[wimpycat]

I'm not trying to make fun or put you down or anything, but if, as you say, they're all pretty much the same, then why not adhere to the one most familiar to you, instead of searching high and low for the ultimate moral foundation?

You say it's an exhibition, not a competition, but you yourself are (or were, I don't know if you still are) "shopping", as it were, for the "ultimate" moral foundation, which I assume would mean the "best", which implies a selection process using your criteria. In other words, your characterization sounds exactly like a competition to me, and the best one gets you as a prize. I can't blame you for that. Why wager yourself for anything less than what you think is best?

As for me, I'm glad you told me they're pretty much all the same, since that means I'm not missing out on anything by not window-shopping for what I already have at home.

[discostu]

Religion has always been fascinating to me. To understand a society you have to understand the religion. I did spend a lot of time seeking but the deeper I got into it the more I saw the fingerprints of man and the further I got from an ability to believe in the supernatural. In the end I'm happiest as an atheist. The religion I was raised in was mostly Catholic, given the long history of child molestation that has plagues The Church for my entire life (this current spate is just the recent stuff, they've been shuffling child molesters from one parish to another for at least 30 years) there's going to have to be some major changes before I'll walk into that door.

The other half of my early life was spent in charismatic evangelical territory (Four Square Gospel, The Door, nice people) and that just wasn't a good fit. Having been formed in the rather stodgy environment of Catholocism where your faith was very private all that witnessing and stuff just didn't sit well with me (not saying it's bad but when you're idea of going to church is sitting down and listening to the priest for an hour people having seizures in the aisles is pretty frightening stuff). It's taken me a LONG time to overcome that uptight attitude enough that I can even discuss religion in anything more than a theoretical level. And I still get twitchy when I see athletes yelling out to Jesus and stuff... with how I was raised it's like they just took their thing out and started wanking right there on TV (sex being the other thing that simply is absolutely private in every way).

That's really the stuff that sent me on my way. But really religion has never sat well on my personality. If there is a God He made me a very self assured self reliant person who has a hard time bending knee to actual people I can actually see and who can deliver quick clear punishment; as for bending knee to someone I just have to believe is there, that's beyond out of the question.

But I still study religions, it's fun. It's an interesting view into how people think and have thought at various times in human history. But now I study them as a third party, I'm not thinking of joining any, I'm just studying them to study (gotta do something with all these hours I'm awake).