I didn't grow up practicing religion. I don't actively believe in any formal spiritual entity. I don't attend church. A Priest will not officiate my wedding. But my faith and my spirituality are very important to me.
Hear me out. While I don't believe in organized religion, the thingsI do believe in - are a big part of my life. I believe in guardian angels, and positive energy, and in the power of being a good person. I believe some things cannot be explained logically. But do I believe that there's one higher power dictating my actions and my after life? I don't.
I love researching the history of various religions and understanding why people choose to practice in each faith that they do. But religion should be what you make it. It shouldn't be blind following. The more people commit to a religion without questioning any single piece of that religion, the more dangerous that religion becomes. There is truly no one religion that does it all right.
I realize that this is probably getting me into some dangerous territory. And potentially losing me some friends - but it's really important to me to be able to say while I don't believe what you believe, I respect what you believe with the caveat that it must not be a religion that does harm unto others. Any religion that asks for unrelenting following, asks you to shun another - is not encouraging learning and acceptance - is not a religion of value.
Faith is a funny thing. It's often unexplainable. And yet it's extremely life changing for a lot of people. The more we live in a world of chaos, violence, and hate - the more I think about the role that religion plays in those things. And the more I encourage everyone to explore what their faith means to them and to ensure that devotion is based in acceptance and love.
Religion has the power to heal but it also has the power to start wars. Make sure that your religion is making you a better person working for a better world because it doesn't matter if you're living for a higher power if you're destroying life on Earth. At the end of it all - if you did bad to serve the ultimate good - do you really think that being is going to reward you? And if She does - is that really a God you want to commit to?