Religion is something I feel is usually more harmful than helpful.

Sacred or biblical text can be interpreted in any way to fit individual or groups ideals. Many people are indoctrinated into a religion and never ask questions of the teachings that they receive. Crooked religious leaders prey on the unquestioning loyalty of their followers to achieve their selfish agendas. In my definition religion is defined as man s interpretation of god. God is unconditional love and the punishment, judgment, and persecution that god is said to impose are manmade constructions of divinity. God is love and is all encompassing. The focus must be on obtaining universal spiritual truths and not a man s personal truths. Now that is not to say that a religious leaders personal truths are not valid just that his interpretations are based on his own biases and life experiences. Spiritual truths are laws that cannot be broken even if you attempt to. A personal truth on the other hand is dependent on your belief in it. For example a spiritual truth is what you put out you get back or life is like a mirror. This is a spiritual law that no matter what religion that you may belong to it still will hold true. Now take Christianity and look at one of the commandments Thou shall not commit adultery, this is a commandment that can and is usually broken quite often by Christians. Fear is a major motivation when dealing with some religions. I don t think that god wants us to be scared or to not live up to our fullest potential. We are given the ability to reason and use our free will to create as we see fit. God can be compared to the soil and us the gardeners. We have the opportunity to plant beautiful flowers like roses and lilies or we can plant poisonous plants like poison oak or black nightshade the choice is up to us. God is neutral to the choices that we make because regardless of the choice it is a valid way for you to experience creation. God is not separate from anything and is contained in all things. Everything that you do and experience is spiritual and how could it not be? If god is the essence of all that is. This is where the idea of worshipping god becomes a little weird for me though because if you look at god being all that is then you would have to worship everything. It is a little crazy to say the least to see someone worshipping their cell phone or the wall. We must ask questions and seek out timeless universal spiritual truths that will allow us to live up

to our fullest potential, without the judging other for how they choose to experience reality from their unique point of view. God is love and to love God is to have relationships that are full of unconditional love and free of judgment and to become one with all that is.