Saw a lot of interesting religious architecture today... The variety of it all and the history it's framed against got me to thinking about how power interacts with faith, and what a dangerous combination it is... I got back to the hotel and typed the following:
When priests and pastors and rabbis and mullahs claim there is only one path to God, they are betraying their own vested interests… Those who are the most adamant about a singular, exclusive path to God are those who hold stock in the institutions that seek to control humankind’s spiritual inclinations. These are the gatekeepers. They are miserable toll booth operators on the highways to higher states of being, and they exist only to tax souls and collect revenue from travelers who don’t wish to venture from the roads and maps laid out by their ancestors. But God is not some isolated destination you can only access by select roads. God is everywhere. You can stray off-road and still find divinity infused in everything you encounter, and there is no need to pay tribute to the fear merchants who hold court over the unimaginative hordes of humanity who only trust the religious institutions they’ve inherited. Taking the path less traveled is as valid as the footpaths trodden by billions. It doesn’t matter what road you’re on or what vehicle you’re riding, time makes corpses of us all and what ultimately matters is not which road you're on but the quality of your journey to the beyond…
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