Organized Religion

I have no problem with organized religion as an "idea." My problem rests in the application of organized religion. My experience has been that when you get a group of people together the tendency is for the least acceptable ideas to bob to the top. This is especially true now that the forces of social rather than spiritual concepts have infiltrated the Christian Church and made it into a political rather than a religious entity. To be a Christian today is to find yourself ranged against many social causes that you don't like. I could name them, but it is not necessary. You know them all very well without my stating them. Ann Rice did a better job than I could do in setting them out. To be spiritual does not require membership in a church. To understand God, it is necessary to use metaphor since God is beyond our understanding any other way. The Bible is not the final word of God. If it were so, trillions of human beings who are not Christian would be automatically doomed by its repressive dogma. I cannot and will not accept that God thinks in that fashion. This doesn't mean that the Bible has no value. It is probably one of the most important books in history. It is simply not the beginning and the end of all knowledge. God is inclusive, not the angry, hostile, being who wants to send most human beings to a lake of fire. His mantra is the Golden Rule, and the sooner we learn to apply it fully, the sooner our lives will improve and life will become far less stressful. The burden is on each of us individually to do so. We are our brother and sister's keeper. The Golden Rule is not optional. It is the law of the universe. Go to church if you must, but do not fall into the trap of letting the closed minds rule your thoughts. You are better than that.