Religion operates not only on the vertical plane but also on the horizontal. It seeks not only to integrate men with God but to integrate men with men and each man with himself.
I believe that its most important function is in the formation of attachment. If we did not suffer enough loss to fear it, we could not love intensely.
There is absolutely no inevitability as long as there is a willingness to contemplate what is happening.
When others demand that we become the people they want us to be, they force us to destroy the person we really are. It's a subtle kind of murder. The most loving parents and relatives commit this murder with smiles on their faces.
I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.
