How to evaluate your beliefs

“Re-examine all you have been told in school or church or in any book, and dismiss whatever insults your own soul.” -Walt Whitman

I use a three-screen process in my mind to evaluate everything including my faith and religious beliefs. Everything must first make it through these three:

1. Love.
   Everything that flows from love is beautiful. If it does not flow from love, it is ugly to me. Question: Does this belief, thought, or action, flow from love?
2. Conscience.
   If my conscience is troubled, I cannot be at rest. Question: Can I say with Martin Luther, “Here I stand. I cannot do other?”
3. Fruit.
   Question: Does this belief, thought, or action bear good fruit that honors every human being as worthy of dignity?

Any religion that asks me to “insult my soul” is a religion I reject.