Prisons with Stained Glass Windows: Untying the Bonds of Dogma -- Embarking on the Path of Spirit

Were you told to never doubt or question anything you heard in church? To accept whatever the Bible said even if it seemed contrary to what you thought was right? Were you treated with respect and loving acceptance by fellow churchgoers or were you looked down upon, ignored or even abused?Millions of Americans have, over the past several decades, left the church or otherwise described themselves as neither belonging to nor interested in any religious organization. They answer "none" on surveys that ask for their religious affiliation and now, in many regions, there are more "nones" than Christian believers. Yet many of these "nones" still consider themselves as "spiritual," just not "religious."This book reveals why people are fleeing the church and their reasons are, for the most part, valid. It revolves around the author's rearing in Christian fundamentalism and his eventual departure, complete with the detailed reasons for leaving the faith. Prisons with Stained Glass Windows acknowledges that we all have a need for community that the church once offered and we also have a spiritual nature that the church could never nurture properly. After sharing details of his deconstruction from traditional Christianity, the author describes the path he walked in order to shed toxic dogmas and replace them with rational, positive and fact-based alternatives that lead to happy, successful living. Chief among those choices was changing his perspective from negative, self-depreciating thought to a positive outlook that recognized one's innate spirituality. He also discovered a massive repository of scientific research that affirms the eternal spiritual nature of every human. Our individual consciousness, that research affirms, definitely survives bodily death. A summary of that evidence is contained in later chapters.This book lays out a roadmap to a satisfying inner life for anyone who wants to live free from toxic religion-imposed limitations.