Wait, aren’t they the same? In my opinion no, spirituality provides a basis on which all religion is built. Spirituality is the cake, religion is simply the icing. To continue the analogy, you can change the icing on the cake, even take the icing away, the cake remains fine. But if you take away the cake, the icing is left in a mess, with nothing to hold it up.

Coming from an Anglican background, I’m no stranger to organised religion. As I’m due to marry into a Greek family, I’m going to have at least a passing acquaintance with the Greek Orthodox Church, but I can see the commonalities on the spiritual side.

One thing I can see is that spirituality can be done without religion, eastern philosophies tend to be a good way of starting on that path, also this tends to give a more understanding approach to other beliefs. Religion without spirituality however, is just a shell. People will attend church mainly to keep up appearances, it becomes a very ornate social club. The other very real danger of the spiritual disconnection is that the dogma becomes more important than spiritual growth. That’s when the real trouble starts….

Well, I’m going to stay off on my Sci-Fi tangent for a little longer.

I’ve come across a fan written Battlestar Galactica game, it’s based on the new series, not the old one and they’re making a lot of progress, the gameplay videos are awesome!

Here’s the link: Battlestar Galactica: Beyond The Red Line. Well worth a visit!

I’ve been a bit on the serious side lately, so it’s time for a bit of light relief! This one is courtesy of my fellow traveller on the watercourse A.V. Michaels, you can find his blog at Surfing The Tao.

If I were a Star Wars character, I would be: Qui-Gon Jinn. You’re very in touch with nature and greatly value living things, even the more inferior creatures. Your calm demeanor is admired by many and you don’t sweat the small stuff and things you can’t change. You’re kind, quiet, and strong. Take the ” Which Star Wars Character Am I?” Quiz by Always Two There Are

This is quite cool, as Qui-Gon Jinn is one of the Star Wars characters I admire.

I noticed that the Conservative party is making promises about their new environmentally friendly policies. They promise to lead a new green revolution in Britain.

Apparently, they plan to run council vehicles on Biodiesel, starting with a pilot project in Kent and claim to have the highest recycling and composting rates of any of the main three parties.

While I applaud any positive environmental commitment from any of the three main parties, I’m all to well aware of what happens in politics, these promises are all too soon forgotten.

I honestly think that if we’re to have a green Britain, the best way is to give incentives to the public to use environmentally friendly alternatives.

I think it’s time I took the chance to clarify my position on Creationism. I do oppose it, not out of blind hate.

My problem with it is twofold. Firstly, it fails to provide any evidence for it’s assertions, as a movement it wants the respectability of science, hance the term “Creation Science”, but doesn’t want to go through the method that brings that respect.

This leads to my second problem with it. The lengths that are gone to in order to distort science, befuddle the layman and raise a smokescreen. I have seen logical fallacies and distortions used quite blatantly in articles and essays by Creationists and have heard of intimidation against people who oppose them.

Just thought I’d get that off my chest!

I’m sat here watching our cats at play. I’m amazed at the way they simply play, anything can become a cat toy! Ours have a habit of doing fuzzy escape artist tricks as well.

It’s amazing, they simply sit quietly and watch the world go by, but come to some very clever conclusions. Mia, for instance has now worked out door handles. They’ve also worked out that if they get the timing and hang around the front door first thing in the morning, and when we get home at night they can avoid the effort of having to use the cat flap!

Sit quietly, pay attention, don’t let things get too complicated. I think there’s a definite lesson to be learned from them!

Happy Easter! Now as a secular non-Christian, I don’t take the Easter story literally. It’s more of an illuminating story as far as I’m concerned, positive, uplifting, but not literally true. So, from my own viewpoint, what message does Easter have for me as a Philosophical Taoist? What can a non-believer derive from a Christian story?

Well, to summarise my understanding of the story, Jesus overcomes death itself and changes things for mankind forever, however he must still ascend to heaven as his time here is done.

The message I get is one of the impermanence of things, all things change and no-one is exempt. Jesus changed things for everyone, people who supported him, even people who weren’t connected. In the Celtic legends, there is the story of a hero who at the time of the crucifixion felt it happen, and was so affected that he drew his sword and hewed down trees till the effort killed him, our actions change things, sometimes for the last people we’d expect!

There is another subtext here, stemming from the Crucifixion, Jesus has to die in order for the changes to happen. This highlights another Taoist theme, that destruction must proceed creation. Change is the creation of a new status quo, but the old order must be destroyed in order to be replaced, ths is true of every change, no exceptions. The death of Jesus is an allegory for that destruction of the old order, his rebirth for the birth of the new order.

Our third theme is his ascension into heaven, this is clearly a message that all things must end. No matter how powerful and important you are, you can’t resist change and you can’t stay on beyond your time. This reminds us to value our time here, whether you accept reincarnation or not, this incarnation is a one off and should be cherished as such, it’ll never come again.

The Easter story then, does have a message for Taoists, but then this simply shows that no matter who you are, there is a rich vein of spiritual wisdom that underpins all our beliefs.