When does faith become superstition? Do rituals and ceremonies actually have any value? Many religions scoff at others superstitious behaviors and rituals outside their own particular confines, yet they employ all the above in their own worship; same ideas with different cultural practices.

Rituals and ceremonies are splendid acts of worship. They incite great emotions in the participants and spectators; many are left with lasting impressions, for days or longer. Some find they’re moved so much that they’re nudged, or stronger, into a more religious life. People have changed their whole lives after experiencing religious spectacles, great and small. However, we know today that emotions are not the same for everyone, nor is it reality; emotions and reality can sometimes match up, like feeling in love and actually having a loving relationship, but many times as the emotions wear off the attractiveness of the religion also fades, leaving an emptiness with it’s own emotional aftereffects. The high doesn’t last and needs repeated toping-off to sustain its effects. Like any induced state it gets harder and harder to keep up the initial intensity. As it wanes so does the enthusiasm; just like going to the gym after New Year’s Eve, by April the membership is cancelled; likewise, God still exists, only you’re not there to participate in the associated religion.

There’s a solution that is so simple it’s absurd; ditch the religion, rituals and ceremonies altogether. The only things you need are genuine willingness and sincerity to connect to God. God’s been around for a long time; long before the solar system existed, let alone the Earth and man. He’ll be around when the MilkyWay combines with the Andromeda System, our closest neighbor. What will man be like at that point in the future? If we’re still around, will religion still exist? It’s not a certainty. The point is, we’re so convinced today of something that is very likely to become obsolete. So, why bother at all if the process is temporary? Just because something becomes obsolete doesn’t mean that it has no value for those participating in the practices in their own time, like us today.

The problem is that religion became the dominant part of worshiping God, superseding God Himself. Jesus has also supplanted God. We don’t worship God, we worship the human incarnation of God; that is to say if it actually was an incarnation at all or perhaps Jesus was simply more evolved spiritually, but still only a mortal human. Truth is we don’t know, but we do know for certain that God is His own incarnation. Worshiping Him directly can never fail. I am a Christian. I worship God and Christ and the Spirit. I also recognize unequivocally that God is all and above all, regardless of the peripherals, period.

Religion, rituals and ceremonies are designed to teach us the ways of God, the historical development of the human journey to God and the churches that followed. The practices within each church are just that, practices. They perform all the mentioned functions of the church and also the mentioned emotional beauty, but likewise, the church and it’s practices have supplanted what is the end goal, connection to God that is genuine, complete and unwavering; not because the church or it’s participants say it is so, but because it actually is. If an institution does not achieve a genuine connection to God it is a failure, full stop.

Do we worship the high schools, colleges and universities that educated us? Do they all not have their own histories, rituals and ceremonies associated with them that distinguishes them from the other institutions? Religions are the same thing. Nothing wrong with them or their practices, unless they themselves become the focus and not about the education they provide.

I had a Catholic upbringing and I am now an independent Pastor. I will always be a Catholic. It is in my heart forever. But I graduated to independent worship and preaching. I didn’t have to, but I naturally evolved into an independent. My conclusions on God and Christ, the angels and spiritual realms are sill in line with Catholic rule for the most part. But we differ about the efficacy of rituals and ceremony, of which I learned through my own experiences and spiritual development that they don’t work as promised, at least, not universally, it at all.

Honestly, the church was only a springboard for me, the rest I had to figure out for myself, which is when I realized that it was my own personal journey that led me to God for real, not the church. This is potentially one of the reasons why for thousands of years the success rate has been so low. If it was more of a success the world would be a much better place for it, not that it hasn’t transformed humanity for good and still does, but it could do much more.

Religion is vital to human beings, truly. It should be taught like anything else. It does need overdue tweaking to meet the evolved cultures and modernity of today and beyond; incorporating the sciences, etc. God and all the above will remain the same, but just as we move on to harder and harder subject matter in a class, so should we spiritually. We are healthier physically today than our forebears, but spiritually we may have moved backwards. The reason is not because we don’t mechanically follow the rules as the churches say, but because they are definitively outdated and for the most part don’t apply to modern human civilization.

What does that mean for us today? What is my guidance?

Sermons like these are like the first couple of classes in a semester. I lay out the whys and whats of the goals. Getting into the intricacies of spiritual development is a process over time. It can be short or lengthy. Some of you will want a little, some will want to go all the way to full on connectivity. There is no one way to do it and no guarantee of achievement.

You cannot get a certificate that will magically make you spiritual. Just typing it and it seems so obvious, right? I got mine and it only meant that I was officially part of the Catholic club. I am grateful and proud. But my spiritual person had to be manifested by actually participating in God’s world; then it became real, and not just on paper.

Contemporary people fall into three camps which determine their religious and spiritual direction:

• Hook, Line & Sinker
• Can’t Fool Me
• On The Fence

Your journey began already. It could end here or not.

---

©2026 Pastor Robert Perez