Personally I never cared much for organized religion. Someone will always find a way to muck up the intent of the religion and twist it around. Its true for all religions. I was born and raised a Catholic but I never truely agreed with it. It was more of a way to please my parents than anything I truely believed. I was always the trouble maker at CCD asking questions no one wanted to answer. I've always enjoyed asking questions and that was the problem with Catholicism and most major religions is that questions aren't always viewed as productive (I don't mean to sound like I am attacking anyone, I'm just trying to say my view as best as I can describe it). Most religions require an element of faith which always came into my inner voice of "why?" I always drove my family crazy with questions as a child.
Anyhow I always thought I was an atheist until I started to discover a little bit about Buddhism. I found out about an interesting religion that was more a philosophy than a religion. It is about building a better life for yourself, not for some reward of heaven, but to become a better person and eventually become at peace with the universe. And the thing that stuck with me was that my teacher, Atisha, explained to me that questions are welcome. There is no reason to accept an answer unless you want to, unless you can prove it for yourself. No beliefs are required to start on the path, because that's all it is, a path, a journey to become a better person.
Anyhow, that's how best I can describe my feelings and motives before I head off to bed. There's so much more that turns around in my head that I could go on forever but as I have no idea if what I said has made any sense to anyone else I'll quit here.
