Mike Dulak grew up Catholic in Southern California, but by his teen years, he began skipping Mass and driving straight to the shore to play guitar, watch the waves and enjoy the beauty of the morning. “And it felt more spiritual than any time I set foot in a church,” he recalled.
Nothing has changed that view in the ensuing decades.
“Most religions are there to control people and get money from them,” said Dulak, now 76, of Rocheport, Missouri. He also cited sex abuse scandals in Catholic and Southern Baptist churches. “I can’t buy into that,” he said.
Turns out that if you can convince people that unless they behave in a certain way and follow a specific set of rules, they’ll be dropped into a burning lake of fire when they die, they are pretty easy to manipulate for political reasons.
But shouldn’t the ones they worship also hold to that very same specific sets of rules?
“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” [Mark 10:25]