Religion and Spirituality

When you become a member of a religious organization, you normally sacrificed your personal worldview in
favor of the religious world view or set of beliefs offered by that organization. Religion invites a person into a
spiritual relationship with some divine entity. This spiritual relationship stemmed from the belief that there is a life
after this world which is more important than physical life. Hence it is the role of religion to invite all persons to
believe in God for them to be saved from this world.

Religion, etymologically is defined as coming from the Latin world, "religare" or which means "to bind" or "
to tie. "However, Oxford English Dictionary points out though that the etymology of the word is doubtful. Early
writers like Cicero connected the term with "relegere" which means "to read all over again." (Cornejo et al, 2019).

Deepak Chopra has a very interesting differentiation between religion and spirituality. He said, "Religion is a
belief to someone else's experience while Spirituality is having your own experience."

Spirituality is not a set of defined beliefs. It's a focus on your human spirit and soul. It's not about the way you look
or the health of your physical body.

Religion is a belief system that's clearly defined, including what you should believe, why and how to do so. It may
have a specific God or numerous gods. It may include worship, teachings, theology and strong beliefs.

Religion and Theology

Most often theology and religion brought confusion in terms of meaning and practise. Theology also believes
about God just like religion but it utilizes more the intellect to understand everything about God rather than faith
alone. Theology is a systematic study of God just like other disciplines such as philosophy, psychology, sociology and
other sciences. The priests, pastors, ministers or even lay people must undergo theological trainings before they are
ordained to become a priest or pastor or minister. Theology is normally taken in the Seminaries or theological schools
as an academic subject. A priest who is a major in theology should undertake a four-year course to get an AB
Theology degree. Then he proceeds his masters and doctoral degree in theology to become full pledge theologian.
There is a saying that most theologians lost their faith in God because they use only their mind in knowing God more
than faith.

Philosophical theology: Philosophy uses reason to explain the essence or the ultimate reasons why things exist and
where they come from. Philosophical theology uses reason alone in knowing about God. A famous theologian in the
Catholic Church in the 13th century, St. Thomas Aquinas exemplify this approach. His work is called the "Summa
Theologiae" wherein one summa is devoted to the "Five Ways of Knowing God." Here the existence of God can be
proven in five ways using logical argumentation.

Religion - etymologically came from the Latin word 'religare' which means "to bind" or "to tie" or some authors use
the word 'relegere' meaning to read again.
Spirituality - tends to be more personal compared to religion which is more organized and institutional.
Theology- Is defined as the systematic study of the nature of the Divine and, more broadly, of religious belief.
Philosophical Theology - is the study of knowing God through the use of
Sacred - something that possesses holiness. It could refer to things, places, symbols or divine entity, logical reasoning.
Religious Rituals - religious rites," which are the sacred, customary ways of celebrating a religion or culture.
Animism - is defined as the belief in numerous spiritual beings concerned with human affairs and capable of helping
or harming human interests