My Reply To MSMs Question On Religion ! - Haiti Elections Archives

i am spiritual, but non-religious.

i do believe without proof that there is an immanent being from whom one gets the vital energy; but i still believe in evolution as the mechanism by which life attains its diversity.

however, i refrain myself from commenting on the moral character of such a being.

i am what some philosophers would call a "deist".
as you have said MSM, religion can be very dangerous particularly when it reinforces the status quo by discouraging dissent or rebellion against repression.
any religion that infringes on the intellectual curiosity of man cannot be a good religion_ in other words, if one's religion forbids the education of women, condemns autonomous individuals to a life of servitude on the basis of existential circumstances, persecutes others, then one's religion must undoubtedly be antithetical to the spiritual needs of man(.

by consequence such a religion cannot be the vehicle to the divine).
as any educated person knows, religion is not necessarily synonymous with spirituality.

religion is a hierarchical organization with a dogma, and a specific cosmology intended to directly connect the existence of man to a particular deity( jews to yahveh, hindus to brahma) whereas spirituality is the search of immortality in some form( karmic cycle for buddhists and reconnection with ancestors for shintoists).
as far as the official christian religion is concerned, it is not within the original teachings of the biblical christ as understood from the gospel of mark and mathiew.

for instance, the biblical christ would have never condoned the crusades, the spanish inquisition or the beatification of individual catholics( making saints out of individuals).
the biblical christ was more forgiving than judgemental as evidenced by his reaction to a murderous mob in the process of lapidating an accused prostitute.

In others words, the biblical christ would have called individuals like pat robertson "hypocrits".
i am not a communist, for communism is a religion in itself which infriges on the intellectual curiosity of man, but i have to admit that the history of organized religion as a systematic appeaser of the poor man's healthy anger more than coincides with mark's opium of the masses.

P.S: RELIGION IS NOT NECESSARY, BUT SPIRITUALITY IS ESSENTIAL TO THE WELL-BEING OF MANKIND.