Mike Dulak grew up Catholic in Southern California, but by his teen years, he began skipping Mass and driving straight to the shore to play guitar, watch the waves and enjoy the beauty of the morning. “And it felt more spiritual than any time I set foot in a church,” he recalled.
Nothing has changed that view in the ensuing decades.
“Most religions are there to control people and get money from them,” said Dulak, now 76, of Rocheport, Missouri. He also cited sex abuse scandals in Catholic and Southern Baptist churches. “I can’t buy into that,” he said.
I used to have that really common thought of “I don’t care what you believe in. Just don’t try to push your opinion on me.”
No. It’s bullshit.
The very existence of religion is a psychological drain on society. We are all worse off the longer it stays around. There is no such thing as a good religious person and anyone who says they are religious I immediately distrust.
That’s a bridge too far for me.
Yes, faith is in and off itself detrimental to our society. Religiosity is a strong detrimental force, a mind-virus, a meme that damages the ability to clearly perceive reality.
But just like people who are infected with an infectious virus aren’t bad, not all religious people are automatically bad people. I don’t think they are good because they are religious, but that doesn’t mean they are not good or not religious. So let us not fall into the same absolutist thoughts as the fervent deniers of secular goodness.