Abstract: Organized religion suffers self-inflicted mortal wounds which have impugned its integrity and rendered it irrelevant and dangerous. What has led to the decrepit state of World religions?

We see this problem manifesting exponentially in the 10-fold growth of mainstream “Religious Fundamentalism” Worldwide. This perversion of religion was made possible when religion became rationalized, dogmatized, politicized and monetized (weaponized) by utilitarian manipulators with other agendas wholly unrelated to the original religious teachings. The ground-zero question is: “What is in the nature of mainstream religion itself, that makes it so amenable to such hijacking manipulation?” Simply stated, the answer is: Mainstream Religion Has Forsaken Spirituality — and in so doing has left itself vulnerable to a virulent viral infection known as “Utilitarian Hijacking.” Religion as ‘Spirituality’ had an built-in immunity against this virus. Substituting the epistemology of Rationalism, with its dogmatic DNA, for the epistemology of Insight and Compassion has proven to be a catastrophic mistake which has decimated and bastardized the true, bedrock intrinsic teachings originally embedded in these religions. This is, at its core, an epistemological problem.

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