Assignment .

INTRODUCTION

The nature of the human person has been a subject of fascination since ancient times. We
desire to understand ourselves and our place in the world, and at times we also look at
broader human questions: Why am I here? What is the meaning or purpose of my life? Why
do people suffer?
From prehistoric times to the present, religion has been a central part of human experience
and culture. Religions are thought to have existed in all times and societies. Traditionally the
term religion was used to refer to all aspects of the human relationship to the Divine or
transcendent, that which is greater than us, the source and goal of all human life and value.
Religiosity and spirituality have been a part of human experience throughout the length and
breadth of human history. Crossing every category of human endeavour, they have been the
subject and object of art, music, poetry, culture, warfare, inspiration, aspiration, sacrifice,
morality, devotion, contemplation, conflict, and multitudes of other human activities.
Defining religion and its newer counterpart, spirituality in ways that reflect people’s usages
of those concepts in a culture is good for certain purposes, especially when that distinction is
critical to the theoretical question posed. On the other hand, religion and spirituality may
largely service the same psychological function and the different terms that people use
themselves may be a matter of personal preference or style. Thus people call themselves
religious and spiritual, religious but not spiritual, spiritual but not religious, neither spiritual
nor religious, and, very interestingly, a hairsplitting blend of religious spirituality plus
nonreligion (e.g., as one of our students said, “I am a spiritual Christian but not religious”).

DEFINING RELIGIOUSNESS / RELIGIOSITY AND SPIRITUALITY

Although the terms “religiousness” and “spirituality” have been defined by psychologists in a
number of different ways over the past century. Psychologists have traditionally regarded
religion as a “broad-band” construct, not explicitly differentiated from spirituality.

Definitions Of Religion
Argyle and Beit-Hallahmi (1975, p. 1): A system of beliefs in a divine or superhuman power,
and practices of worship or other rituals directed towards such a power.
Batson, Schoenrade, and Ventis (1993, p. 8): Whatever we as individuals do to come to grips
personally with the questions that confront us because we are aware that we and others like us
are alive and that we will die.
Bellah (1970, p. 21): A set of symbolic forms and acts that relate man to the ultimate
conditions of his existence.
Dollahite (1998, p. 5): A covenant faith community with teachings and narratives that
enhance the search for the sacred.
O’Collins and Farrugia (1991, p. 203): Systems of belief in and response to the divine,
including the sacred books, cultic rituals, and ethical practices of the adherents.

Definitions of Spirituality
Armstrong (1995, p. 3): The presence of a relationship with a Higher Power that affects the
way in which one operates in the world.
Benner (1989, p. 20): The human response to God’s gracious call to a relationship with
himself.
Doyle (1992, p. 302): The search for existential meaning..
Fahlberg and Fahlberg (1991, p. 274): That which is involved in contacting the divine within
the Self or self.
Hart (1994, p. 23): The way one lives out one’s faith in daily life, the way a person relates to
the ultimate conditions of existence.
Tart (1975, p. 4): That vast realm of human potential dealing with ultimate purposes, with
higher entities, with God, with love, with compassion, with purpose.
The definition of religiousness by William James (1902/1961) illustrates this individual
focus: “the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they
apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine” (p. 42).
Traditional research also rests on the understanding that religiousness and spirituality can
have both positive and negative forms.
Religiosity and spirituality constitute a very important aspect of life in the majority of
existing cultures.

Description Of Religiosity And Spirituality

From the etymology, spirituality comes from spirit, Latin word, which means life, breath. In
social science, spirituality is understood as the universal quality of each person about the
awareness of The One beyond the self, awareness that there is Creator beyond this creation.
Other definition about spirituality is experiential and personal aspect of human relationship
with the transcendent or sacred one. Spirituality means something different to everyone. No
one has the possession of the whole truth. We continue to search for meaning embedded in
each persons’ life. No Religion can claim spirituality. The whole earth is spiritual even before
the advent of religion, our great grandfathers live spiritually and in psychological contact
with one another. Strangers are respected with their different views and they too respect their
host. It is the deepest values and meanings by which people live.
According to the etymology, religion comes from religio, which means the bond of human
and The Greater. That term of religion is more general rather than the popular definition now
about religion. However in social science, religion is defined as institutional system of
beliefs, practices, liturgy, that specific to a faith tradition which aims to relate to the sacred
one and related with the others. In traditional view, religion has covered all aspect (personal
and institutional one) of relationship between man and The Divine.
Distinctions For Religiosity And Spirituality
There is a distinction between religion and spirituality. Spirituality refers to those who hunger
for deeper meaning and for what we have tended to call ‘transcendent values’. While
religion are those who follow one or other formal religion.
Some other distinctions include
1. There are no rules where it comes to spirituality.
2. Spirituality is based on love and not fear.
 3. Religion speaks the truth, but spirituality allows discovery to the truth.
4. Spirituality is a solo journey therefore it is personal.
5. Spirituality embraces different perspectives.
How Both Concepts Influences Psychological well-being and Success
It is commonly accepted around that world that religion and spirituality are among the most
important of cultural factors, giving structure and meaning to behaviours, value systems and
experiences.
Religion helps regulate behaviour and health habits, while spirituality regulates your
emotions, how you feel.
Religiousness, including formal religious affiliation and service attendance, is associated with
better health habits, such as lower smoking rates and reduced alcohol consumption.
Spirituality, including meditation and private prayer, helps regulate emotions, which aids
physiological effects such as blood pressure. Some research shows a connection between
your beliefs and your sense of well being. Positive beliefs, comfort, and strength gained from
religion, meditation, and prayer can contribute to well being. It may even promote healing.
Improving your spiritual health may not cure an illness, but it may help you feel better. It also
may prevent some health problems and help you cope better with illness, stress, or death.
Religious involvement and spirituality are associated with better health outcomes, including
greater longevity, coping skills, and health-related quality of life (even during terminal
illness) and less anxiety, depression, and suicide. Several studies have shown that addressing
the spiritual needs of the patient may enhance recovery from illness.
Religiosity and spirituality can increase a person’s chances of achieving success if combined
with hard work because they make the journey easier. It is hard for a highly spiritual/religious
person to give up on the journey to success because he believes that a HIGHER POWER,
which is all-powerful and all-knowing, is helping him. The confidence that one is working
with a Higher Power enables the person to be sure of achieving success, making giving up
impossible. This alone pushes the individual to attain success.
Spirituality and religion make an individual trustworthy, faithful, and peaceful with whatever
happens.
The journey to success becomes easier and interesting if you have such qualities. The more
trustworthy you become, the more people will like to do business with you or promote you to
higher positions.
CONCLUSION
Spirituality and religion are often used interchangeably, but the two concepts are different.
Some authors contend that spirituality involves a personal quest for meaning in life, while
religion involves an organized entity with rituals and practices focusing on a higher power or
God. Spirituality may be related to religion for certain individuals, but not, for example, for
an atheist or yoga practitioners.
Spirituality/religion can take individual as well as collective forms. The concepts of
spirituality and religiosity are not mutually exclusive and can overlap or exist separately.
However, prayer and meditation are often performed in solitude. Regular church attendance,
religious belief or the influence of religious institutions are dwindling fast in recent years and
there is also a tendency for people to believe without belonging to any religious affiliation.
The widespread use of spirituality/religion in coping with serious medical and physical
conditions has also been demonstrated. A number of previous studies have examined the
relationship between spirituality, religious beliefs and activities and coping with physical
illness in patients with chronic health conditions like heart disease, mental disorders, renal
failure, diabetes, cancer, HIV/AIDS and several other physical conditions. It has been
previously reported high spirituality/religiosity help HIV/AIDS patients cope with their
disease through engaging in behavioural change, reducing anxiety and other mental problems
that could arise as a result of their HIV positive status.
REFERENCES
Argyle, M., & Beit-Hallahmi, B. (1975). The social psychology of religion. London:
Routledge.
Armstrong,T.D.(1995,August).Exploring spirituality: The development of the Armstrong
Measure of Spirituality. Paper presented at the annual convention of the American
Psychological Association, New York, NY.
Batson, C. D., Schoenrade, P., & Ventis, W. L. (1993). Religion and the individual: A social-
psychological perspective. New York: Oxford University Press.
Bellah, R. N. (1970). Beyond belief. New York: Harper & Row.
Benner, D. G. (1989). Toward a psychology of spirituality: Implications for personality and
psychotherapy. Journal of Psychology and Christianity, 5, 19–30.
Dollahite, D. C. (1998). Fathering, faith, and spirituality. Journal of Men’s Studies, 7, 3–15.
Doyle, D. (1992). Have we looked beyond the physical and psychosocial? Journal of Pain
and Symptom Management, 7, 302–311.
Fahlberg, L. L., &Fahlberg, L. A.(1991). Exploring spirituality and consciousness with an
expanded science: Beyond the ego with empiricism, phenomenology, and contemplation.
American Journal of Health Promotion, 5, 273–281.
Hart, T. (1994). The hidden spring: The spiritual dimension of therapy. New York: Paulist
Press.
O’Collins,G.,&Farrugia,E.G.(1991).Aconcisedictionaryoftheology.NewYork:PaulistPress.
Tart, C. (1975). Introduction. In C. T. Tart (Ed.), Transpersonal psychologies (pp. 3–7). New
York: Harper & Row.