I had an interesting conversation with NJS the other day about religion, that allowed me to talk out some of the things that had been percolating in my head.
I understand why people want some of the things they do from religion, like a sense of community or an acknowledgment that there is more to reality than the things we can describe and define with science and reason. I just keep stalling out when I look at any *specific* religion, because all of them seem to require acceptance of several things that seem not just improbable to me (that I could deal with) but seem downright *wrong* or totally unfounded and unbelievable (like assertions that there's an all-powerful god who is also just and loving, in any sense that those words can mean to humans, or that after we die at some point we get our bodies back again, or that when people die they go someplace really, really nice, and we get to see them again later). But I can understand the longing.
Hence, I'm becoming a great deal less prone to scoff as much as I used to when I was younger, less forgiving, and more callow, at people who effectively invent their own religion by picking and choosing elements they like from past beliefs and melding them with new 'traditions' to create some sort of elemental recognition of nature and the forces that work on all of us, for good or ill. I might even find, some day, that I'm inclined to do the same.
I'm still a bit impatient with those who insist that such things are 'rediscovered' historic truths, but even that I may stop grumping at, in time.
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