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.
Why would you assume they don’t mean it to be universally applied?
The biggest religions in the world harbor the largest rings of pedophiles, bigots and oppressors of women and children that exist.
There are surely religious people that consider themselves good and act in a moral way, but their support of organizations that allow and defend such abhorrent values and behavior defies that.
As someone put further down “the good ones enable the bad ones”. So while you or I might not take the same stance in our own lives, I can absolutely understand why someone might not want anything to do with religion or religious people.
I’m trying to be charitable to the person who started this part of the thread. There are most definitely perfectly good religious people out there though they are involved with toxic organizations.
Is being involved with a toxic organization not toxic? Or are you saying these people are victims of their religion?
IRT the first part, I think so. Even if you’re a genuinely kind person, if you support an organization that practices cruelty, you are supporting cruelty.
IRT the second part, I wasn’t saying that, but would agree with that statement–people are often a victim of their cultures.