Smart enough not to be duped by the politics of religion, but enlightened enough not to be compartmentalized by the existentialism of atheism.
Spiritual but not religious people know that a machine's instruction manual is only useful when you need to repair it. The purpose of its function needn't be clouded by the logic of its assembly or repair.
by ESCS December 12, 2006
A person who is not into any particular traditional church denomination. They may gather different ideas from religions and craft their own theology that explains their life experiences or they may follow more of a mystical approach (meditation, yoga, earth medicine) to find their truth. They may feel a connection in nature (or guitar playing, or eating yogurt or having sex) that transcends the ego. They usually reject anything that comes across as dogma, (i.e. you must believe this to get into my group) and usually have a broad definition of what they consider "the Divine" to be.
People who believe in some kind of Divinity, but don't want to be associated with a particular church or theology, would call themselves spiritual but not religious.
by Two Snakes April 13, 2016
An ignorant and safe phrase for someone who doesn’t want to be pigeon-holed into a religion but doesn’t have the mental fortitude to admit or come to the conclusion that they either don’t know if there is and/or don’t believe there is a god or religion is wrong. (Agnosticism and Atheism, respectively).
Amy’s friend is Christian and while she doesn’t believe in the crack pot theories the Bible teaches like homosexuals should be stoned to death or a dude rose from the dead like a zombie, she either doesn’t want to confront her friend for fear of loss (and what a loss that would be), or she just doesn’t want to argue against it, passively condoning her behavior by stating, “you know, I’m just like spiritual but not religious. Also, I know you don’t believe in sex until marriage, but we can totally get ass-blasted by Darren tonight!”
by Posterofzeshit September 10, 2021