I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.
All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.
I do not mean by this declaration to condemn those who believe otherwise; they have the same right to their belief as I have to mine. But it is necessary to the happiness of man, that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe.—Thomas Paine
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To me: religion is great. Without religion, is to feel empty and lost.
Sure, some still feel that way when firmly engulfed in their teachings, but what good are teachings if they are not put into practice?
The real difficulty nowadays is a high percentage of those disputing the points and counterpoints of religion are in a box: whether they be atheists looking to entrance others to give up a deluded notion of God, or the rangingly-devout yet ever-believing God-fearing followers perhaps trying to impart unneeded wisdom; both have a tight, firm, and
wrong delusion that religion can only be
one thing, and that is an institution. Why can't it also be an idea? An innovation - an identity - an impartial intermediary of knowledge? Religion is what one makes it - whether it be abiding by strict dogmas, or instead learning universal truths along the way that were already realized: religion is one's self, our experiences, and a base moral compass of what we hold to be knowns, unknowns, and demarcations of human willingness unable to be grasped until by fate, greeted.