If you can have spirituality  without religion but not vice versa why is religion necessary?
84799
I think religion is a way for people to support each other in feeling spiritual and making correct moral decisions. Some people won't make good decisions on spirituality alone, and for those people, having other people around them helps.\n\nEDIT FOR ADDTNL INFO:\nWhy is anything neccessary? Why are homes neccessary? Why don't people just live at work? Eat grass? Because we as humans desire more, a more personal experience, a more organized approach. You don't get people at your community center sharing uplifting stories about standing up for what is right.
63503
People need religion because they are scared to face the truth.  Thinking that there is someone or something more intelligent and powerful than you who is looking out for you and loves you and has your best interests at heart is more comforting than accepting the truth.  If people accepted the truth, then they would realize how insignificant and powerless they are in proportion to the universe, and that would just be way too hard for most people to face.  Religion offers answers, and tells you that everything will be easy if you 'just believe in whatever'.  Religion tells people that they are the 'special ones' the 'chosen ones' that they are right in everything they do if they only believe.  Also religion symbolizes things that are actually taking place in people's lives.  Just about everyone can relate to the religious stories if they try.  I believe that things can be learned from religion, but only if it is taken purely as symbolisim.  like little kid's stories that teach lessons, only religious stories are meant to teach bigger lessons to everyone.  It's easy to see why so many people desperately need religion and take it as fact.
836680
Yes and no.\n\nSome people need religion more than others. Religion is a guidance to how one should behave in public and private. It teaches people how to be fair, how to love, how to think when one does not have parents who teaches him/her. Religion is a spring broad, a tool, but it should not be the answer to all problems. Religion teaches morals. It does not specifically help you live your life. It teaches shame, humility and dos and don'ts, but how you live is up to your interpretation.\n\nWhen someone takes religion to an extreme, that's when trouble happens. This is when the world is not at a better place due to religion.\n\nYou will also have the opposite extreme or no religion, no morals, and that's no okay either. Crimes will take place all over, no one would feel safe. It will be survival of the fittest. The law is built on ethical and moral beliefs. If it were not for religion, who would it be to judge that an ax murderer will get life or get off scott free?\n\nTo answer your question, and it is a good one that you are asking, If religion were never to have existed, we may still have ethics and moral, because they are part of religion, but at the same time, no religious people are still ethical and have their own set of morals that they live by (common sense and logic).\n\nAs for now, we do live in a society that has religion and I don't feel that we are in a better place, because at the moment, the other side of the world is fighting over religion and who has the right religion or the better religion. Why can't we all just get along?
1097986
I think you just answered your own question.  I think there is nothing, but you're right, religion is easier to conceptualize than nothing.
881745
Life is pointless without religion. I don't want to live in a world where there is no diffrence between Mother Teresa and Hitler.
361695
A little more (or perhaps less) complex than that. Religion is a system of beliefs created by man to dilute fear. Fear is a basic emotion of all animals (yes, humans are animals)and in a relatively advanced species like humans it becomes intellectualized. Religion is absolutely nothing without fear. They go hand in hand. When they both reach hyper levels of intensity the violence will kick in. The opposite of intelligence is fear based ignorance. Most religious people have lived with fear since they were brainwashed at young age. They don't even realize it.
556453
i think that people only have a religion because the feel the chaos and random-ness of the world and it scares them.  If you think there is someone who is in control and knows what is going on you feel like they will step in and make sure that u aren't going to get into anything really bad.  i don't belive in god and don't have a religion but if u can make yourself belive in it, i;m all for it.  at your church or temple you have a really great family that will be there for you no matter what and that is nice to have.  also religion gives us a sense of belonging and importance tha we all strive for.  Just as long as you don't use religion to alianate people, it is a good thing.
590279
I am atheist and spiritual.  Spirituality, imho, does NOT require a "god" belief.  Being spiritual can mean studying various religious texts to learn from their teachings (but not to convert or pray to their "god"), it can also mean learning how to live the life one really wants to live---happy, content, calm, peaceful.\n\nSpirituality is a very broad term---it can be defined differently by different people.
896415
Both but you can't have religion without love.\n\nYou have to love yourself and your religion!
622374
No, religion, for most people, is a way of explaining things that are essentially unknowable.  Does life have meaning?  What happens to us after we die?  Is there any reason to be ethical, even when we see others apparently succeed by being unethical? Why is so much of life a matter of pain and suffering? Etc., etc.  Religions attempt to provide answers to those questions, and therefore they are a comfort to their believers.
283419
I was never brought up with any religious presence in my life, and I'm perfectly happy in love! I'm not preaching either way. Religion is wonderful for some people, a source of inspiration and security. Sometimes others can find freedom and moral without God, based only on their own judgment. \n\nIt's entirely up to the person.
131751
"everyone" doesn't.  I don't thinkd religion is important.  However,  I do believe that our relationship with God is important.
913279
Yes... if you understand difference between religion and spirituality all would become clear.\n\nPerson who believes in God is a spiritual seeker but one may or may not necessarily be a follower or believer of any religion.\n\nThe difference between Spirituality and Religion is the most often asked question on the net. For a layman both seem to be the same. All one has learnt since childhood is going to a temple, mosque or a church for praying to God. What other purpose can Religion have for one who is ignorant of different facets of Religion? One inherently follows Religious practices from the start. One may be born a Hindu but may be a strong believer of Christianity. Why does one change over?\n\nIf Religion provides succor to one: why the dissatisfaction while following one Religion? Is there something beyond the mundane, which we cannot see? Why one needs to go to a church, temple or mosque and pray to God? If we do not follow the religious practices ... shall we be doomed to die a terrible death? What if I do not want to follow any Religion at all? Live a lively Life with compassion for all beings. Why would God bring me death if I do not commit any sin?\n\nIn all the Religions of the World, the presence of a higher power within us, our Atman the soul within is accepted. No dispute on this issue, what is the nature of Atman the soul within. None has seen this spirit, the most powerful source of energy in the Cosmos, much more mightier than the biggest of Suns and Stars in the Brahmaand (Cosmos). Study of this spirit (Our Atman, The Soul Within) and of the mightiest of all the Spirits (GOD ... the Almighty Creator of the Cosmos) is what Spirituality is all about.\n\n\nSpirituality is that aspect of Life of a Jiva (Manifested Life of an Atman, The Soul Within), which forms the core of all Life on Mother Earth. Without Spirituality, Religion cannot survive. Spirituality can survive without Religion.\n\nAround 3600 years before when there existed no Religion, Humanity existed. How did people live without guidance from Religion? How did these persons live as Buddha, Jesus Christ and Prophet Mohammed had not yet been born? What of following the Religion, which gradually evolved as a following of these Spiritual Masters?\n\nLord Krishna, Mahavira, Buddha, Jesus Christ and Prophet Mohammed were not religious but Spiritual Masters of their time. Their following is known as a Religion. Followers of Buddha practice Buddhism ... the eight fold path. The followers of Jesus, the Christians study Bible, the doctrine administered by Jesus Christ and his associate disciples. Prophet Mohammed preached what is contained in Qoran, the sacred document of the followers of Islamic Dharma.\n\n\nFollowers of Jaina doctrine are known as Jains. Jains are never known as followers of 24th Tirthankar Mahavira who strongly advocated that every Human Being is imbibed with the power to become a Mahavira like him. Jaina Philosophy is unique in itself that Jain word is derived from 'Jina'... One who has won his real self, one who "Realizes" GOD in his Lifetime. Followers of this doctrine and what Mahavira and the earlier 23 Tirthankars preached is what we know as 'Jainism'. More on religion and spirituality here- http://www.godrealized.org/spirituality_and_religion.html
216467
Religion is membership in a group, spirituality is a relationship with God.
789040
You are right. You don't need religion. At the end of the Book of Revelation in the Bible it says that in new heaven and new earth, God lives in the midst of people, and there is no temple.
1033268
You are absolutely right.   But that is what it requires.  This might sound like a silly answer, but that is what religion or spirituality is based on.... faith, if you don't have it, then what do yo believe in?  But it doesn't really matter, because we should all respect each other no matter what our beliefs are.
594192
Not RELIGION... but the spiritual development of your soul is the most important thing in your life... It should be important that you create as great a soul as any artist does in creating a work of art... and you make your own code of conduct based upon the highest principles that you decide to implement as a code... and you may want to upgrade your code to higher levels of actions of living and interacting with other persons...  Living a good life for yourself and how you treat others... is most important in your daily living... Religions are only organizations that guide people... but most times they get too confused in that they try to take control of how people live their code... and they want to set the codes of what people should believe... and then some religions are mostly about money... which is really wrong... So, what some people do is they join a "religion" to get the basics... then they leave and formulate their own spiritual program.... Hope this helps...