Religions I might try before becoming a full Atheist...

[Angrboda]

After listening to Frodo spew about how "God is love," and despite being deeply religious myself, I'm inclined to put my knowledge of the human mind and evolutionary psychology into a crystalline, distilled form tonight. Religion like anything else, is neither the worst way to spend the time, nor the best; regardless, powerful ideas such as religion will choose you, and not the other way around. If the right religion has found you, it will suck you to it like a moth to the flame. Ultimately, what my knowledge of mind and psychology suggests to me is that religions are properly speaking "truth hallucinogens" — they produce the perception that one is apprehending truth without any actual truth stimulating that perception. Though such things are able to satisfy the mind without actual fulfillment, perhaps it's best to steer clear of all of them, if you can. As a Hindu, one of my basic intuitions is that "all is Maya" — all is illusion. I don't believe real truth is attainable in this life, but we can still rage against the dying of that light, by using reason to try to steer clear of the more suspect of human inventions and ideas.

For what it's worth, I think Buddhism is kaka, though it does a good job of PR in selling itself to gullible people.

(For a complete list of "things that are kaka," send a self-addressed, stamped envelope to [email protected])