The comments of the pastor in the Church Corner column (Courier-Herald, June 8) motivated my response regarding his words addressing the tragedies recently in our community. I too feel great sadness and can only attempt to understand the pain and loss felt by the friends and family members of those involved.

But it is the platitudes and time-worn religious rhetoric that concerns and also saddens me. The typical belief that life is hard, pain is to be expected, we are victims of loss and pain and the ultimate reasoning…life on earth is expected to be harsh and heaven is the only answer.

This kind of reasoning just doesn’t work for many people. True, there are challenges in life, just as there are successes and opportunities to appreciate life. But religious reasoning, in my opinion, has passed its usefulness. It is time to be accountable in a spiritual sense. One could argue that the need for such an infantile view of our spiritual nature, which most fear-based religion supports, was needed in the earlier stages of mankind’s spiritual progression and growth. However, I think it is now time that we grow up and take a healthier view of who we are and what keeps us emotionally and spiritually healthy.

Fear-based belief systems (religions, whether fanatical or mainstream) have most likely been the root cause of most human suffering for the last several millennia…the last two at least. More people have died and suffered in the name of “God” than any other attributable cause. It is possible that fear-based religion (that belief system that doubts our basic worthiness) was necessary for human kind in its infancy and early adolescence.  It is my opinion that this time has passed.

What would our world look like if we taught our children from an early age that they were precious, unique and 100 percent worthy from “day one”? Rather than teaching or inferring that they were flawed, fell short and needed something added to them to attain salvation and a chance at a ticket to heaven?

What would our world look like if our children weren’t raised with a fear of hell? Be it literal or figurative, meaning an eternal separation from Source, their creator, the purported source of universal love?

Some will not understand the difference between authentic spirituality and fear-based religion…but I am not addressing these people. Their fear-based concepts will only incite resistance and condemnation.

I am speaking to our young people…those more conscious souls that are drifting away from religion and moving toward a healthier understanding of their inherent spirituality.

Maybe our churches could be known for enhancing spirituality and worthiness rather than pointing out our unworthiness and the worthlessness of this life…

Perry Chinn, author

“Soaring Beyond Fear”

Enumclaw