Again: Religion is your human response to a divine touch. Religion is the human side of the equation, an effort to bring to life whatever spiritual stuff has been written on your soul. If you make it all up from your own intellect and reasoning, then it’s just a philosophy, but you can call it a religion if you like.
Fundamental rule of my religion: It’s voluntary. There is no one going to enforce any kind of orthodoxy. If you find something that meets your needs and helps you find peace with God, go for the gusto. My approval is not required for me to appreciate God working in your life. It should be obvious your religion does not require my approval to function. The basic question here is my participation. If you expect me to participate, check with my personal boundaries.
Don’t expect me to actively support something that won’t work for me. I’ll nod and smile and let you run off down any path that calls your name. Your religion is yours; mine is mine. To the degree our religions overlap, I’ll interact with you meaningfully. Where they don’t overlap I’ll mind my own business. I will assume you can figure out how to do the same thing.
For me, the ultimate failure of religion is mandatory participation. It’s the single biggest indicator of religion being more like a cult. We can organize and call it a church and make it a regular association, but you aren’t committing to me and my organization. You are supposed to be committed to God, and no one can claim exclusive agency for God. Should there be anything in this world that might incite me to violence, it would be resisting someone else trying to cram their religion down my throat. (Edit: We’re talking meat-space harassment here.) By the same token, you don’t have to put up with mine any more than suits your needs.
Sure, there are places you can go where I’ll simply have to disassociate from you. That’s just the way it is. That’s a part of keeping my own sanity. I don’t have to agree that your religion is valid according to mine, but that works both ways. There are degrees of disassociation, too. The worst thing you could do is become so dependent on associating with me that you find it painful to follow your own conscience. That’s failure of religion, in my eyes.
