Why I'm not attracted to the idea of religion(s)

[Marcion]

The reason why I'm not attracted to the idea of religion(s) is that I have a natural (in-born) admiration for science and rationality.
I enjoy the universality of the scientific way of thinking, how it can be applied everywhere in the universe and not just in one area or on just one planet.
Although I'm not a natural science-student, I studied science in school with much pleasure as if it was carried by an underlying spiritual yearning for the truth.

Science has no way of measuring spiritual progress and consciousness cannot be measured by scientific instruments but I still think science and the spiritual basis of the universe are perfectly compatible.

In the world of religions however rationality is often the enemy of religious thought.
The idea that religions are fixed systems of thought that conflict with each other makes that I am not attracted to the concept of religion(s). I have no problem with spirituality as an intuitive science though, as long as it stays in touch with rational understanding.

One way of avoiding the irrationality in many religions is to be selective and syncretize your own path.
Another way is to find a path that isn't a proper religion but more a set of spiritual practices, a spiritual cult.
Such a path will naturally be syncretic in nature, because the best elements of universal spirituality are somewhat scattered among different religious currents.

 

[Marcion]

Eventhough I don't feel attracted to religion or religious behaviour, the High Court of India seems to have decided to consider me a Hindu.

I must say that I don't feel like I'm a Hindu.
I don't do temple worship, I'm opposed to the caste system, I don't believe the Veda's are infallible (nor do I study them directly) and I have a historical-critical viewpoint when it comes to gods and goddesses that many Hindus worship.
E.g. I see Shiva as a real historical personality who lived and walked around as a human being just like Krishna and Jesus did thousands of years later and who was really married three times and had three children (who by association with Shiva themselves later became worshipped as gods and goddesses).

Yet I do have a Sanskrit name and I practise tantra-yoga and try to follow yama and niyama and keep a stictly sentient diet.
So, although I do not feel religious, I am attracted to spiritual practice as an intuitive or introspective science.
And because of this I feel more related to people who have this same outlook in life, such as all kinds of mystics and Buddhists.

I see Lord Shiva as the spiritual father of all of humanity who modernized the practical spirituality (Tantra) for His age (over 7000 years ago) and introduced the marriage system at a time when men would not take responsibility for the children they fathered. He united the many warring tribes in India who followed Him under one single spiritual ideology bringing peace, culture (song and dance) and early civilisation.

Over thousands of years many religious myths were created around Shiva's family.
Shiva was born into a tantric family of mongoloid-white origin and married first to the Arian girl Gaorii or Párvatti ("girl born in a hill state" from the Himalaya mountains of white complexion), the daughter of an Aryan king who bore them a son Bhaerava ("one who practices Tantra sadhana") who became a great spiritualist like his father.
Then Shiva married to Kalika or Kalii ethnically of Austrico-Mongolo-Negroid origin who was herself a practitioner of Tantra and they had a daughter Bhaeravii who also became a great spiritualist like her parents and half-brother.
Thirdly Shiva married to Gaunga who was of Mongoloid origins born in Tibet and they had a son Kárttika or Kárttikeya (named Murugan in South India) who was not much into spirituality and had more of an extroversive nature. Shiva used to be extra sweet to his wife Gaunga because she was troubled by her son's extroversive nature. In the Purana's Kárttika is mounted on a beautiful peacock to symbolize his extroversive nature. Gaunga, the third wife of Shiva has no relation to the river Gaunga/Gangess, the associations were later born of religious mythologizing.

The worship of Kálii, the deity of of Post-Shiva Tantra and Buddhist Tantra is only 1600 to 1700 years old and unrelated to Kálii the historical wife of Shiva who lived more than 7000 years ago. The Puranic goddess Kálii also is not related to the wife of Shiva.
Nor is the Puranic goddess Durgá a historical wife of Shiva, she has nothing to do with Gaorii (Párvatii), the real wife of Shiva.
The worship of Ganesha is much older than Shiva, it stems from the age old worship of the clan leader whose power was symbolized by a stout body and the head of a powerful animal.
Therefore Ganesha was not a son of Shiva. Nor is the worship of the phallus something to do with the historical Shiva, it is also a much older type of religious practice from the stone age that later became associated with parts of Shaevism while the meaning became more spiritualized.

I have a love for stripping away the religious mythology and the religious ritualism to free the original history and the original spiritual (tantric) practices which are more compatible with science and rationality and appeal to me more.

Shiva and Jesus come much closer to each other when you leave out all the religious elaborations that accumulated in both Hinduism and Christianity over time and the same goes for Krishna.
Shiva dressed very simply with a tiger skin, not with fancy Aryan dress or with a sacred caste thread and he did not have all kinds of mythological symbols hanging from his matted locks.
I cannot relate to the exuberant religious symbolism and I find it unuseful.
Culturally of course all the religious myths and paraphernelia are a feast, but that's all it is for me, I don't need it for my spiritual practices.

The odd thing with religions is that on the one hand they are syncretic and copying loads of stuff from each other.
On the other hand they are also consciously removing other stuff from their parent religions because they feel that wrong or unnecessary choices were made in the past. E.g. Islam cut away the polytheism still prevalent in its early days.

How can you be sure that a new preceptor has made the right choices?
I guess it comes down to how much faith you have in the spiritual or cosmic vision of the preceptor.
How convincing is their way of speaking or writing on spirituality and social practices?
How much trust do you have in their analysis of the historical spiritual landscape, how wide is their vision and how does it relate to the dominant scientific paradigma of today?

 

[Marcion]

One may ask, how is it possible that even the least spiritual child of Lord Shiva who was of such an extroversive nature became elevated to the status of a God?
Or how did the ancient deity of India's tribal people Ganesha become to be seen as a son of Lord Shiva eventhough he never really existed?
How indeed did the many gods and goddesses of Hinduism find their way into that elaborate pantheon eventhough many if not most of them were never even spiritual guru's in their lifetime or never lived at all?

How was Jesus the teacher of tantric type of spirituality changed into a Messianic 'Son of God' even becoming part of a divine Trinity?

It seems over time almost anything can be creatively projected into religious tales.
These are the ways of religion, where even personalities that never existed in real life can come to be seen as gods or goddesses.

This illogical, mythical fantasyworld of religions must have been seen as so unappealing or superfluous by Lord Buddha that he decided to ditch the whole lot and leave only the bare spiritual practices, the tantric part of spirituality.
He is one of my heroes, together with Lord Shiva and Lord Krishna.

I'm not against religion or atheism, they just don't appeal to me and I feel they don't harmonize enough with modern day science and rationality. And they lead to a lot of bickering and animosity about religious truths that in my eyes are a waste of time.