Religion: An Agent of God or an Agent of the Devil?

Religion/Spirituality is of God, but Satan is willing to use it to lead us away from God. So, i say.. Both.

Organized religion is indeed manmade. Or maybe I shoud say denominations of religion are manmade. Denominations exist because someone believed that their interpretation of the Bible was correct and therefore their way was the right way, hence we have denominations. Many of these denomination have creeds, disciplines and other manmade doctrine that they run their organizations by. Was the bible not enough instruction? Did God's word not provide enough instruction on how to conduct ourselves in church or anywhere else for that matter. Is the separation that exist because of denominations really what God intended? I believe that God intended us to follow the instruction of Christ and the word inspired by God, written in the Bible. All the other stuff that man adds to that is just that...stuff. I think I read in the bible that God is not really that impressed with rituals and ceremonies, he is more concern with the hear of each individual.

Well considering I don't believe in god or the devil I can't answer your question as you've asked it BUT I definately agree that religion IS in fact man made (since it is) and becuase of that it holds far more negativity within it than positive...

I have often pondered this question and am of the opinion that it has become the agent of the devil. A luciferic infestation if you like. A spiritual path is one that leads oneself to self and not to something outside of self. Many organized religions are doing a disservice to mankind in leading people to honor something outside of themselves. Somehow there has become a twisting of the intent of scriptures. Jesus is thy lord and savior. Jesus is not going to save anyone, he will help you but he's not going to do all the work. This leading of consciousness outside to an entity other than oneself is luciferic in itself. Deep spirituality however, is not about niceness and superficial feelings. To enable one to be whole there needs to be an ownership of stress, fear and condemnation. Avoiding them or pretending these emotions are not inside is not being whole at all. Acceptance, not avoidance will lead to deep spiritual presencing of self. Religion is dangerous if you take on beliefs of something outside of yourself. Believing something that you do not experience is not knowledge and is a disservice to you. I don't like to use the term religion when I talk about my own path. I tread a spiritual path, I do spiritual practices but I don't see myself as religious. The term 'being religious' means different things to different people. To me being spiritual is finding the whole of myself, finding my truth and I will use teachings as a guide only to help me.

Religion for me Now....means freedom. God is inside every man.....whether he acknowledges this fact or not....is up to the individual. I believe , that Religion in a Organized sense......has done a lot of good over the Centuries....But I believe it has also done a tremendous amount of Damage as well. My theory..........Seek God....from inside your Self. He's waiting for you. A.

Religion is man made! Well if that's the way you define religion then Christianity, Islam and Judaism are not religion because they claim to be God given, not man made. But I wonder if that's really a good way to define religion. Defining religion has been so difficult. And I have not seen any definition that's really good. I think normally people don't even define religion. Because if people try to bring in god into the picture there are religions like Jainism and Buddhism that would not talk about god at all. They are rather atheistic!