Organized Religion - Commentary

On this page I will share with you some of my thoughts
on Organized Religion.

I was raised as a Catholic. I went to Catholic Schools, sang in the church choir and served as an altar boy. At the time I had no idea that God and Religion were not one and the same. I knew nothing about Spirituality and believed being a Catholic was the true and only path to God.

Most children grow up following their parents' choice of Religion and accept the path that is laid out for them. They go to their parents' church, temple or mosque and attend the schools associated with them. Those that go to state or public schools learn before the rest of us that the path of our parents may not be our true spiritual paths but the rest of us (unless we've been completely brainwashed) do not start to question our paths until we become teens and experience the world outside of our family influences.

Even though I was attending a catholic high school, I stopped attending church regularly. Many doubts began to surface as I met others who followed different paths and had been raised to practice other religions. At first I felt these people were foolish and misguided and my divine purpose was to ostracize and condemn these people for not seeing the light of the true path, Catholicism. I found myself arguing with others and to evangelize, for the bible said we were to, go forth and spread the WORD.

What I found out though was that most people felt as strongly about their beliefs as I about mine and so I embarked on the seekers path, (40+ years later I still walk that path). I began to attend services at other Christian churches and became confused as to how we could believe in the same God and Christ, and follow different interpretations of the same bible but have different opinions on what God, Christ and the Bible were saying and what our Faith expected of us.

I began attending other faith services outside of the Christian networks I read book after book about the meaning of God, Spirituality and other Religions. Some looked interesting and different but one thing remained consistent they all had rules, rituals and believed they were the only true path to God. They were no different then us Christians. They fundamentally all had a strict moral code and punishments for those who violated the rules and adherence through guilt. If you didn't follow the rules you were either wrong or judged to be.

Guilt did not make sense to me from a Spiritual perspective. All the teachings seemed to become contradictory. If we have a God given free will and are not to judge (lest we be judged) and a Judgment Day awaits us at the end of our lives; why would we have to live our lives with guilt? What gives any man, Church or Religion the right to judge us and control our will and force us to their self-righteousness moral commands.

I began to seek Religions that communed with God without guilt and found that yes they existed but they too had there rules, rituals and adherence to the belief that there's is the only one true path.

My conclusion after 40+ years of searching is this. Organized Religion is for children and sheep. For children to learn morality, discipline and how to interact with society beyond our families and or sheep who can not find there way on their own or are too spiritually lazy to realize that each and everyone of us has a direct connection to the divine and a path that is uniquely and exquisitely our own

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