Have you ever felt betrayed by religion but still seek spiritual (not supernatural) insight?

Religion is mans attempt to explain the ineffable and humanity will always betray itself.No matter how hard it tries to attain good the darkness will always intrude and even shut out the light.

I was baptized a Roman Catholic at an age when I had no choice in the matter.I loved the images within the church of the man called Jesus.The rites and rituals left me cold and when I took part in them I felt that there was too much separation and that Jesus was too far away.I also experienced the hypocrisy and evil of men within the body of that church and I decided one day to find Christ for myself in my time and in my space.

I did not feel betrayed because by then I had seen at first hand what humanity is and by that I came to understand why humanity needs God.

I know that the many many denominations of Christianity contain people who are trying really hard to achieve the Kingdom of God and I have learned not to judge the body of the church due to the sins and crimes of the individual who hides within the church.

What I object to is the fear that certain churches place on the individuals conscience in that they demand subservience to their rules and procedures rituals and rites and if you exercise your free will to raise yourself above this then somehow you are guilty and they then take what was never there's to give in the first place away from you.

They abuse the word of God in it's many forms and for some people this is a crime against the spirit

.A religion is not the Holy Spirit.Whoever came up with that idea is fatally flawed.

You yourself can find all that is promised and it will be given to you only by being open to what it is you seek and what most people seek in religion is the easy option were once aweek or so they enter their religious buildings in their faiths and hypothetically worship God on a part time basis then go back out into the world and hope no trouble will come their way and whilst doing so walk by their brothers and sisters who may need their help.

Matthew 25. 31-46.

This is Christ in action.

You cannot have one foot here and hope to have another foot there.Most faiths tell people that God will reward you by being faithful to what they tell you in the here and now.

My journey is coming to its conclusion.

I am finally in 49 years clear in my intentions and await the day when I return to the place I never wanted to leave in the first place.

In other faiths people die for no reason other than this

My answer to my problem - which was similar to yours - Goes like this.

I lost faith in the church

For many reasons

I concluded the following:

Religions are man(or woman) made organizations

They share all of the faults of any human organization.

Incompetence, lying, cheating, power struggles; greed, etc. making women second class, sexual misconduct, etc

If there are 100 religions (there are probably more); and all of them are saying they are the one and only true religion then 99 of them must be wrong. Maybe all 100.

Further

They also tell us that to talk to god we MUST go through them.

Well NO that is not true.

What they have done is not always good.

So I say...

There exists is a god, or goddess or creative energy or force of a spiritual nature.

What the form of it is does not matter.

A church is not needed to pray to or to "access" this spiritual being.

So you may let the religion go and still maintain your spiritual beliefs.

I felt betrayed when I realized how flawed and unfounded Christianity was, but I can still pull bits of insight from their texts.

I don't know if this counts, but I was more "betrayed" (not really the right word but...) by the local leader of my church than the church itself, but I still wanted and sought spiritual insight. Eventually I got over the "icky" feelings, and continued on in my "faith."

nicely, i'm no faith, so my ideals are extremely heathenistic, and not area of the issue. maximum persons of non secular nature choose to commune with gods. no longer genuinely anybody prefer to try this, and that's their suitable and place in the international. some human beings exist with their heads in the clouds, and others with their ft on the floor. as long as one protects the different, all is in stability. some human beings have confidence that our writer became into corrupted in the act of introduction, that enables to define the horrors defined in what's asserted because of the fact the previous testomony. And indignant jealous god bent on punishing it relatively is creations for attempting to discover greater purpose previous itself. some human beings can no longer hook up with that god, and fairly attempt to discover the source. while non secular human beings can no longer settle for the writer, the universe has different techniques waiting for us. The universe is likewise in stability previous only our earth, and the beginning factor became into so distant, and so till now. There are different gods in the international, and previous it, so anybody is only searching for the deeper direction. some human beings have wildly different paths then others. The stable guy forces his way for the duration of a river, the fast guy jumps, the functional guy builds a bridge, and the explorer maintains upstream to discover a safer crossing.

Not really, but I don't think a god-based religion makes sense.

No.