Spirituality has nothing to do with God or religion
THE major flaw in Declan Foley’s argument (‘Church should go back to the spiritualism of its past’, Letters, February 15) is to link spirituality in some way with God and religion.
Of course, this does not mean that non-believers are not spiritual beings. It simply means that when it comes to making decisions on how we should live our lives for the common good, humanists and others look for guidance to the human spirit, our own reason and that of our forefathers, rather than to a deity who may or may not exist and whose mind some people have the arrogance to believe they can read.
It is the human spirit that led to our distant ancestors to risk being mauled by wild animals in order to provide food for their families. It was the same spirit which led to the formation of communities with rules agreed by all – this occurred thousands of years before the formation of the world’s major religions. The Enlightenment, which placed human reason at the centre of events and challenged religious orthodoxy, was a defining movement in human history, but seems to have by-passed Ireland. Sadly, our own recent history tells us that for thousands of Irish women and children in Churchrun institutions, religion was a malign force and while there was no shortage of religion, there was a famine in human
kindness and spirituality. It was only the indefatigable human spirit which enabled so many victims of religious zealots to survive.
Of course, our young people leaving school now can see the gap between religious control and generosity of spirit, and the vast majority are rejecting religion. They will find other ways to help those in distress.
Mr Foley concludes with: “Sometimes, we do need to visit spiritual places, not for renewal but to remind ourselves of the wondrous thing it is to be a human being, replete with faults, failings, and human error, allied to the important need to forgive and be forgiven”. For me, a spiritual place may be along a beach, a
mountain track or a forest trail – or even a children’s playground, filled with the cacophony of children running, climbing and sliding, under their parents’ watchful, loving eyes.
Anthony O’Leary
Portmarnock, Co Dublin