I'm not religious, but I don't think religion is necessarily a form of slavery. Religion teaches people moral values that could be used in everyday life. It might be considered a form of slavery when it is interpreted in different ways or taken to the extreme.
I also think that it is wrong to say that Christianity is not a form of slavery but religions such as Mormonism, Buddism, and Islam (Muslims are the followers) are forms of slavery. Christianity is a religion, just like the others. ALL of these religions teach self discipline and good morals. It is the different ways in which different people interpret the religion that determines the rules and regulations that some followers live by. Christianity can be taken to the extreme, just like any other religion (like the Christian group that thought that drinking the poisoned kool-aid would bring them closer to god).
P.S. --> not to sound sarcastic or anything, but Mormons are Christians (don't they believe in the same god?)
That depends... personally I see a difference between religion and spirituality. Spirituality, to me, is a personal connection with God which leads one to an understanding of his own existence and purpose, as well as that of the world around him. Religion is the structure or dogma that serves as a vehicle for one to achieve spiritual growth.
Religion can be a path to discovering a relationship with God where none existed before. It gives someone who has little concept of their own beliefs reinforcement and knowledge that will allow them to develop on a spiritual level. It also guides those who want to be closer to God in a structured way that they can foster that relationship and have a sense of direction. It serves as a foundation from which one's walk with God begins.
However, the limits of (organized) religion can serve as constraints for those who discover that their relationship with God has expanded beyond the infrastructure created by religion. In this, there is a conflict - an inner dispute between one's personal beliefs and experiences and what a religious doctrine teaches that those beliefs should be. If this is the case, then you must pursue your own spirituality, which I believe supercedes any doctrine created by man. If your life experiences have caused you to believe that what you have been taught is not fitting with your personal and intimate relationship with God, then your own experience must always take precedence.
Think of it as a parent teaching a child about where babies come from. When the child is too young and mentally inexperienced to completely understand the means behind this, a substitution would be made - "the stork drops off babies for new moms" so that the child would have some sort of understanding. When that child reaches a point where they are capable of comprehension on another level, that previous knowledge becomes useless and they progress to the next stage of truth.
In life, the acquisition of all knowledge takes place like this. We accept an explanation that may not be entirely accurate or all-encompassing, but is self-serving: it gives us a semi-acceptable answer until we are capable of a higher level of knowledge. 1000 years ago people believed and taught that the sun revolves around the earth. Now, we "know" that the planets revolve around the Sun. It is possible that thousands of years from now that we will discover that this is not true, or that neither is true.
Philosophically speaking, all "knowledge" is misleading, because it assumes that we can prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt, and because of our human limitations we cannot. In this sense, religion can be a cornerstone of faith, but for some it can also be an obstruction that insulates people from developing their own relationship with God. Holla!
