Quote Originally Posted by sanjuro_ronin View Post
I used to believe that too, then after further study I saw that was not the case at all.
Here is a good place to start:
http://www.tektonics.org/copycathub.html

To me, at least, my doubts about the religion I was raised and never really believed, caused me to research and study BOTH sides of the arguments, not looking for what I WANTED to find, but just looking to see what was really there.
It ( the research) gave me and strengthened my faith.
I do NOT agree with organized religion, I think that it has caused more bad than good simply because it places MAN above God or at least in the place of God.
I think people should be free to seek and find their own way in the world and I believe that, given time and a desire for discovering the truth, eventually all people will realize that THEY are the key to finding God and not any organization.
Good points.

Not to single out any religions or sects, but I was raised a Catholic (though not really hard-core), had to go to church every week, and had to go to catechism every week, too, until my late teens. In all that time, I can honestly say that I never "felt" God, nor had any concept of Divine Love. Besides being required to do so, to me, church was about accumulating brownie points for the afterlife. It instilled a sense of guilt and even fear of not going and paying the consequences. I went because I was taught I had to.

I had stopped going, but still believed that way for years until I got into SRF, which opened my mind. During that time and as a result, I also had a particularly powerful spiritual experience. Now I no longer belong to any religion, but that one experience, which was only seconds, trumped all those years of going to church. I didn't hope, I KNEW through experience that a Divine, loving Being is real. When you have experienced something, you no longer need a to believe or have faith, because you know. I no longer needed to carry any spiritual guilt, negative self-judgment, fear, uncertainty, etc.

Too often, religions place importance on the "ism" and the church leaders, etc., who in fact are no closer to God than anyone else. In fact, nobody is.