I was born Baptist. Church on the occasional Sunday, vacation Bible school every summer, and a faith that was handed to me before I was old enough to question it. For a long time I did not question it. It was just the water I swam in.

Then I started asking questions nobody around me seemed comfortable answering. And the more I asked, the more I realized that what I had been given was not faith. It was a framework. And the framework had cracks.

This episode is about what happened when I stopped performing religion and started actually thinking about what I believe. It is about the difference between religion and spirituality, and why that difference matters more than most people admit. It is about the God(s) or rather possibility of God(s) I believe in, just not the one I was introduced to in church.

Because here is where I landed: I do not believe God is a being sitting somewhere beyond the clouds deciding who gets blessed and who gets punished. I believe God and the devil are states of consciousness. Conditions we move between. Ways of being that every human being is capable of, and that every human being cycles through.

The most divine version of yourself. The most destructive version of yourself. Both live inside you. Both are real. And the spiritual work, the actual work, is learning to recognize which one is driving.

And what if heaven and hell aren't places we go after death? What if they're environments we create, experience, and sometimes endure here on Earth? Even when we can't immediately escape the hell someone else has created for us, can we find ways to create pockets of heaven along the way?

This is not an attack on anyone's faith. If your religion brings you genuine peace, purpose, and connection, I respect that completely. This is simply my story. My questions. My journey. And where I ended up.