Religion is not a department of life; it is something that enters into the whole of it.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Government needs to stay out of the religion business altogether.
Religion as a whole specializes in sin management. It's all about organizing humanity in such a way that we cause as little damage as possible.
In Western lands there is a distinct division between the religious and the secular life. There is one rule of conduct for laymen and another for clergymen. This distinction has never found its place in the life of the people of India. There, all of life is included in the word 'religion.'
It is still fashionable to believe that how you organize yourself religiously in this life may matter for eternity. Unless we can erode the prestige of that kind of thinking, we're not going to be able to undermine these divisions in our world.
And what is religion, you might ask. It's a technology of living.
Religion is one dimension of culture, a transcendent element of it.
In the first period religious life appears as a form of discipline which the individual or a whole people must accept as an unconditional command without any rational understanding of the ultimate meaning and purpose of that command.
Too many religious organizations are in the business of enforcing beliefs.
Organized belief in spirituality - that's what a religion is.
Religion, to me, is a bureaucracy between man and God that I don't need.