I am spiritual, but not necessarily religious or based on any one religious text. I believe that all religious texts have some truths and all have some falsities or contradictory statements. I also believe that the great people whom we all respect and follow who HAVE been good to the human race such as Jesus and Buddah, etc. definitely deserve to have their better moral lessons followed so that we can all do the right things in life and co-exist peacefully with one another. However, with that said, although I am not 100% convinced that God (As a creationary force, not necessarily a Bible-based God) had a direct connection to everyone who deserves to be followed, I do believe God has an indirect link to all that is good and evil. I used to think that God was love and that was it, but if that were true then there would be no evil in the world because God created everything, right? Also, look at the stars. Stars burning out, stars exploding, and perhaps off beyond our notice populated planets being wiped out. So, God is both creation and destruction both. So, like with everything, God is a choice....to follow a good path or to follow an evil path, but no matter what path you take, it's all due to God, and when I say God I mean a creationary force of both good and evil. I think, in my opinion, evil cannot exist without good and good cannot exist without evil, as sad as that is to say. If you have good, it's inevitable that some evil will form in response to it, and if you never had evil good would've never formed in response to it either. Now, I'm not saying that's a legitimate excuse to be bad and do bad things, but what I am saying is that the balance is there for a reason because people have free will to take one side or the other, and many people don't take kindly to having only one choice.
I do feel, personally, for me, following the good side of God/creation is better because it not only allows me to have better respect for myself and my choices, but enables me to establish closer bonds with my family and friends because my actions are more conducive to someone a person would want in their life and to be around for the long haul. Because of this, people who make the right moral choices and follow the path of good are seriously the only ones who I will let get truly close to me. Others I may allow into my life to a point, but I will always keep them at a distance until I see whether or not they change for the better. If not, then they will never be able to be considered more than a casual friend or an acquaintance. I have very few true, close friends because of my stance, but I would rather have just a handful of real friends whom I admire and trust and others kept at a fair distance than an army of people close to me who make choices I would never approve of that would make me constantly disappointed in them.
I also believe that, due to my open acceptance of the positive aspects of ANY religion that I can provide people with more than one viewpoint on how to handle situations and how to lead them to seeing common ground with people who are of a different religion. The only way we're truly going to get along as a multitude of different religions, in my opinion, is to see the common positive morals that they all share and work off of those so people will feel a connection to one another as opposed to being so inherintly separate. Otherwise, exclusivity occurs and then you have one group thinking their way is always right and others are wrong, and that's no way to form any kind of bond with people who are different than you are. That causes feelings of exclusivity, dominance, superiority and, in turn, that causes disrespect, animocity, prejudice, and sometimes even wars. Yes, while it's understandable that we look on any negatives within any one religion as things that are bad and need to be improved upon, we need to focus more on the positive similarities they all share and concentrate on having those similarities connect all of us so that we can be more in harmony with one another. That, to me, is following the better path of God/creation. To find morally superior ways to unify us all through positive lessons and choices that everyone strives for to make themselves and those around them better people. That's MY religion. It's not about Jesus, Buddah, Mohammed, or any other religious figure specifically but, instead, about morally superior ways to unify us all.
