Religion vs Ethics vs Spirituality

Ethics can be either based on rules or principles. In any case ethics are not related to any form of spirituality and meaning. In the sense ethics is either right or wrong. This results whether you follow the rules or not that follow from such principles or rule based approuch. Thus it is not relate to any form of good or bad that it is related to the biological question of “why human exists?” which can be answered in Biological (physical terms), Sociological (social terms), Psycholigical (psychology terms) and Spiritual (religious terms).

All of these can form the basis of an Ethical rule. But now let say for example philosophically speaking we can create a ethical rule that humans are to procreate and continue the human species. Yet from an ethical point of view this is right if followed or wrong if not followed but yet from a biological meaning it is good if followed while bad if not followed.

Yet their are two types of this religion. In my oppinion I see it that meaning is an Integral one as an Integral Humanist. Thus meaning a holistic one and it involves all spheres of human dimension and removing one will make reality an absurd one. These dimensions are Biological (physical terms), Sociological (social), Psycholigical (psychology) and Spiritual (Religious). Yet meaning and ethics influence the laws and politics as well.

Here it is not my role to define a religion and in sociology it is a continuous to be a debate. I think that atheism and secular humanism can be a religion in itself as to the structure and the meaning it potrays excludes spirituality. Spirituallity that its defenition is the human meeting with the tracendental.

The new Atheism and secular humanism revel in the whole idea of living without religion basic their ideas on science. The truth is that the human mind isn't accustomed to removing something without replacing it with something else; hence the recent renewal in militant atheism and secular humanism (the so-called "New Atheists"). These rehashed belief systems contain all the hallmarks of a religion:
- Leaders: Richard Dawkins, the late Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris et al.
- A Creation Story: A dogmatic and unquestioning belief in Darwinian evolution.
- Sacred Texts: The Humanist Manifesto, The God Delusion and many others.
- Organization and Cult: Several associations all over the world.
- Sects: Free Thinkers, Brights, Materialists and many others.
- Rituals: Several atheist conventions are held each year.
- Proselytism: The High Priests of New Atheism are very much eager to convince others of the validity of atheism through countless publications and even an advertising campaign in the heart of London.

Thus as one can realise in this analysis that I do not associate religion to the spiritual. Personly I more associated religion to the fact that religion is ritual interpreted by others to help convey that religious spirituality probably not by the leader or leaders himself such as Jesus Christ in Christianity, Budha in Budhism.

Therefore like a created story presented in a book or books, a narative, a myth that are writen all in sacred text rules are added and so a religion is created to interpret the religion in the time needed.

David Steindl-Rast (born July 12, 1926, Vienna) is a Catholic Benedictine monk, notable for his active participation in interfaith dialogue and his work on the interaction between spirituality and science. During Link TV's Lunch With Bokara 2005 episode The Monk and the Rabbi, he stated:

“The religions start from mysticism. There is no other way to start a religion. But, I compare this to a volcano that gushes forth ...and then ...the magma flows down the sides of the mountain and cools off. And when it reaches the bottom, it's just rocks. You'd never guess that there was fire in it. So after a couple of hundred years, or two thousand years or more, what was once alive is dead rock. Doctrine becomes doctrinaire. Morals become moralistic. Ritual becomes ritualistic. What do we do with it? We have to push through this crust and go to the fire that's within it.”

I believe David Steindl-Rast is refering to such religion that assert their begining to spirituality whether they believe in a God or not. This is because  Buddhism after time they become religion and Christianity as well. Such religions I believe that start from a way of mindful mysticism such as in Buddhism and in Christianity the idea that Jesus is a God and saved all humanity by dieing in the cross and rising alive winning death, the absurd. Again this is the need that Carl Jung a Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist whose work has been influential in psychiatry and in the study of religion, philosophy, archeology, anthropology, literature, and related fields saw that the human psyche as "by nature religious". By this I believe in todays format becomes "by nature spiritual " as connected still to the spirit and sometimes you can not distinguish what is religious what is not. By this he meant that as his work on himself and his patients convinced that showed him that in fact life has a spiritual purpose beyond material goals. Our main task, he believed, is to discover and fulfill our deep innate potential. This was based on his study of Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Gnosticism, Taoism, and other traditions. Jung therefore concluded in his journey of transformation this which he called individuation which is at present at the mystical heart of all religions. This is a journey to meet the self and at the same time to meet the Divine. Also Viktor Emil Frankl, M.D., Ph.D. an Austrian neurologist and  psychiatrist as well as a Holocaust survivor founder logotherapy (an existential approach to therapy which is a form of existential analysis) who has written his best-selling book Man's Search for Meaning concluded that the lack of meaning is the paramount existential stress. To him, existential neurosis is synonymous with a crisis of meaninglessness. Frankl validated his hallmark conclusion that even in the most absurd, painful, and dehumanized situation, life has potential meaning and that, therefore, even suffering is meaningful which he came such conclusion after enduring the suffering in these concentration camps. Thus this meaning is derived from spirituality. Such meaning is not found by science but by myth.

Therefore spirituality is not how to act as a human being it is much deeper then that. And spirituality is not a religion neither it can form the religion institution but even secular humanist did this.

Therefore in this essay one can see the difference between ethics, state and religion. Even politics such as Comunism and Nazism were religions with such deffenition. In fact Carl Jung saw the state and referred to the state as a form of slavery and also stressed the importance of individual rights in a person's relation to the state and society as he that the state "swallowed up [people's] religious forces" and therefore that the state had "taken the place of God"—making it comparable to a religion in which "state slavery is a form of worship". Jung also observed that "stage acts of [the] state" are comparable to religious displays: "Brass bands, flags, banners, parades and monster demonstrations are no different in principle from ecclesiastical processions, cannonades and fire to scare off demons"

Now turning to Business ethics (also corporate ethics) is a form of applied ethics or professional ethics such as the code of ethics of AAT. Yet I believe Europe is still influenced by Judeo Christian’s principles till know. Max Weber a German sociologist, economist, and politician  in fact argued in the The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism that capitalism in Northern Europe evolved when the Protestant (particularly Calvinist) ethic influenced large numbers of people to engage in work in the secular world, developing their own enterprises and engaging in trade and the accumulation of wealth for investment. In other words, the Protestant work ethic was an important force behind the unplanned and uncoordinated mass action that influenced the development of capitalism. Technology could have evolved the trasformation of Capitalis yet such ideas of service were influenced by such religion which in that time was the most practised. Such as the Law was influenced by such principle.

Yet this essay is not how an ethics develope. In the study of Meta-ethics which proposes theories such as Emotivism, defended by A.J. Ayer and C.L. Stevenson, holds that ethical sentences serve merely to express emotions. So "Killing is wrong" means something like "Boo on killing!." Therefore to conclude ethics is not to find meaning the biological question why human exist. It is a philosophy and as a philosophy it neither contradicts metaphysics nor create a theological one of its own. Ethics is a separate entity and that is why we talk on whether it is right or wrong and not good or bad. This is because ethics does not hold a biological question, a meaning such as “why human exists?” and so no real answer can be given to the ethics as it existance it is without the biological question of why human should act in such manner. Therefore ethic is just based on a rule such as 1+1 to follow that = 2 and therefore it is not good or bad it is either right or wrong according to the rule or priciple that can be based on emotions, influenced by religion and politics and Law or spirituality.