What does the term "Spiritual but not religious" mean?

 I think it means you aren't willing to be brainwashed every Sunday or more frequently by any minister or priest of ANY religion.

It also means that you are having your own experiences with God and Angels and spirituality without going to church. It also often means that instead of going to church on Sunday only or Easter or Christmas only that you are having religious spiritual experiences often 24 hours a day every moment of your life. So, your experience with God and angels is direct and not through any minister or priest or any religion.

In other words you take personal responsibility for all your relationships with God and Angels and spiritual things yourself. You don't need an intermediary because you are an adult being and not a child like many people are all their lives.

This I think is what being "Spiritual but not religious actually means".

However, often religious people might be offended by people who see themselves as adults and not subservient to any church or religion. This is more cultural than anything else, however. It is less about religion and God than about a state of mind that reminds me more of supporting sports teams than anything else. Also, many people's whole social life is tied up in their churches too. So, for many people their social life in their church is everything to them, especially in small towns across the U.S.

Whereas people who are "Spiritual but not religious" tend to become like this through going to college in bigger cities and suburban areas around the country. I find more that as I meet people from around the world that being "Spiritual but not religious" is a primarily American thing that began more in the 1960s with the awakening that people went through during the 1960s and 1970s on college campuses across the U.S.

People in other countries often are more traditional about all this than Americans are.

This was also true of me and the religion I was raised in until I was 21 years old and had to think then for myself and develop my own personal relationship with God and Angels ongoing. I was raised primarily in San Diego and Los Angeles areas after being born just after World War II in Seattle Washington.

Going to college and studying Philosophy, Psychology and Anthropology and comparative Religion helped create me as a "Spiritual but not religious person" too.

I find that people who have time to actually study spirit and religion and spirituality and spiritual evolution tend to become "Spiritual but not religious" like myself. If you take the time to educate yourself enough you begin to think for yourself and be less of a child about everything in life it seems.

Learning Critical thinking in High School and College is also important in all of this too.

By God's Grace