More Thoughts on Religion

I've been giving a lot of thought to religion this week, specifically organized religion.  As stated in a previous post, we've begun attending church again, and the priest is having informal get togethers after the early service to talk about the denomination and other religious issues.  The first meeting last week was extremely enlightening.

I was raised Southern Baptist.  We were an "Amen-ing" congregation - well steeped in fire, brimstone, self-sacrifice (no drinking or dancing) and solid forgiveness.  Dutifully, church was attended twice on Sunday, plus Wednesday, with misson studies, choir practice, witnessing, youth activities, etc. thrown in.  I even went to school at the church.  And yet, with all of this continuous emmersion in the faith, there was no sense of guilt when I stepped back from the church to pursue my own spiritual journey.  It never even occurred to me that there could or should be.

It was therefore very surprising to me to find that others experienced extreme guilt and loss when they separated from their original church denominations.  For some, the division was several years ago, and yet it was apparent that it was still very fresh and in some cases painful for them.  This has led me to a lot of consideration on this issue...

If God is a loving God, why would he want to have an earthly system in place that causes so much guilt and pain?

It leads me to believe that there is something in human nature that seeks the direction that organized religion provides.  And there are those committed to providing a system that neatly indoctrinates them from birth into that sytem to the point where they can see no out.  If this is the case, does that not make every organized religious system, regardless of belief structure, a cult?