Believe, behave, and keep company in accordance with what exclusive religion presumes that its micromanaging deity requires. Dogmatic programming conditions human beings to be wary of our own conscience, for it’s supposedly corrupted and untrustworthy.

Allegedly we cannot place any stock in our own head-and-heart agreements, and our best bet is following their prescribed manual. After all, if we want to attain salvation and sidestep damnation, then it makes perfect sense to betray reasoning and bow before fear.

How strange is it that a god would endow us with a conscience at all if we aren’t meant to use it to gauge what is right and wrong. Wouldn’t our creator simply manufacture us as emotive robots; lobotomized subservient creatures who’ll serve its every whim.

If this is an issue of free will, then why not offer us some tangible, measurable, repeatable evidence instead of shoddy esotericism. Practitioners of inclusive spirituality want answers, and we will continue to follow our head-and-heart agreements in the meantime.