I agree that going to the source and reading and meditating on the creative Word is key. After all, we have a rational soul, and we need to use it to learn about God. And we're each responsible for the growth of our own soul.
Smile, I'm not sure what distinctin you're making between religion, spirit and worship. Religion is what Christ taught. It's what He said to be, how He said you should behave, to relate to God.
I don't agree that religion is about ritual. Ritual is about imitating other people, not about thinking for oneself or believing for oneself and not about being in a relationship with the Creator. There's something about ritual that I find scary because it's so unthinking.
And what you're calling a love that leads to killing, I would call passion. Or, as you said, obsession. What's that passage that goes, "Love is not boastful..."?