure, but they existed for a deeper reason. We need ritual as a framework - saying “Hello” is ritual that serves a social purpose. We still want holidays.
I mark my acheived goals with Japanese Daruma dolls.
I recently told my attorney how the value in my lease is the ritual of signing it & the social commitment it creates between me and my tenant, not having it literally hold up in court. (if i’m in court, the social compact has failed )

I found myself wondering if the equation was flipped - I started out learning that the rituals were accessories to the religion. They were the small proxies indicating a connection to deeper truths. I first believed that wearing a religious symbol is effortless - studying tomes for years is real devotion.
But what if the human connections around these symbols and customs were the core? Dare we relegate God to a supporting role in that picture? My grandmother’s values started making more sense. I never once heard her talk about theology, but boy did she care about having a family at her table for Rosh Hashana.

Does the culture stand up on its own?

Tilting to a new Balance

If you’re worried about AI stealing your job, think about how God must feel. God used to be in charge of the motion of the stars, the weather, determining the victor of battles, whether you got sick, died, and who won football games. One by one, Science and Medicine have eaten nearly all of those, and God sits around mostly idle.

As we learn more about consciousness, and computer programs act more like people, the domain of humanity and having a soul is increasingly eaten away. Gaia never announced herself to me, nor did I ever get a clear indication the universe in someway cares what happens. I’ll patiently listen to an argument that God exists, but I haven’t heard a convincing one yet. On the other hand I see no refutation to an argument for atheism. Physics may end up being all.

While Deism is an anachronism to me, I also feel more of an understanding why my grandparents wanted us to live certain ways - to belong to a people, to be from somewhere. I want the same things for those after me, it feels important to share a culture, not because we literally believe God is keeping score, but because culture has its own independent value.

I’d love to say that my generation generated some wisdom to offer those that follow. That we did something besides dismantle a values system, but also created something they can use. Younger generations seem even less deistic, following the long term trend, but they seek culture no less. My own shift arrives at a new stable point, one that I never would have imagined a couple decades ago. Perhaps we can offer a model where one says,

I’m Religious, but not Spiritual