Orlando Mass Shooting | Religion Has Not Done Us Any Favors

Have we outgrown religion or just forgotten the point of it?
I can get behind this.

I can get behind this.

This is out of my comfort zone, but in keeping with my promise to let you ‘peek inside the mind’ of Author Russ Viola, I’ve decided to go ahead and publish this article.

…Who am I kidding? No one reads this shit anyway.
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It might seem meta for me to say this, but I’m a firm believer in faith.
To me, faith is something that is inherent in you. It’s just sort of baked into your bones.
I’m also a firm believer in the difference between spirituality and dogma.
A religious dogma should be the framework that, fueled with spirituality, leads us to our faith.
Whether you are deeply in touch with your faith or you’re seeking it, religion should bring you there, should underscore it. Religion should allow you to warm your hands at the fire of your faith.

More and more these days, I’m seeing a disconnect in our society between dogma and spirituality. Maybe humanity just isn’t born with as much faith anymore, or maybe the spirituality that fueled our oldest religions no longer works for us.

Faith should temper dogma.

I see rigid, soulless dogma driving its followers, but not to the wellspring of faith as it should.

When devout followers track along the highways and byways of their chosen religion’s dogma and don’t reach their faith, they must be confronted with two choices.

1.)Admit they have no faith or cannot find it with their chosen religion’s dogma.
2.)Ignore their lack of faith or failure to find it, and zealously over-adhere to their chosen religion’s dogma to compensate.

I believe this over-adherence to calcified, lifeless dogma is what produces so much of the pain that I have witnessed and read about in my life. I KNOW when I meet someone that is strong in their faith versus when I meet someone that is strong in their chosen religion’s dogma.

Anyone can memorize golden rules.
Laws are for the state, not the heart and soul.
Dogmas are meant to be challenged, changed, broken.
There is only one Truth.
Love.

Peace Y’all.
Happy Summer Solstice

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