Isn't developing your own spiritual and personal relationship with your higher power more important than any religious beliefs, doctrine and practices?

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Yes, it is. God merely wants to see you develop yourself. In the past, it was important for social cohesion that everyone toe a particular dogmatic line. But nowadays the collective no longer needs safeguarding so each individual can feel free to develop their own spirituality as they like.

That said, religion and its concepts shouldn’t be frowned or looked down upon. The people that developed it thousands of years ago may not have had the benefit of modern perspectives on science, particularly evolution, but they were keenly aware of human nature and how it can get in the way of finding God.

The Bible (any scripture really, take a look at the Upanishads sometime) can be extremely useful in the personal formulation of spiritual truth. A few modern books about the development of religion has been extremely useful for myself in learning how to read and interpret scripture.