Spirituality vs. Religion

Thanks to South of the Fork's post about Free-Range Kids' post, I happened upon a comment by Anthony Hernandez that has been mulling about in my brain this afternoon.

Mr. Hernandez stated, in part:

Beyond this, the idea of teaching a kid that they were born with sin and must obey the many contradictory and barbaric laws of a book that would make the brothers Grimm weep with envy is abuse, pure and simple.
Yes, I said it: Religion is child abuse, period.

I have to admit that at least in terms of spirituality v. religion, I agree with him. Though it might be more palatable to me because I grew up with the belief that we are NOT born in sin. That we do not spiritually pay for the sins of our fathers and mothers. We pay for our own sins only. Now, that doesn't mean we aren't involved in, or effected by, the consequences of the choices our parents have made (or the choices of prior ancestry); but their sin is not ours, it is theirs.

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
excerpt from Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood by William Wordsworth

Another part of my agreeing with Mr. Hernandez comes from my belief that one's relationship with God is personal and is not defined, hampered, constrained, dictated, or fabricated by any other human. And it certainly doesn't have a monetary value to it!

And a final point to my agreement with the stark statement quoted above is that too much these days it seems as though Religion has lost its Spirituality. And encroaching upon, devaluing, or denying a child their Spirituality is, in my not-so-humble opinion, a form of child abuse.